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December 31, 2005
Striking back at catalog dumpers
My post about the weighty marketing of unwanted catalogs elicited some forwardable comments.
David Locke thinks there's a entrepreneurial idea trapped underneath the rubble of unwanted catalogs: Create a free, web-based opt-out database for citizens, then charge companies for access to it. "Companies sending the catalogs out are hoping for a decent response rate, and would save money by cleaning the lists they use against the opt out list."
Jennifer points us toward a Time article about Victoria's Secret, which prints and mails more than 1 million catalogs per day. There's this factoid, too: "Over the past decade, catalog production has grown 40%, and in 2004, more than 18 billion catalogs were mailed, more than 64 for each person in the U.S." The effects on the environment make one cringe.
Indeed, an activist group unhappy with the voluminous use of paper by Victoria's Secret has been protesting at more than 150 stores and created a protest website. Is the protest working? Hard to say but parent company Limited Brands lost $12.3 million in the third quarter, with a 4% drop at Victoria's Secret contributing to the loss. Let's hope the execs at Victoria's Secret are not planning their growth strategy around printing more catalogs.
Geoff Jones points out that in the U.K., one can "mark [unwanted catalogs] unopened, 'return to sender' and repost them for free." The U.S. Postal Service makes a similar offer, but only for unwanted merchandise, not everyday junk mail.
Which leads us to the Big Daddy of opinion-leaders: the U.S. Supreme Court (which didn't comment on my blog post). It ruled on a 2003 case about unwanted mail:
"Today's merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman's mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know.
"We categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient."
The weighty opinion of the court only stopped porn vendors from sending unwanted catalogs of fleshy consumerism. The court's only known spawn was a do-not-mail form from the U.S. Postal Service. (A few enterprising people are using that form to stop some other forms of junk mail.)
JunkBusters is dedicated to this topic. It offers numerous tips about staying off lists and reducing unwanted catalogs, but the problem is: Stopping uninvited catalogs is the opposite of efficient. It's as if a group of high school kids toilet-paper your house every day but in a Kafka-esque twist, the police are powerless to apprehend the easily-catchable kids. Instead, you must drive to the home of every offender and confront their parents, who may or may not care.
With conversion rates of 2-3 percent, catalog sales are hardly remarkable, but it's economically easier for companies to "spray and pray" (as commenter Steve Dembo said) than to ask customers and prospects for permission. As the Supreme Court says, "No one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient."
And that's where the soup boils. The marketers who bombard us with unwanted catalogs are convinced their "good ideas" are just what we want. But like gang members caught in a turf war, they show little concern for the collateral damage of spray-and-pray. They're driven by numbers, not relationships. The effects of deforestation and landfill usage don't impact quarterly numbers. Instead, these marketers are just soul-less cogs in the business thresher machines whose ultimate customer is Wall Street and shareholders, not the rest of the world.
Companies who focus on customer evangelism change the world for the better. They don't pollute it with the detritus of unwanted offers for panties and Nascar pocket scanners.
Perhaps the protests against Victoria's Secret are a sign of things to come for the rapacious catalog-creators.
Other blogs that reference Striking back at catalog dumpers:
» Links from The Pre-Commerce Blog
The Good Old Days - Thoughts About Paper Catalogs. Holiday 2005 Online Shopping Statistics.... [Read More]
» Links from The Pre-Commerce Blog
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» Open Source Marketing - ein Definitionsversuch from ingas blog
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» Catalog marketers: despoilers of the earth from Canuckflack
Good commentary on the impact of mass distribution catalogs over at Church of the Customer: "... And that's where the soup boils. The marketers who bombard us with unwanted catalogs are convinced their "good ideas" are just what we want. But like gang ... [Read More]
» Catalog marketers: despoilers of the earth from Canuckflack
Good commentary on the impact of mass distribution catalogs over at Church of the Customer: "... And that's where the soup boils. The marketers who bombard us with unwanted catalogs are convinced their "good ideas" are just what we want. But like gang ... [Read More]
Every apartment complex I've ever lived in has provided a big garbage can or recycling bin right next to the mailboxes so all the unwanted junk mail can be thrown into it. Those cans are always full by the end of the day. Advertisers should know that a big chunk of what they're sending out is round-filed before it ever gets inside the recipient's home.
Catalog marketing in the U.S. is a reflection of American SUVs: Big, inefficient and damaging toward the environment.
I have battled catalogs and junk mail. Unwanted and unsolicited catalogs clogged my mailbox. Lillian Vernon was one of the worst. -- As far as junk mail in general is concerned, I did try optout lists as well as polite phone calls to the worst offenders.
I posted on my blog ths morning my experience with Capital One -- It worked for me and was a great way to vent off my frustration.
Very good article you posted -- thanks for the post!
I found it very easy to Stop Delivery Of Catalogs I signed up with MyJunkTree and stopped them with a click of my mouse. It was great I would choose a catalog to stop and within 48 hours I would get a response directly from the company letting me know I was off the mailing list. I also stopped the normal junk mail, weekly coupons, credit card offers and phone books. Easy to us system.
