Litter Marketing

A few days ago,  I was backing out of my driveway when I noticed a bright yellow piece of paper taped to my front screen door.  It was raining heavily, but  I stopped, got out of the car and splashed through a few puddles in the walk to retrieve what surely must have been an important communication.

Not so.  It was a flyer from a painting company.  "TIME TO PAINT YOUR HOUSE?" it wondered in bold 36 point Times Roman font.   Needless to say, it annoyed me to have been trespassed upon and judged in this manner.  OK, so my house could use a touch-up here and there, but I found it offensive just the same.   I looked up and down the street to see if others had been similarly insulted.  It was clear that the flyers were only left at the houses which the leafleter had deemed in need of a fresh coat.

Earlier this spring there are a couple of landscape entrepreneurs who drove around town throwing baggies full of stones into people's driveways.  Inside the baggie is an ad for their oriental gardening service. 

When did it become legitimate for stranger to drive down your street and tape things to your doors, or toss things in your driveway?  I guess it's just an extension of sticking flyers under your windshield wipers in the parking lot at the mall or super market.  I may be cranky, but I have always regarded these pieces of unwanted paper as, well, litter.

Generally, personal solicitations - whether they be at my door or on the phone – are met un-disguised hostility.  You can imagine how I feel about those who have the temerity to littler my driveway and doorways with marketing material.

If that isn't the definition of Spam, then what is?

I have a suggestion for the Selectman - stop trying to raise our taxes and make litter marketing a fine-able offense.  Lots of money can be levied in penalties, and the culprits leave their phone numbers as evidence.

I'm sure the culprits who littered my neighborhood feel that this is just a legal way for them to get their message out cheaply.   But it is an invasion of my space.   If I am on vacation, no one picks up the litter - If I was a crook, I would just cruise around looking for homes where no one had picked up the paper or phone book.  Not long ago some bright marketing genius decided to deliver a promotional copy of the New York Times to every home as a tease to show non customers the benefits of home delivery.  Three days later the papers were still sitting in the driveways of people who were away.  They might as well have put out a sign that said Nobody is home - Break in here!

I have spent a lot of money this year, but not one penny went to any business that left unsolicited marketing taped to my door or shoved under my wipers or tossed in my driveway by drive-by salespeople.

Hype Fatigue

I don’t know about you, but I am getting real tired of being assailed by companies that seem to spare no expense when it comes to marketing. It isn’t enough that they insert themselves into nearly every page of every newspaper and magazine and web page. They harangue us for 20 minutes out of every hour on the radio and TV. They hire people to accost you in the mall. They incessantly deliver unwanted (and unread) sheaves if slick ad copy to your mailbox, or annoying automated calls to your voice mail.

You cannot even escape at the beach. Your placid moment on the sand will be disturbed by the droning of a single prop ww2 vintage fizzlewhacker with a banner trailing behind to announce the wet tee shirt contest and one dollar for frosty 12oz drafts at the local beer joint.

We are forced to pay extra for software to prevent pop-up ads from taking over our PC’s and even then you cannot view a blog or a searched page without some adware jiggling or twinkling to catch your eye. AOL makes a big thing out of preventing pop-ups, but allows insidious – and I reiterate UNWANTED - ads to appear in the middle of the screen and move through your field of vision, then disappear. If these are not pop-ups, what are they?

Even PBS programs – which are billed as “commercial free” give lengthy and blatent advertising plugs for high level donor companies. If these aren’t commercials what are they?

Apparently, the companies who spend all this money on advertising don’t care how effective it is. In fact, the jillion dollar “knock-off” industry sells products that are just as good as the “genuine article.” They let the big company spend all the money to hype the brand and then sell their look-a-like product cheaper and reap a high margin.

So my point is that I am annoyed. I decry the pollution of every media platform and venue with constant and repetitive advertising. I also object to the portion of each dollar spent that goes to pay for the promotion of the product.

There are many companies that would be on the list of blatant offenders – who spend an obscene amount of money on advertising and charge outlandishly for their products. Two are in my sights this morning: BOSE and OMAHA STEAKS.

BOSE: they make a fine product. But I see their full page ads in every paper nearly every day. They advertise on every radio station I know of. They are in magazines. They send expensive glossy direct mail pieces every couple of weeks. I would never buy the product because I don’t want to pay for the heavy advertising costs that drive their prices to premium level. There are high quality knock-offs (see Cambridge Soundworks) for half the price.

OMAHA STEAKS: They produce delicious looking pictures in their brochures. They package-up what looks like a real great deal. Then you get the shipment and are disappointed that the steaks are small and thin and not even close to the flavor and juiciness of a fresh steak purchase from the meat guy at the market. I was disappointed but wrote it off to experience. Yet they will not leave us alone. We get offers in the mail every week and constant calls from telemarketers in Nebraska. Their Hype is annoying. I will not buy their products again.

Ironically, the one product ad that has appealed to me lately is for the new High Definition radio sets which are hyped largely on the basis of being “commercial-free”.

Come to think of it, I am having second thoughts about the complaint about arial banners at the beach. How else would you know where to go for those one dollar frosty draft beers?