Sometimes marketers get carried away and forget why they are doing what they are doing.

Take for example the E-mail Sign Up Page you get at KraftCanada.com after clicking on the “Recipes by E-Mail” link.

My guess is that someone at Kraft thought that e-mailing recipes full of Kraft products would be a good way to increase use in the kind of consumers that care enough about Kraft to visit there web site. Then someone else suggested make the page “interactive” by collecting information on my particular interests and the kind of Kraft products I use.

Probably the next person to look at the page said something like “why don’t we make this the core of our integrated offline/online CRM initiative.” At that point they added a lot of demographic and geographic questions.

So now when a consumer clicks to get recipes by e-mail, they have to answer over 30 questions on their household and shopping habits. To make matters worse, the form requires that you tell them if you have kids at home, what your age is, whether you are female or male, and (sin of sins) what your street address is!

So, instead of making consumers value them and their products for the many new ideas they email each week, Kraft probably alienates 90% of the people who attempt to sign up. A wasted opportunity.

Compare this to the P&G run S Mag sign-up (you need to click on the “subscribe” link near the top).