Advertising Waste

An area of wasted publicity I would like to highlight is printed material. Lots of are the times I have come across boxes of fliers and business cards that have sat in storerooms for years - why? The reasons vary - changes to menus, phone numbers, address, owner, management. might ask; why haven't these obsolete leaflets been thrown out? (Re-cycled)

There's reasons; first, all this stunning colour printing with pics did not come cheap, and second, there is a thought harbouring in the back of the mind that day in the near future this material will somehow one time more become useful.

This brings me to a more important query: why were so lots of fliers, menus, business cards or whatever, ordered in the first place? The issue lies in not being able to resist a bargain; the more they buy, the better the deal. What is the solution? Order what they intend to make use of, and not what they hope to make use of. It ought to be as simple as that, but no.



All of us love to get a bargain; it's a way of making us feel lovely about ourselves. So next time you find yourself calculating how much you will save by doubling your order, try this. Apply the principle of shopping in the work of the sales; irrespective of how fantastic the discount is; it is only a bargain if they need the item & will use it.

I come now to the matter of the distribution of our printing- who does it, & more to the point, how well do they do it? This is a specific issue for huge retail companies & yet they appear unaware of the wastage that runs in to millions of dollars, pounds, euros each year. Huge stacks of costly magazines & brochures are casually dumped in the trash without a moment's thought. Was it necessary to leave fifty magazines at a building with0 apartments? Others are placed in such a way that they are blown away by the wind because not even a moment of consideration was given to their placement. Now, what was to be beautiful promotion to catch the eye becomes an ugly eyesore.

This monumental waste of printed publicity happens when no hard work has been made to make definite distribution is targeted & effective. They could look at it this way: properly paid, trusted man could distribute 500 leaflets yet bring in more business than0 men badly distributing 500,000 leaflets. As ludicrous as this may appear, it could basically be true - look around.

Adapted from : Michael Weber