blast

n. an advertising or marketing message sent in bulk, especially via email. Subjects: English, Advertising, Technology, Jargon

Etymological Note: This is a specialized extension of two more common meanings of blast, defined by the New Oxford American Dictionary as “a forceful attack or assault” and “an explosion or explosive firing.”

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Citations: [1985 John Koten Wall Street Journal (May 1) “For P&G’s Rivals, the New Game Is to Beat the Leader, Not Copy It”: That system called for entering a market slowly, studying all the angles, and then launching a clearly superior product with a huge advertising blast.] [1997 Marina Strauss Globe and Mail (June 5) “ Adidas runs with Bailey despite trash talk” p. B13: He said the traditional way of reaching a young crowd through TV spots was not nearly as cost-effective as the blast of billboards.] 1997 Rodman Marymor Meetings & Conventions (July 1) “Push comes to shove” vol. 32, no. 7, p. 40: Suppliers can send a blast e-message to clients and prospects inviting them to their Web site to check out a renovation, feature or personnel change, or to fill out a form to qualify for a fam trip. 1999 Tom Humphrey Knoxville News-Sentinel (Tenn.) (Apr. 27) “Legislature shelves plan to shut down e-mail” p. A1: The “blast” services disrupted that process, much like “a whole bunch of people coming up and interrupting a conversation,” he said.…McKinney cited AIMS Computer Systems of Knoxville as a key example of a “blast” setup. The Web site on Monday had posted a note saying more than 200,000 e-mails had been sent to legislators and the state income tax proposal appears dead. 1999 Bradley Foss @ New York City (AP) (Oct. 8) “Blast Voice Mail Called ‘Phone Spam’”: “Voice blast,” or blast voice mail, has become the favored technology among research analysts in the past two years because it allows them to send recorded messages about company earnings or undervalued stocks—simultaneously—to an unlimited number of people. 2000 Mutual Fund Market News (May 29) “Direction of Fund Advertising Debated”: How do you regulate a medium that is so fluid and so time critical? We cannot have the NASD take four days to approve a blast e-mail to all shareholders if the market expectation is “Yesterday I wanted it. Today is too late!” 2001 Janet Logan Customer Interaction Solutions (Nov. 1) “Dialog marketing elevates e-mail effectiveness” p. 34: Statistics, such as those from Forrester Research, Jupiter and other firms, show us that traditional “segment, batch and blast” e-mail is not a plausible long-term strategy for building more profitable customer relationships. 2003 Stacy Forster @ New York City (Dow Jones Business News) (May 21) “Spam’s Sleaze Factor Forces Firms to Rethink E-Mail Marketing”: The company is paying et al Associates, an e-mail marketing company based in Allen, Texas, $7,500 for a 90-day spam blast that will deliver 10 million e-mails to people who have opted to receive information about health and nutrition products. 2004 Neil J. Squillante MarketingProfs.com (Dec. 20) “Is Your Company CAN-SPAM Compliant?”: They claim that if you run a full-message email ad (or “blast” as some refer to it) on a third-party list, and a recipient requests removal, both you and the third-party must remove that person from your respective lists.

Posted 7 Feb 06 | Permalink | Tell a Friend