Win an iPad! aka subject line creativity drying up?

I must have seen that subject line hundreds of times recently, and not just professionally speaking: also in my personal email world (which is thankfully a lot smaller) this has been popping up more and more*. Not just from expected senders like retailers and online stores, but also from the unlikeliest of businesses like free personal budget services, car dealers and more.

It got me thinking there are three things going on (and have been going on for quite a while in online marketing):
1) marketers watch what’s hot and copy or use that to promote their services/products (in recent years, it was ‘win an iPhone / iPod’, remember?)
2) people want what (supposedly) gives them status, joy in life and more – e.g. something that is valuable. Not just in money but also in ‘respect’ (as far as owning goods gets respect)
Item no. 3 is the one in the title of this post: is subject line creativity drying up? Point 1 notes that ‘Win a $wantedthing’ has been done for ages now, but it just seems to be overly present these days, so much so that it will not trigger people anymore to open the email. That’s the real danger of these types of subject lines: once they are omnipresent their effect diminishes into uselessness and there is nothing to be gained anymore. These types of subject lines generally gather a large number of opens and clickthroughs compared to more normal and neutral subject lines, so they still will be loved by some marketers.
But how long will the audience be tricked? When will the last resort of marketers for using these subject lines be unnecessary or better yet, more original? I hope things will calm down when the iPad becomes the next iPod and everyone has one: hopefully Apple will not bring out anything new by then. Anyone want to win an iPud?

*note: I do not hate or dismiss the iPad: it is a very nice product (used it myself a couple of hours), just to make that clear.

apple, ipad, subject lines