h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Why can't we have a box that says 'Tick if you WANT to receive mailings'.

I suppose I already know the answer to this - the Direct Marketing Association doesn't want it because they know that no-one truly wnats all the crap that they send out.

It's easier to maintain a database of people who don't want junk mail.

I've seen the odd opt-in. I just assumed that this was another trick - just as people had got used to finding the box they have to tick to avoid getting junk mail, they invert the logic to trick you into asking for junk mail.

|_| Don't fail not to leave this box unticked in order to rescind your option to waive non-inclusion in the unmailed exception list.

On computer they usually have an opt-in by the reasoning that you can put it like this and have it checked BY DEFAULT:
[ ] YES!! I want to receive information about useful products or services!

How so? I would have thought that a database of people who DO want junk mail would be an awful lot smaller.

There are a large number of people who are apathetic enough that they dont bother to look for any sort of miniscule checkbox to get rid of the junkmail. They might not want it but they dont bother, or dont see, the option.

(what does opt-in means anyway? :p)

Last time I saw such a tick box, the text stated something like that:
"Tick if you don't want us to sell your email address to other companies and don't wan't to be informed of our great promotions and price reductions"

Nice one.

Direct mail is a business so thinking about the money can give interestiing conclusions.

1) In the beginning there was TV advertising but it cost buckets of cash
2) Mailing people is cheaper
3) It costs money to print stuff and post it to people. When many people throw the letter in the bin this money is wasted.
4) Businesses do not usually throw money away, so direct mail uses techniques to target the mail to people more likely to want the product. The idea is to post less mail (saving on printing cost) but still reach the people who buy.

A simple example. A small company cannot afford to do TV ads. It wants to reach older people because it has a new product offering much cheaper insurance IF it restricts its customers to the elderly. If you were trying to mail older people would you mail couples called Albert & Ethel or couples called Darren & Tracy?

So the company mails all the Ethels. OK not all Ethels are elderly, but the odds are lots better than mailing people at random. OK so an 80 year old Tracy does not get mailed about the cheap insurance which is a little unfair. On the other hand lots of young Tracy's do not get any junk mail. Result, they do not get annoyed and the company saves lots of money on printing.


5) Notice the word odds crept in up there. Nobody can perfectly predict who will buy something. Companies who sell direct mail get measured on the odds ie how well they target. So it pays to avoid anyone who is known to hate getting mail. Mail them and they get a lower score on targeting and lose business to competitors

Anyone in the UK who wants no more junk mail simply has to sign up with the Mailing Preference Scheme. The direct marketing people pay the bulk of the costs of the scheme and all reputable companies selling lists hire staff to ensure all these people are removed from their lists.

To put it another way -if you always bin your direct mail sign up for the MPS. That way direct mailers don't waste money sending you the stuff

Anyway on this basis the ideal thing for direct marketing is an opt in list. It is a list of people who want to know about the product and buy it. With no wasted printing costs it is the holy grail of direct marketing.

Only one problem, how does somebody opt-in to a list for products they don't know about? Solve that and junk mail will disappear.

One solution I've recently seen is an extension of the traditional consumer survey. There are still pages and pages of questions about lifestyle, products etc., but now they are "sponsored" by companies - so a dishwasher powder manufacturer will pay to include a question about how you wash your dishes.

In these cases, there are still the tick-boxes to prevent yourself receiving an overload of junk, but by the very act of filling the survey you are legally allowing all the sponsor companies to post you anything they want to.

Watch the small print!

Here's a tip for when you're in W. H. Smiths. Pick up the Radio Times by the top right corner between your finger and thumb and then give it a robust shaking before taking it to the counter and paying for it.

This will result in the novel-sized clump of junk advertising in the middle from being deposited conveniently in the rack, instead of sliding onto your shins when you first try to read the magazine at home.

One absolutely brilliant thing I saw once in my local Tesco: a bin next to the newsrack with a sign above it saying 'If you don't want any of the advertising matter in your magazine, put it in here and we will recycle it for you'.

Fantastic! Why doesn't every newsagent do this?

Just like those oft-promised VCRs that pause themselves to edit out the commercial break. Or switching off the images in your browser.

Before long there'll be signs outside cinemas saying "Stand In This Corridoor For 30 Minutes If You Don't Want To See Any Trailers."

Or at the bus stop: "Place This Strip Of Paper Horizontally Across The Centre Of Your Spectacles If You Don't Want To See The Adverts On The Side Of The Bus."

They wouldn't say 'Stand in this corridor for 30 mins...' because a lot of people would actually do so. They also don't have a standard amount of time for ads so that you don't just turn up 20 mins late and miss them. You can't bank on a certain amount of time, so you have to turn aup and sit through the rubbish.

My wife was caught out by a video the other day. Normally, she puts it in the machine, presses 'Play' then makes the tea, popcorn, etc, and brings it all in to the living room, settles down and makes herself comfortable. By this time, all the trailers have finished and she hasn't had to sit down and mess about with fast forward until her tea gets cold. This particular video only had about 5 mins of trailers, so her tea got cold while she was rewinding.

well fancy that!

Yeah we do this every week to every magazine we get. As a result our paper recycling bin is now groaning at the seams. Another teqnique of advertisers is to print their adverts on thick card AND attatch them to the magazine so whenever you flick through the magazine you end up on their page. Because they are stapled into the magazine you cannot remove them by the shaking method as described above. However because these adverts are usualy printed on card they can be removed with a vicious yank (no not Silvester Stalone ) quite easily.

Sad git here actually shuts his eyes when he comes across one of those pages so he doesn't see who's advertising (Yes! Honestly! It bugs me that much!) I also hate the ones where there is a bit of paper wrapped around the magazine so that it only opens up on the advertiser's page.

VCR that pause themselves during ads would be quite difficult to make, I think. Would require some AI.. And you'd need to train the VCR to recognise when the broadcast goes from "normal" to ads, and then back to normal.
(BTW I don't think there are small "animations" before and after the ads -some page with "advertisement" written on it or something like that- in all countries... Without these "interludes" it would be almost impossible to recognise the change IMHO)

On the contrary it's quite easy to remove ads in web pages. Under windows the web browser NetCaptor has a feature to not display advertisement popups (it works great).
It would be very easy for the browser programmer to remove all references to doubleclick.net and other ads sources too... That's definitely something to be done !

Try a handy program called AdSubtract, it may be exactly what you need. I hardly ever turn it off. It speeds up Web access so much because it doesn't have to load all the animated GIFs. The personal edition is absolutely free. http://www.adsubtract.com