e-mail FWD: a Marketing Medium

As a kid, I was obsessed with being "productive", in an odd way. For instance, I was more likely to cross the street diagonally, as it allowed me to reach my destination faster. Needless to say, later as a teen, I was amazed at the power the internet was offering and was eager to exploit it. Soon, a medium came to my attention. The most prominent digital word-of-mouth at the time, e-mail forwarding spread information exponentially through the receiver's own connections. A dream!

I wasn't yet sure what information "virus" I would throw out there, but I was already keeping a close eye on the e-mails forwarded, and what it took for them to get re-sent. 

At the time, I was going through a phase where I was obsessed with Lebanon. I had a habit of going through the books in the library, scanning them roughly and I had spotted a collection of 32 books about Lebanon at home. The material was there.

• My public: the Lebanese - extremely patriotic.
• My subject: Lebanon - shocking facts.
• My content: bullet points, with numbers or short sentences (easier to be scanned).

Filled with English mistakes, and "z" replacing "s" (spare me, I was young!). By the time I had finished writing the e-mail, I knew it would be a success, and it was. "Factz about Lebanon" was sent.

LEBANON

Please take into consideration the tiny dimension of
this country while reading the following...

SHOCKING NUMBERS:

1--17 religious communities

2--40 daily newspapers

3--42 universities

4--over 100 banks

5--70% of the students are in private schools

6--40% of the Lebanese people are Christians (this is the highest % in all the Arab countries)

7--there's 1doctor/10ppl (in Europe & America there's 1doctor/100ppl)

8--the name LEBANOON appears 75 times in the Old Testament

9--the name CEDAR appears 75 times too in the Old Testament!!

10--Beirut was destroyed and rebuilt 7 times (this is why it is compared to the phoenix)

11--there's 4.000.000 Lebanese in Lebanon

12--there's 18.000.000 Lebanese outside Lebanon!!



OTHER INTERESTING FACTS:

1-- the country was occupied by over 16 countries :(Egyptians-Hittites-Assyrians-Babylonians-Persians-Alexander the great-The Roman Empire-Byzantine-The arabian Peninsula--the Crusaders-the Ottoman Empire-Britain-France- Israel - Syria)

2--///Byblos is the oldest city in the world

3--///Lebanon's name has been around for 4.000 years non-stop (it's the oldest nation's name in the world!)

4--///Lebanon is the only Asian-African country that doesn't have a desert

5--///There are 15 rivers in Lebanon (all of them coming from it's mountains)

6--///Lebanon is one of the most populated countries in its archeological sites in the world

7--///The 1st alphabet was created by Cadmus in Byblos (Lebanon)

8--///The only temple of Jupiter (the main Greek god) is in Baal beck (the city of the sun)

9--///The name of the BIBLE comes from the name of our city BYBLOS

10--///Lebanon is the country that has the most books written about it

11--///Lebanon is the only non-dictatorial country in the Arab world

12--///Jesus Christ made his 1st miracle in Lebanon

13--///The Phoenicians created the 1st boat ever

14--///Phoenicians reached America long before Christopher Columbus

15--///The 1st law school was built in Lebanon

16--///People say that the cedars (the symbol of Lebanon) were planted by God's own hands (this is y they're called god's trees)
 

Have you read it before?

Flash-forward:

At age 23, a Lebanese friend from Paris was happily narrating an event. He had met a guy in the metro who told him "you know why I love Lebanon?" and enumerated about 4 of the facts I had gathered in that e-mail, including the fact that "Lebanon was the country that had the most books written about it". 

Well, guess what: all of the facts I listed in this e-mail came from the 32 books we had at home... All, except this one. I smiled, as I realized the amplitude and consequences of my e-mail. I smiled, as among all the facts, it was the one I had made up.