Mail-Order CATalogs  Posted
Oct-30-2005
Direct-Tail Tales
My cat gets her own mail. It's true. Just the other
day I received an L.L.Bean catalog with her name on it. How
did that happen?
Oh, now I remember. Back in the late '90s I was curious to
see how much junk mail kitty would receive if she "requested" a
catalog or two from different companies or meowed for one of
those "Got Milk" club certificates. I didn't test
my theory on just any old thing either. I only got her what
she asked for (she's purrsistent, you know).
The truth is, some advertisers don't care who they send their
direct-mail pieces to. You can make up a fake name when you
request a catalog, and you'll still get it. In this case, I
didn't make up a fake name, and my kitty really likes L.L.Bean's
winter collection.
Interesting that even after kitty changed her address, she
still gets the catalog. But now it includes the disclaimer
after her name "or current resident." See, I told
you that advertisers don't care who gets their mail. "Current
resident" might as well be the mice in the wall.
I chuckle every time I see kitty's name and address printed
neatly in the subscriber's area of a catalog, years after the
fact. And you think you're only requesting ONE catalog,
don't you. Anyway,
she's
pleased as pie when I tell her someone was thinking of her.
And yes,
she shares her catalogs with me, so the advertiser wins after
all.
I once worked at a catalog-based business and learned some
interesting things about catalogs and mailing lists. I also
worked at a place that had major kinks in their mailing list
database and sent out an obscene number of duplicate
direct-mail pieces to the same people in the same week. A few
were nice enough to call us about it. Yes, marketing is an
interesting world. (© 2005 Chris Dunmire) •
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