At this time’s weblog encompasses a nearer take a look at a chunk of spam mail despatched to Nathan a number of months in the past. However this ain’t your mom’s spam mail – they actually went all out with this one. Initially, the mail felt actually heavy, unnaturally so. Upon opening, the bundle contained a video mailer taking part in a minute-long advert from GrowTeam, a advertising and marketing firm we have by no means contacted nor handled.

We figured we would as effectively take this factor aside and see what’s up with it. We discovered little steel items within the greater envelope to present heft to it, however did not relate to any precise content material. Nonetheless, what was inside was much more attention-grabbing – a video mailer.

This can be a full video participant, match with a display and speaker, that performed this firm’s business instantly upon opening it. Inventory footage of individuals wearing enterprise skilled strolling out and in of places of work with inspirational orchestral swells within the background and a voiceover with the corporate’s elevator pitch. We tore open the packaging to take a look at the {hardware}, and here is what we discovered:

We might by no means seen the sort of mail earlier than, and it appeared odd to us that an organization would ship out one thing equal to unsolicited mail that was so costly, wasteful and bothersome to whoever opened it. So we did some additional analysis.

Seems, video mailer advertising and marketing is a factor, and sending one out can price you round $24. There are corporations that manufacture these, letting you customise it as you would like however working off the identical template.

One of many corporations we present in our analysis known as Marc, and we had been significantly eager about them due to their claims about their analytics. Their web site states that they’ll inform clients what number of occasions their mailers have been opened, which implies there’s one thing within the mailer transmitting knowledge again to them (in the event that they’re telling the reality). Sort of creepy, particularly since you haven’t any thought if the information assortment actually stops there.

We had been questioning what know-how the mailer used to do that, so we tore it aside. This is what the within regarded like uncovered:

The {hardware} listing is fairly commonplace at first: buttons behind the playback controls, battery and micro-usb port to re-charge, speaker for the audio. Nonetheless, when attending to the controls, issues obtained extra attention-grabbing. the primary board comprises a 2GB NAND flash chip from SK Hynix. Driving the media playback was the Actions ATJ229R1 media participant chip. This is the datasheet for that one if anybody’s . We did not discover something transmitting knowledge, which implies GrowTeam in all probability obtained this mailer from a special firm that sends video mailers (there’s a lot of them!).

no mercy was proven with disassembly

We had been glad about that, however trying into this world of video mailers raised a variety of questions for us. The info transmission side is regarding for anybody aware of information privateness or fearful about OTA hacks of any variety. The design and value appears over-engineered and wasteful, particularly for unsolicited mail.

Are video mailers common, and do individuals truly reply to them? Is grabbing consideration sufficient, as they clearly did with us? Is the age of e mail promotions coming to an finish as a result of oversaturation, and am I going to finish up drowing in a mountain of video mailers as a substitute of 60,000 unread emails in my promotions inbox? Who’s to say!

We wish to know what you suppose! Have you ever ever acquired a video mailer? What was your response to it? What did you do with it?