The Origin of Digital Marketing: Unearthing the Roots of Email Spam

Gary Thuerk, often referred to as the "Father of Spam," pioneered the world of digital marketing with his groundbreaking unsolicited email campaign on May 2nd, 1978.

The Internet was in its infancy. That very early incarnation was called ARPANET.

The Digital Equipment Company sent an unsolicited commercial email to every ARPANET address on the West Coast.

And just like that, email spam was born.

The earliest documented spam (although the term had not yet been coined) was a message advertising the availability of a new model of Digital Equipment Corporation computers sent by Gary Thuerk to 393 recipients on ARPANET on May 3, 1978. Rather than send a separate message to each person, which was the standard practice at the time, he had an assistant, Carl Gartley, write a single mass email. As the marketing manager at Digital, he was hoping to get attention, particularly from West Coast customers, for Digital's new T-series of VAX systems. Instead, he ended up getting crowned, for better or worse, as the 'Father of Spam'. He prefers to think of himself as the father of e-marketing. There's a difference.

In fact, Gary’s original spam "did work," according to him, "We sold $13 million or $14 million worth" of the DEC machines through that e-mail campaign. On the negative side, complaints started coming in almost immediately, and a few days after the original e-mail, an ARPANET representative called him up and chewed him out and made him promise never to do it again.

Listen in to hear how the late Queen Elizabeth II also used ARPANET in 1976!