Leaflet This - Naked Women Sell Piza



Posted: Friday, August 25, 2006

by
http://thebigsideorder.blogspot.com/

I calculate that if I had ordered just one item of food from every fast-food outlet which has seen fit to push a leaflet through my door this year, I would be enormous by now.
I realise that my conclusion is not particularly scientific, nor is it based on any hard evidence or diligent research, but then if you had wanted that kind of thing you would be reading the Lancet. From me you get spurious hogwash and that is a fact.

Anyway – and this too really is a fact – today alone no less than three leaflets for those generic pizza/curry/burger establishments have landed on my doormat. Entirely by the by, but if anyone reading this happens to own a pizza/curry/burger establishment, I would seriously advise you to re-think your leaflet design. As a customer with this much choice, I need a good reason not to throw your leaflet straight into the bin. So think ‘semi-naked ladies’. Like much of your target audience, I am not in the least bit attached to stock images of four-cheese pizza and 2-litre bottles of Diet Coke, whereas I’ve been collecting pictures of scantily clad women since I was 14. Do the maths, as they say.

The fast-food leaflets were not the only advertising bumf to come through the door today. The smiling face of a young African boy slid through the letter box and into the shoe cupboard, courtesy of my postman, Tim. Just £10 per month would educate him for a year. The African boy that is, not my postman. I don't really know how much it would cost to educate my postman. I suppose I could get him a set of used encyclopedias the next time I'm at the car boot sale. I'll look into it. Meanwhile I continue to be assailed by takeaway shops, charities, insurance companies, furniture factories, companies trying to sell me hearing aids, bath aids, stair lifts, memory improvement courses, memory improvement courses, and on it goes.

The most bothersome aspect of all this is that very few of these services is particularly relevant to me. A stair lift would mostly go unused in my single-story flat. I am unmarried and therefore in no particular hurry to arrange a divorce. I have no idea what a book-keeper does or how one might vary from a librarian (or even an ardent enthusiast with a lot of paperbacks in the house), and so needless to say I will not be signing up for the course. Admittedly there are occasions when an extra pair of hands in the bath wouldn't go amiss, although I doubt this is the kind of aid on offer.

It wouldn't be half so bad if this sort of marketing was more specifically targeted at an individual customer's needs as opposed to the dragnet approach employed by most of these companies. I recently talked to a friend of mine who sometimes delivers leaflets as a means of making a little extra cash. She told me that she once had to deliver an advertising flyer for a new martial arts club to the residents of a nursing home. I am not trying to suggest that older people are no longer capable of a little gentle exercise to keep their limbs supple, but it strikes me that once you move your Parker Knoll chair and best China cabinet into Doddering Hall, it's probably safe to say your kickboxing days are over.

I ask you, would not the residents of an old folk's home be more interested in a company selling items of nostalgia or books and video cassettes featuring local history? Or carpet slippers or mail-order Werther's Originals, or any number of goods and services more befitting than a three-for-two pizza offer and a 20% discount on your next session of lethal combat training? Of course they would. We all would.

There is no surer way to a sale than by being there at the right time with that which we truly need. Why I am at this very moment longing for a device which warns you when there won't be enough shower gel left in the bottle, putting an end to the sense of frustration and dismay that comes with getting no more than a flatulent dribble of goo in the palm of your hand. I dream of the day when someone will make shirts that have built-in funny bone protectors. And not once have I ever received a leaflet advertising a 24-hour emergency shoelace replacement service, nor even one that offers memory improvement courses.

But the one I really long for, the leaflet that will have me reaching instantly for the front door in a giddy paroxysm of urgency, is the one that will say: LEAFLET COMPANY CLOSING DOWN SALE! ALL LEAFLETS MUST GO!

I can hardly wait. Now, I must be off. You see I've just received a most interesting leaflet through the front door advertising a course that promises to improve my memory!

Now then, where did I put it…

Gary James is 39 and lives in the North of England. When he isn't writing or sliding around his new wooden floors in his socks, he walks tiring distances all over Yorkshire for no sensible reason anyone can come up with. He is still frightened of men who make balloon animals. He has been writing wickedly funny and original material ever since his television blew up. Some of it is here: http://thebigsideorder.blogspot.com/
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