Magazines With No Content

Mailboxes are more like outdoor PO Boxes now.

When I was a kid I used to run up to the road to get the mail. Sometimes I’d even sit in the woods near the mailbox, waiting for the strange little vehicle to arrive. After all, the mail was a source of fascinating stuff: letters, gifts, and exotic things from around the world. Who wouldn’t want all that?

These days things are quite a bit different. Hardly anyone handwrites letters anymore, and gifts and other packages are normally sent via UPS or Fedex. The mail has turned into little more than a direct marketing tool, and our mailboxes have become recycling bins full of unwanted advertising. I usually check the mailbox once a week now; it’s usually jammed with junk mail but occasionally there will be a magazine too.

Some of the thickest globs of junk mail are collections of coupons for strange things I have no interest in (one recent advertiser was a surgeon. Who in their right mind would choose a doctor based on how cheap they are?). These coupons are sometimes stuffed in an envelope, but more often arrive in magazine form. Imagine how fascinating: a magazine with no content whatsoever, nothing at all but ads. For things you don’t want.

For years I’ve been contacting junk mail (AKA “direct marketing”) publishers and asking them to remove my address from their databases. Inevitably though the publishers start again, trees are cut down for paper, delivery vehicles pollute, and our mailbox begins to fill up.

One of the more persistent pieces of junk mail is “Clipper Magazine,” AKA “Savvy Shopper” in some areas. Nothing in their junk mail or on their web sites indicates how to unsubscribe, so I called their corporate office. Apparently other people have too; they’re prepared for us. To unsubscribe call the Clipper Magazine corporate office at 1 888 569 5169. The nice receptionist will pass you to a no-more-mailings voice mail box in which you can leave your street address. Staff reportedly check this voice mail box weekly and stop mailings to the addresses received. The recording warns that this process may take up to three months, likely because the mailings are printed far in advance.

I imagine that the trees, water and air we all rely on breath a deep sigh of relief every time someone unsubscribes from junk mail. So will your mail carrier.

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