Who is Victoria Knight-McDowell?

Let me start out by saying I am a HUGE fan of Airborne. I have used it as a preemptive strike against cold symptoms as they rearing their ugly heads. Scratchy throat? Airborne. Nose starting to run? Airborne. I believe that it has helped me keep several colds at bay. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that I have registered for email communication from them.

Last week, I received an email from Victoria Knight-McDowell. The subject line said: “Get a FREE sample of NEW Airborne Seasonal”. My first thought was that I had just received some SPAM. Was Airborne the new SPAM De Jour? As usual, I opened the message. The message really was from Airborne. No SPAM here, but why would they send the message from Victoria Knight-McDowell?

The box Airborne has a red banner at the top that says “Created by a School Teacher!” As it turns out that schoolteacher is Victoria Knight-McDowell. This wasn’t mentioned in the email. I searched the internet to find out who she was. While Airborne has made it well known that it was created by a schoolteacher, they have not done a very good job of letting consumers know who that teacher is.

There is a strong argument about personalizing messages. If you have an individual who is synonymous with your brand, then by all means, use that name as the From Name as a part of your email marketing campaign. But if the individuals associated with your brand are unknown, it could cause confusion and doubt with your subscribers.