I was on 1-800-flowers.com this morning, and I noticed that they had a section for Patriot Day – 9/11.
Now maybe I’m overly sensitive, having been in the city on 9/11, but this comes across as pretty crass to me.
When I think about that day, I don’t generally have a compunction to send “Iced Cookies for America” to those affected by the tragedy.
I remember being so impressed that 1-800-flowers was a leader in helping people in the wake of 9/11.
Back on 9/13/01, Prakash (the affiliate manager at the time) posted the following to the United States Affiliate Manager Coalition list:
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Subject: Help and relief efforts: 1-800-FLOWERS.com & RED CROSS
Hello all:
Just wanted to quickly share with you some ideas our company and the affiliate program is implementing to help raise donations and relief materials for the tragedy that has struck us.
The Affiliate Program has created a special banner for the affiliates, that they can place on their sites. The message of the banner encourages their customers to donate to the Red Cross.
This banner would link to the Red Cross through a jump page on our website. This will help the affiliates to quickly set up links if they want to help without worrying about developing banners and links.
We have sent out a newsletter to our affiliates informing them of these new banners and links.
Banner:
http://affiliate.1800flowers.com/graphics/redcrossban.gif
I would encourage all members of this group to provide their affiliates with some support too and encourage any kind of contributions to help during this terrible tragedy.
Our Company wide relief efforts:
-Raising of donations for the American Red Cross through our homepage (http://www.1800flowers.com ). This went live today.
-We are also encouraging promotions through our many online and offline partners
-Use of our stores, call centers, delivery trucks and other facilities to the cities and to the airlines directly affected by recent events. We have also partnered with Long Island based retailers to provide the Red Cross in New York City with water, food and other supplies. Additionally, we are offering floral services to families in need.
If you have any additional ideas or opinions on this promotion, please email me your thoughts.
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I’m sure there are other companies doing the same, so it’s not a knock on 1-800-flowers in particular – just sort of an observation.
I just think it would be a bit ugly if this day were to become just another day for 10% off at Macy’s and deep discounts at your local Ford dealer.