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Why the $1 Charge DMA?

The GreenDimes Direct Marketing Association Series

This post's a little large, but so is your junk mail, so bear with me.

First of all, who are these guys?  I’m sure you’re asking.  They are the Direct Marketing Association. 

Here’s what they do (according to them)

“The Direct Marketing Association is the leading global trade association of business and nonprofit organizations using and supporting direct marketing tools and techniques.”

Here’s what their members get (according to them).

“DMA membership dues are based on your company's total direct marketing expenditure. This includes all costs associated with customer loyalty programs, lead generation programs, web site operations, email promotions, search engine and other forms of electronic marketing, creative, production, paper, postage, printing, list rental, database processing, direct marketing salaries, call center expenses, etc.”

Here’s my layman’s terms (according to me)

They give junk mailers tools to enhance the “junk-mailing experience.”   They even give out awards (seriously).    Now you can be taken off their lists, but for a $1.  (GreenDimes monitors the lists monthly btw, to make sure you stay off their list)

A buck?  No other Direct Marketer charges a buck.  So let me get this straight, they help compile the lists, then charge you money for you to get off those lists.  What a great business model, get paid for causing the problem, then get paid for cleaning it up (partially cleaning it up, that is)  Here, let me complicate your life, then make you pay to opt of it.

What really burns me is that some publications (hello Chicago Tribune) actually give the DMA kudos to what they’re doing.

Listen, I’m not trying to demonize the DMA (I’ll save that for other posts) , some of what they do sounds okay, I’m just trying to get them to stop charging you a buck for something you didn’t want anyway.

Oh and by the way, they’re the ones that also call you during dinner.  But hey, you can opt out of that too…for just another buck.

[Footnote: Apparently they're phasing out the $1 call thing over 5 years because of Do_Not_Call which is why it's so important that you sign our Do_Not_Mail Petition]

-Sanjiv

Real Vs Artificial Christmas Trees

Opinion Series

Vote: Is it Real?

While you're contemplating if the tree's real or not, I'll do my write up.  Here was my Christmas tradition.  Every year, my family would send up the smallest member (that was me) into the attic to bring out the fake Christmas tree.  Fake limb by fake limb I would toss down the plastic branches from that itchy-insulated room.

Now mind you, I was excited, and kudos to Mom & Dad for celebrating (they're from India), but between slotting the right branch into the right hole of our "tree trunk" and smelling the pine of real Xmas trees outside the mall, I've always been biased toward real trees.

Now comes the green issue.  Which is better for the environment?  We used that artificial tree for decades.  Now these guys are made from PVC a petroleum based compound, they do jazz it up with a little lead, and it is generally shipped from overseas, but they do get reused over and over.

Real trees.  They are cut down yearly, and there are transportation costs to the mall, both from the trucker and the buyer.  But they're chopped down from tree farms, and you can't beat that experience of picking out a real tree.

Vote: Is this Tree Farm Real? (Just Kidding)

Just this humble blogger's opinion, what's yours?

-Sanjiv

I heard about 'renting' a real tree (roots and all).  Might be a good solution.

I Love New York...Entrance Fee $8

In A New York Minute?

Enjoy sitting in traffic?  Great, now pay for your enjoyment.  Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York has proposed to charge an $8 congestion fee to drivers who drive into Manhattan during peak hours (6am-6pm).  The idea is that more people would travel via mass transit to shop and commute.  In fact, the revenues from fees would be used to improve mass transit.

This is a toughy.  I went back and forth on this proposal. 

Back: People would be deterred from coming into the city, and would shop elsewhere. 

Forth: I held off from moving to LA because I was so afraid of the traffic. 

Back: Isn't mass transit near capacity during peak hours?  I was packed on that subway everyday. 

Forth: Maybe they could open new transit lines with the revenue they generate.

Back: We pay so much as it is.  Big hit to struggling residents outside the city.

Forth: We pay so much in air quality.

Other cities like London use it with some success, but I have to say, in the end I fall into the "nay" category when it's comes to the $8 daily.  I dunno, coupled with the "Back" arguments, it just feels a little uninviting.  Can't we create more positive incentives for people to be green?  For example, why did we get rid of tax rebates with Priuses (Pri-i?)

Just this humble blogger's opinion.  I would love to hear your thoughts.

-Sanjiv

Why are Green Superheroes so Lame?

First of all, it took me forever to even find one.  Eco-man?  Dr. Environment.  Green Lantern doesn't count.  There weren't even any bad guys who wanted who wanted to pollute the planet (Lieutenant CO2)?  The best we could do were mascots, Woodsy, Smokey the Bear was kinda cool.  But I remember,there was some green superhero.  Who was it?  When finally I stumbled upon the answer...

Captain Planet and the Planeteers?!  I'm not kidding.  Sounds like a name I'd invent for a green parody band.  It's him and some kid planeteers, turning off light switches, I don't know. 

He's not even green.  And if you think about that pic for a second, his face is blue, which means his skin is blue, which means he's wearing a sleeve-less midriff, gloves, and go-go boots, and not much else.

We can do better   This is a call out.  First one to draw a decent superhero gets a FreeMe! (our junk mail service), a tee shirt, a tote, whatever, I'll pay for it myself.  The rest get a tee or tote.  Upload it into the comment section.

Here an idea, draw GreenDimes v the DMA locked in battle.

Your Junk Mail Destroyer,

-Sanjiv

The Online Catalog Browser is Here?

