Every holiday season, the air quickly fills with seasonal colors -- on evergreen trees, our neighbors’ houses AND in our daily newspapers. Wow! Even in this year’s “down” economy, the amount of holiday advertising is astounding.
The accompanying photos show what I’ve collected so far: two weeks, SIX pounds of paper! I read once that only two per cent of people who receive these flyers actually act on them, exclaiming something like,
“Yahoo!! Check this out! THIS is the perfect tv/couch/dishset I’m looking for…. C’mon Martha, we’re heading to the mall right now!!!”
That same article reported a two per cent pick up rate is considered pretty good. Truth be told, I am always shopping around for a few things to jazz up my living room. But when I open my paper and see this wad of blindingly bright newsprint glaring back up at me, the temptation is to toss the whole load -- sight unseen straight into the blue box in my back room.
I’m not against advertising of course… goodness knows our valued clients here at ABC4 regularly tell you about local services and help me and my colleagues pay our bills. And as the economy sputters back to life, I’m grateful there are still local retailers able to advertise their wares. That paper mountain of seasonal ads means storeowners have money to invest in the stock they’re promoting… and they’re banking (literally) that some of us will spend with them this season. If that mountain of paper ever shrank to nothing, we’d ALL be in trouble.
But I think the biggest trick for ANY advertiser is to try and be creative and direct enough to stand out from the holiday clutter. How to do that? Well, I’ll be watching for that neon-colored, deal-of-a-lifetime to land on my doorstep.
