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April 21, 2006
Zyprexa for the phone companies
Insanity (in·san·i·ty):
unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or as removes one from criminal or civil responsibility
Which leads me to the phone companies.
Here's an update to last week's post about AT&T's practice of leaving unwanted 8-pound phone directories scattered in doorways around the nation...
A chart in Thursday's Journal (subscription req'd) shows that a bit more than a quarter of American households actually use printed yellow/white pages. Usage drops every year.
Yet phone companies continue to leave these unwanted, unrequested paper-based anvils on the doorsteps of some 110 million American households every year. Then 82 million households ignore them or trash them.
That seems to demonstrate a lack of understanding or mental capacity on at least AT&T's part on the dynamics of customer relationships. Considering all of the waste unwanted print directories create, does it seem devoid of civil responsibility?
If so, I can think of one treatment option for this spam-based insanity.
Other blogs that reference Zyprexa for the phone companies:
» Zyprexa for the Phone Companies from Zmetro.com
Ben McConnell states the obvious with respect to the yellow pages and monopoly telcos:insanity:unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status,... [Read More]
It's only insanity if there's no logic to the action. This practice is annoying and a terrible waste of natural resources, but from the phone company's POV it's not only sane but downright sensible. They're selling ad space based on the illusion of broad market reach. Every phonebook drop represents money in their pocket. Whether we want them or not -- whether we use them or not -- is irrelevant to them. All that matteris is that their advertisers continue to foolishly believe that all those drops represent eyeballs/sales.
Yes, and a paranoid schizophrenic may also tell you that it's perfectly logical to hear voices, or to see people who don't exist!
Ben, the insane ones in this scenario are the advertisers -- specificically their denial and/or ignorance about phone-book-reading-target-markets which (increasingly) don't exist. The phone company is merely doing what corporations are supposed to: exploit opportunities to rake in as much $ as possible for its stockholders. "Rational" in that context is a simple matter of profitable vs. unprofitable. It's not as through there's anything in this situation that makes A&&T unique. No corporation cares whether its product is useful to the receipient; only that it is profitable to the corp.
If you're looking for a pyschiatric diagnosis to apply to the phone companies' behavior, may I suggest The Corporation's conclusion: psychopathy. [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007DBJM8/qid=1145735555/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-5678642-0816160?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=130]
Yes, 82 million phonebooks are ignored. But the rest .. ah, there's where the value to advertisers comes in: when someone hungry for a pizza (most utilized category, by the way) opens the book and looks for a phone number. it's not how many books are wasted that's the issue for advertisers, but how many times their own ad produces results. Ergo: damned expensive, much wasted, but -- for some advertisers money well spent.
The chart you show doesn't agree with your comment: "only 1/4 of Americans use yellow/white." The chart shows 25 Billion references, not 25%! that's roughly 100 uses per person a year!
I should have written that that a quarter of American households, of which there are roughly 110 million, reference white/yellow pages, not the implicit all Americans. I've modified the post to reflect that.
