Word: junking
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...producers of this mountain of missives call it direct mail or mail order. The U.S. Postal Service refers to the onslaught as "bulk business mail." But to most people the deluge of material that descends on them each year is just plain junk mail, a typically American sobriquet that recognizes its vast and disorderly variety, its cheeky aggressiveness and its easy ability to raise hackles. Whatever its name, it is an extraordinary by-product of democratic civilization. Catalogs, catalogs, catalogs. Political flyers. Charitable solicitations. Environmental entreaties (on recycled paper, naturally). Sweepstakes packets. Magazine subscription offers. Investment brochures. Anything...
...invading their homes. Over the course of a lifetime, the average American professional will devote eight entire months to sifting through mail solicitations. Third-class mail is now a nearly 4 million-ton colossus that accounts for 39% of all U.S. postal volume. This year about 41 lbs. of junk mail have been generated for each adult American. Of the pile that reached mailboxes, an estimated 44% landed in trash cans, unopened and unread. Many of the rejects were "prospecting letters," mailings that fish for new clients and often hook only a 2% response -- plenty, by industry standards, to justify...
...this year the Environmental Defense Fund put out a direct-mail fund raiser (on recycled paper) that offered, in exchange for membership, a copy of the best-selling 50 Simple Things You Can + Do to Save the Earth. The book's No. 1 suggestion for planetary rescue is "Stop junk mail...
...continue, or a billboard that blocks the scenery, or the telephone call that gets you out of the bathtub," says copywriting maestro Bill Jayme of Sonoma, Calif. "If you're not interested, you just throw it out." Says Denison Hatch, publisher of the industry newsletter Who's Mailing What!: "Junk mail is a good offer sent to the wrong person...
Even so, direct mailers maintain that junk mail is the most cost-efficient way to reach out to customers. They claim that a single mailing on average draws 10 times as many responses as newspaper ads and 100 times as many as TV ads. Plus, they note, they can judge the effectiveness of a mailing with far greater precision than most other advertisers...