Everyday the letterbox is filled with circulars and leaflets. They flood shelves in shops, the streets and the gutter.
Is it human instinct to take flyers pressed into your hand by a distributor instead of refusing. Fifty people can go by, each given literature they briefly scan. It is instantly crumbled and thrown in the bin or drops to the ground.
Is the prospect of a bargain more important than the planet?
Amazingly despite living in the digital age, we are still reliant on paper to spread messages. Maybe its because a physical item and not a jumping ad on a computer screen that we can scrawl away from or shut down with a click of a box.
Even when trays in stores are stacked with the latest catalogue, people would rather read the specials and then put it back or rest it on a shelf.
We are in a constant battle with paper, newspapers and general junk ourselves.
Spare a thought for the hopeless hoarders, every aspect of modern life mass produced including paper takes over every living space they ever had.
One of the festival films I saw was about people crazy about movies. It followed three, who spent their days rushing from one cinema to another in New York.
Their apartments were crammed full of albums, promotional movie material and memorabilia. One woman had to move out because she had filled her entire apartment despite warnings from her landlord.
Guess that is why paper is successful as an advertising medium, it is hard to throw things away. Clutter-free books and TV programmes are all the rage, but will they save us from our own rubbish dump in the car, home or at work?
Is it human instinct to take flyers pressed into your hand by a distributor instead of refusing. Fifty people can go by, each given literature they briefly scan. It is instantly crumbled and thrown in the bin or drops to the ground.
Is the prospect of a bargain more important than the planet?
Amazingly despite living in the digital age, we are still reliant on paper to spread messages. Maybe its because a physical item and not a jumping ad on a computer screen that we can scrawl away from or shut down with a click of a box.
Even when trays in stores are stacked with the latest catalogue, people would rather read the specials and then put it back or rest it on a shelf.
We are in a constant battle with paper, newspapers and general junk ourselves.
Spare a thought for the hopeless hoarders, every aspect of modern life mass produced including paper takes over every living space they ever had.
One of the festival films I saw was about people crazy about movies. It followed three, who spent their days rushing from one cinema to another in New York.
Their apartments were crammed full of albums, promotional movie material and memorabilia. One woman had to move out because she had filled her entire apartment despite warnings from her landlord.
Guess that is why paper is successful as an advertising medium, it is hard to throw things away. Clutter-free books and TV programmes are all the rage, but will they save us from our own rubbish dump in the car, home or at work?
Posts
2 comments:
You forget Amanda that many people don't have computers and the internet. I do recall delivering community papers chocka full with promotional pamphlets when I was at primary school and many people's letterboxs rejected our money earning efforts with the words 'no junk mail'. But as a friend once said of advertising "If we didn't get it we wouldn't know what to buy." Obviously, they work.
Those junk mail signs are saving the planet!
I wonder really how many people actually read them for deals or bother to even recycle them.
Matt, you highlight the impulse buyer- who has money to waste during a recession!
Post a Comment