Confederacy of a Dunce - Letterbox spam

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

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Just about every day, some sort of advertising material gets stuffed through our mail slot. It's mostly adverts for restaurants that deliver to the area, but all sorts of other things appear as well. The only way to deliver this sort of advertising material is on foot, and I wondered just how much of it we're getting, and how effective it is at targeting the Dunce household as customers. Starting last week, I began saving these adverts and keeping track of them. It's been a cold week, temperatures hovering not far above freezing, so I expected a lower yield than usual. After the first week, here's how it looks.

As expected, the majority (6) were for restaurants offering home delivery. Three Indian restaurants, two pizza places (including the home of the BLT pizza, "No. 1 in USA"), and one Chinese. One of the Indian restaurant menus went into the "food drawer" for consideration on the rare occasions we order food at home, as we still haven't come across any places that deliver to our house and are any good at all.

Of the others, two fall into the "self-help" category, offering the kind of help that isn't really appreciated by the Dunces who are both gainfully employed and have no big ideas about starting a business ("Whether you want to set up as a fashion designer, recording studio or market stall trader [company name] can HELP YOU!" and "We can help you develop the skills and confidence to find employment""). And the last is one of those quasi-charitable-but-actually-commercial clothing collection "services", Silverwall Ltd., "a collection company who provide people in third world countries with clothes for their families they can afford". Yes, they collect clothes so they can sell them in third world countries. Interestingly, a google search for this company name yielded one lonely result: a person whose efforts at cataloguing "letterbox spam" puts my first week to shame (link).

Score so far: 7 days, 9 pieces of advertising.
Total amount spent by the Dunces based on letterbox advertising: £0.

consume

Tuesday, March 21, 2006 5:49:52 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)