keithl@loop.UUCP (Keith Lofstrom) (02/05/90)
Just before the recent spate of articles on MacWorld's phony mousepad offer, I sent in the card. Since I LIKE the ads, I will probably be stupid and keep the subscription, even without the promised free issue, but I thought I would share a highly useful technique for dealing with asshole publications. A local advertising weekly paper, "The Community Press", was being delivered to my apartment, and I was unable to stop this "free" paper. So, I took a few hours to take down a list of their advertisers, looked up their addresses, then plugged them into a computer program that generated nice personalized letters to each of them explaining that I would hesitate to buy their products or use their services while they supported the delivery of trash to people's doorsteps. A week later, I got a call from the president of the paper, who volunteered to personally check my doorstep each week to make sure that it was not accidentally being delivered. A month or so later, the paper went out of business, the result of a circulation audit and lack of advertising. I was chagrined that my little campaign was THAT effective; there were probably a few people out of the 100,000 recipients that actually wanted it. In any case, letters to advertisers WORK. Make them short, friendly, and to the point; printing them on company letterhead would probably work even better. Be ready to spend some time answering letters and phone calls from the advertisers; some of these people will go to great lengths to satisfy their customers, and are already fretting about how much they spend on magazine advertising. And please, aim to wound, but not to kill. I want to get the rest of my subscription! Keith -- Keith Lofstrom keithl@loop tektronix!psueea!qiclab!loop!keithl Launch Loop, P.O. Box 1538, Portland, Oregon 97207 (503)-628-3645