So I started thinking about other options businesses have instead of selling through paper catalogs. I tried to google online catalogs, where I struck gold (that was quick). Google has a catalog database, called what else, but Google Catalogs. 

I clicked through, and along with most google searches, found a very clean site – a catalog search bar and about a dozen catalog catagories. I typed L.L Bean in the search bar. Lo and behold, I saw a catalog that looks exactly like the paper catalog. You can scroll page by page or jump sections.

They leave you with a number for the website where you can order. I wonder if L.L Bean still has that navy blue sweater with little white herringbow, er diagonal thingies. Look at that, they do!

But when I call, L.L Bean tells me that haven’t stocked that sweater for years, and it wasn’t even in style when they did stock it. Ouch. Then I jump back to the google catalog page. The catalog is from 2003!

Ugh. Not over the…I’m over the sweater. I’m ugh-ing over the fact that Google didn’t maintain the catalog database. So I jumped on the L.L. Bean site, and there, finally you’ll find the same paper catalog as a pdf, updated, and easy to use. 

Great! But what about the rest? My thought is that searching catalogs online wasn’t in back then, but now I think the public is ready. Just google google pr and let them know you want it back.

If you google "direct mail", google will ask, “Did you mean junk mail?”

-Sanjiv

Be More User Friendly Eco-Friendly Companies!

Listen, I want to help everyone live a greener lifestyle, and I want to help the companies that help us live a greener lifestyle. However, my eco-friendly friends have to be a little more user-friendly.

Example:

Unless you are a repeat blog-ee, you probably don’t know that I finally moved into my own place. So I’m assembling the floor lamp, and I’m all excited to screw in my eco-friendly compact fluorescent bulb, when I find that the big base of the bulb doesn’t fit into the shade of the lamp.

I go back and buy a new floor lamp. Ah, the lamp shade fits perfectly over the base of my eco bulb, but when I flick on the switch and try to use their 50-100-150 watt feature (s/b 20-30-40 in eco-world), my bulb only stays at one intensity.

What an idiot I am. Off to the Bulbs-R-Us where they house a million types of bulbs, except for a eco 50-100-150.

Screw the 50-100-150 lamp! (and yes, you better appreciate the pun.) I return the 50-100-150 lamp and pick up a lamp with a handy reading lamp attached. I screw in the top eco bulb -- great. I screw in the reading lamp eco bulb -- also great. I lay on my bed to relax, and read my favorite anthology of bulbs that I picked up from Bulbs_R_Us.

Not so great. Apparently the size the bulb juts out past the shade of the lamp creating a blinding hue, and now every time I blink, I see coiled sun spots…

Some eco-friendly manufacturer needs to make friends with a lamp-friendly manufacturer.

Your Anti-Junk Mail-Friendly Friend,

Sanjiv

Thanks for Shopping with Us. Where Can I Send Your Junk Mail?

Couple of days ago, I recycled my moving boxes to someone through craigslist - Good environmentalist/Samaritan [√]. Now that I have some room in my apartment I decided to go shopping. And I can’t remember which store I was at, but they asked for my zip code.

My zip code? Seems harmless enough. They don’t really ask for anything else – maybe they’re just gathering some location demographics. Okay…or maybe they’re compiling all that info, so they know where to target their next set of junk mail. 

I felt kind of uncomfortable asking a hard working cashier about it. Let me check online… hard to get a straight answer.  You know what?  I shouldn’t have to research around or bother a cashier. They should have a little sign (not too little) that informs the public that when they ask for a zip, they won’t solicit through the mail.

It still bothered me. So I started talking to one my coworkers, and he wasn’t sure. But he started talking about all the junk mail he receives because he buys online, and he how he’s slowed down his online purchases.  Yeah that’s true. I’m very wary about buying online too, and I buy less! I would probably even enter a sweepstakes now and again, but I’m so afraid of the all of junk I would receive, I never enter.

So here’s what else I want, next to where you enter your billing address, there’s a checkbox that asks you if it’s okay to solicit you further in the mail.

It’s going to be hard to get through to these companies. That’s why it’s important that you sign the GreenDimes “Do Not Mail Me” Petition. Even having our legislative body’s finest just talk about it will incite action and make companies more responsible.

Junk Mail Pest Control,

Sanjiv

Global Warming News of the Day

We here at Greendimes tend to agree with the 2000 scientists of the UN Panel on Global Warming (we’re such followers!). So by now you’ve probably heard Al Gore & and the UN Panel received the 2007 Nobel Prize for bringing Climate Change to the front of everyone’s minds. I’m excited, and I like how Al Gore says this isn’t a political issue. There are so many of us trying to turn our carbon footprint into a toe print (and not even the big toe.) That’s part of what I love about working at GreenDimes; we're saving trees, we're planting trees, we're saving water. We’re all about small changes, big impact. Everyone here at the office uses a coffee mug instead of paper cup and reusable bags instead of plastic. It’s so easy. We hope you start taking some easy steps toward reducing your footprint, because, if you don’t…you know how you’re parents made you smoke a pack of cigarettes at once to make you stop smoking? Well, I just may have to make you smoke global warming.

Here’s a cool site to get you started.

www.climatecrisis.net

Here’s another one from ivillage that lets you know your carbon footprint in 10 minutes.

www.ge.com/ivillage/calculator/

Congrats global warming fighters.

Your Junk Mail Warrior,

Sanjiv

www.greendimes.com