The third year of the Justin Timberlake Administration was far less stormy than the first two when the new musician turned President had ordered the crossing of the Jordan River by allied US/Russian troops. The media coverage of the debacle that followed crossed another watershed: The number of times that Cry Me A River could be played in reference to the invasion. Regardless of his profoundly botched foreign policy, Pres. Timberlake proved to be a savvy manager of the economy through the shrewd interventions of Secretary of the Treasury Sean (Diddy) Combs and the United States of North America was experiencing its first strong economic upturn since the 2008 recession fifteen years earlier. In the newly buoyant economic climate brand marketers were experiencing a Renaissance of their own, branching off into advanced technological outreach avenues which were no longer truly recognizable as “email marketing.”

A fully realistic shopping trip without leaving home
The advent of the “virtual shopping interface” in 2017 had blurred the division between brick & mortar shopping and its online cousin to the point where it required a very slight suspension of disbelief for the customer to engage in an extensive and fully realistic shopping trip without leaving the comfort of their homes. Using three holographic projectors affixed to the ceiling of their living room, the customer could stroll on a specially designed treadmill down literally endless aisles of any type of store they desired, picking up and examining any product they wished. A quick toss into the virtual shopping cart in front of them would trigger the debiting of their bank account as well as next day delivery.
Versions of this technology were driven underground
With every brand new technology comes a new challenge and the virtual shopping interface certainly had its own. Congress in 2019 passed a law making it a felony to create or market software which turned the virtual shopping interface into providing functions more suitable to a boudoir due to the skyrocketing employee absentee levels it triggered in both private business and public institutions, but all the law did was to drive this redirection of shopping technology underground and tripling its cost.
Email was now indicating the delivery of marketing overlays
In this advanced technological home environment it would at first have seemed as if “email marketing” would be as relevant as Perry Como tunes being remixed into gangsta rap, but that was not the case. Although the prototypical paradigm of the email message landing in the inbox had long since passed away with the rest of the two dimensional computer/smartphone/tablet interface, email was now indicating the delivery of specific marketing overlays onto the virtual shopping interface experience.
Targeting an upsell or siphoning off of a sale from a competitor
A customer strolling down the aisle of a virtual shoe store, for example, could be targeted for delivery of an ultra-personalized ad by the same manufacturer promoting an upsell as “Sally, these are beautiful shoes, but the indigo stiletto ones two shelves up will match your peacock satin dress much better and they’re only twenty dollars more,” or by a competitor attempting to siphon off sales as “Sally, your cousin Janet has these shoes and she said that the left heel broke the third time she wore them, so why not look at a very similar style on the other side of the aisle with a far stronger construction?”

The future for the nation’s economy and its virtual businesses looked brighter than ever. Even the regrettable civil commitment to the State of Alberta’s Calgary Mental Institution of First Lady Britney Spears Timberlake did not dampen the spirits of the American consumer or their outlook that it was a great time to enjoy the benefits of modern shopping technology. Republican critics lambasted the President warning that the bubble would soon burst as the level of public debt due to these shopping frenzies had become insufferable, but with GOP candidate-in-the-wings Channing Tatum trailing more than 20 points behind in most polls, the Timberlake Administration serenely looked forward to an easy second term with “email marketing” continuing to fuel the country’s ever-spiraling economic boom.

Author Bio:

by Hal Licino

Hal Licino is a leading blogger on HubPages, one of the Alexa Top 120 websites in the USA. Hal has written 2,500 HubPage articles on a wide range of topics, some of which have attracted upwards of 135,000 page views a day. His blogs are influential to the point where Hal single-handedly forced Apple to retract a national network iPhone TV commercial and has even mythbusted one of the Mythbusters. He has also written for major sites as Tripology, WebTVWire, and TripScoop.