I try to clean up after myself, (Really) but I have problems. It seems that whenver I receive a new magazine in the mail that I leave a huge mess behind. Those reply cards drop out in a blizzard of paper. I recently started counting how many of those little post card sized things are in the magazines I receive. Most magazines contain six of them, which begs the question, how much advertising is too much?
I don't understand why they put so many of those cards in magazines. I'm already a subscriber and even if I weren't, I wouldn't subscribe six times! If I'm not a subscriber I certainly don't need six cards either. I'm not sure if this problem has gotten worse or if I'm just noticing it more. Maybe I've noticed it because it has actually made the physical act of reading the magazine more difficult.
I've even had this problem at the magazine racks in the stores. What is the proper etiquette for replacing these things? You see a magazine that looks vaguely interesting and pick it up to glance through it. Pretty soon, you're surrounded by reply cards. Do you place them back in the magazine? Or do you just ignore them and walk away?
I guess this leads me to another problem. I'm constantly being pestered by people to buy things and give money to worthy causes. I recently received a large magazine sized brochure in the mail for heifer.org. Their concept is simple. You buy a share of an animal like, say a goat, and the organization finds some needy family in Central America or wherever to receive the goat. The needy family then proceeds to milk the goat, make shirts of goat's hair and whatever else you do with a goat in a third world country. It's a great idea, but why send this thing to me? In the case of heifer.org, I declined to send them any cash. (Their brochure made me a little suspicious because it has all these pictures of lefty celebrity endorsements from the likes of Susan Sarandon, Ted Danson, and Walter Cronkite.)
It isn't just the left-leaning, religious, or social service organizations, I get tons of snail mail and e-mail from the Republican party, Vice-President Cheney, etc... all looking for money. At work this happens also, but it is usually people selling computer related items. These guys are tough to get rid of and if you're ever stupid enough to respond to one of their phone calls, you'll be hearing from them every 30 days for the rest of your life.
I generally elude these guys and I refuse to feel bad about it. I think of it like this. The grocery store isn't calling me on the phone and pestering me to buy a loaf of bread, so why how are these sales people any different? If I want to buy something, I'll contact them -- until then they can just sit tight.
Unless they've got free stuff. For all sorts of worthless tchotkes, I'm willing to sell just about anything. (I know this makes no logical sense.) However, if you're a sales type person at least make sure it is of at least nominal value. I recently received an envelope which contained a ziplock baggy. Inside the baggy were puzzle pieces. I suppose they thought I would actually sit there and assemble the puzzle which was no doubt an ad for their stuff...and this was from a major vendor.
As a result of all this mass of marketing, I've developed some little rules that I use in dealing with it.
The next time you get a magazine, check to see how many reply cards you have, you'll be amazed.
Posted by jdmays at November 25, 2003 07:22 PM | TrackBack