Direct Marketing and Children

As an adult and a member of the business community, I understand the logic behind companies buying lists of names in order to prospect new market sectors. I also understand that particularly in these times, attracting new customers or even getting existing customers to shop is a challenge in itself and direct mail is one way of doing this. 

Personally, I grumbled whenever I open my front door and find that I receive, on a daily basis, a mail shot from one company or the other asking me to take up some promotion or offer in order to entice me to become one of their customers. It is not so much that I mind being asked to review a promotion rather the fact that all of their efforts end up in my recycling bin. By the end of the week, my recycling is full and that is the biggest issue I have with this practice. The environmental impact of direct marketing is staggering. The Center for a New American Dream published the following statistics:

• 5.6 million tons of catalogs and other direct mail advertisements end up in U.S. landfills annually.
• The average American household receives unsolicited junk mail equal to 1.5 trees every year—more than 100 million trees for all U.S. households combined.
• 44 percent of junk mail is thrown away unopened, but only half that much junk mail (22 percent) is recycled.
• Americans pay $370 million annually to dispose of junk mail that doesn’t get recycled.
• On average, Americans spend 8 months opening junk mail in the course of their lives.

Those statistics alone are enough to call me to action. However, when one of our daughters received a direct mail shot for car insurance recently, I realized that something had to be done.

We came home from school recently to find this letter on our doormat. Two days later, another arrived this time from the National Institute of Surveys. The way both letters were addressed matched the spelling I used to purchase two subscriptions for our daughter last summer. One was for Highlights magazine and the other National Geographic.

When I saw her name printed on these letters, all sorts of questions arose for me: How do these companies get this information? Who is selling this information? Could it be the children’s magazine? That is the first one that sprang to mind. Also, why would a car insurance company believe that mailing a very under-aged child would be useful?  Isn’t children’s information supposed to be protected? Are the privacy laws in the US so relaxed that even children can be targeted?

After all of these years of seeing the direct mail pile up on my doormat and simply throwing it away I suddenly realize that by just putting it into the bin, I have done nothing to help change the system. Having recently moved from Europe to the US, I have not taken the time to research what I can do to reduce the amount of junk mail we receive as a family.  The environmental aspect has always bothered me greatly but I have not known where to begin. Seeing our daughter’s names on such grown up communication pushed me into motion. It was time to act. 

The first thing I did was to call the Highlights and demand a review of our daughter’s account. I wanted details and an explanation as to how this could have happened. I also wrote to the other National Geographic, (as I could not find their phone contact details anywhere) also demanding a review.  As I am sure you can imagine, dear reader, I did not get any answers on the first, second or even by the forth call. Undeterred, I remained insistent and really stood my ground: I wanted to know how a child’s information could be sold in the first place and what purpose there could possibly be in passing that information onto an organization that can not hope of having them as a customer for many, many years to come.

After about two weeks, I finally started getting some answers. Highlights assured me that they have a very, very strict privacy policy on children’s privacy and that children’s details are never shared with any organization. Parent’s details are sold on but it is done carefully and the two lists are never blended. The person that I finally spoke to was the head of direct mailing for the entire group and she conducted a full review both within the organization and with the direct mailing company that they use. She stated that had there been a leak, Highlights would be prepared to enter into legal proceedings, such is their commitment to the protection of child data. They even took it a step further and contacted the car insurance company only to discover that National Geographic had sold the information. Someone would be in touch.

Whilst I had been in contact with Highlights, I had also started writing to National Geographic. I have to say that I am very disappointed by the service they provided us as customers of their publication. Firstly, you cannot call them directly. Secondly, the first three letters I received from them were generic form letters. It seems that no one even took the time to read what I had written, or even tried to address the fact that they had sold a minor’s details to a direct marketing house. Only after writing a blistering letter, mentioning something about the press etc did I get a response. The letter read that they had received my communication and someone will be in touch. Incidentally, I still have never heard back from them on the topic of protecting children whose parents or grandparents chose to purchase an annual subscription to the grown up magazine.

True to her word, I received a call from a senior member of the Direct Marketing Company.  She factually outlined to me what had happened: Our daughter’s name was sold to the car insurance company and as it was on the main magazine subscription, there was no way we would have her opt out due to her age. Such a function does not exist. To assure me she said that she had contacted National Geographic and instructed them to remove her name and details from their database to avoid to it happening again. Simple as that.

As I finally had someone on the phone that knew what she was talking about, I quickly asked her how we can ensure that the girl’s information gets out of circulation altogether as quickly as possible. She told me about DMA or Direct Marketing Association that has a site which allows people to ‘opt out’ of receiving undesired direct marketing. I have included the link below. I also took the opportunity to ask her what we can do to also get the girl’s biological mother’s name removed from such mailing lists. She passed away some years ago. Is there anything we can do about it?

The advice I was given is as follows:

Go to the DMA (Direct Mailing Association), register you and members of your household and take your name off of the lists that you do not wish to receive mail from.

The link below will bring you to a page that offers a brief overview and will help you to get started. It not only highlights again the sobering statistics mentioned above, it also helps you to take direct marketing into your own hands and begin controlling what sorts of mailings you receive in future.

http://environment.about.com/od/greenlivingdesign/a/junkmail.htm

I am happy to say that, one month on, our doormat is clear of all junk mail addressed to any member of our family. We have managed to stop receiving any unsolicited mailings altogether. With the exception of new post addressed to ‘resident’, ‘current resident’ or ‘customer’. I am off to add those titles to our household names.