Phone Book Follow Up
FINALLY! How to opt out of phone books. Sort of.
In November I wrote about the frustrations of having useless fax machine size yellow dinosaurs constantly dropped off at my door. I wrote about it in November of ’06 too.
Most readers agreed that these are about as relevant as an eight track player. I also found another story about RETURNING phone books, (not just recycling them,) that was done up in Seattle by alternative weekly “The Stranger.”
Anywhere a phone exists there’s most likely internet access or WiFi, making your product obsolete. Even in my office at work I don’t see phone books in cubicles or workstations anymore. They’re as useful and as relevant as cassette tape answering machines, VCRs, and Blockbuster Video.
Stop publishing these. It’s a waste of paper, and a waste of the plastic used to wrap them in. (Actually those make decent dog poop bags.) Also the only revenue these bring in – which is advertising, is sold under false pretenses. Just like magazines, phone book publishers base ad rates on circulation. So my handling of this book for five seconds between lifting it up, walking it to and heaving it into the recycle bin counts as an impression and/or user. Yeah right.
This prompted a passionate copied and pasted response from “Yellow Pages Industry” leader Ken Clark:
The other myth is that the Internet is all we need. The Wall Street Journal reported recently that the broadband market is about tapped out. There will always be a good percentage of the population that will never have access to the industry’s Internet products. Barely more than 50% of households in the U.S. (about 56 million homes), currently subscribe to a high-speed Internet service. An additional 21 million households still use dial-up connections (yes, you read that right dial-up connections).
This week 9News/KUSA ran a story on cumbersome phone books, where to recycle them, and most importantly how to opt out:
Call 1-877-243-8339 to opt-out of receiving DEX phone books. Call 1-800-929-3556 to opt-out of receiving Yellow Book directories. If you want to opt-out of the Verizon phone book, you can call 800-555-4833.
The catch however? You MUST provide your phone number, so they can call you back next year to make sure you still hate phone books. Well at least its a start. I’d still rather drop them off at Ken Clark’s house.
James:
I’m happy for you. You finally got this difficult life issue off your chest and resolved.
Regarding those books you don’t want that are in fact used nearly 14 billion times a year by others, next time you are in North Carolina, drop them off. I’d be more than happy to recycle them for you.
Peace be with you.
Ken Clark
Thanks for the note Ken. Waste and overconsumption is an important issue, and I’m not ashamed to acknowledge and address it.
The fact that news outlets and newspapers are covering this, in addition to my small local blog, proves that its an issue people care about in our environmentally conscious society.
I do appreciate you reading. I never got an answer (from my previous post,) on my question about advertising. Are circulation numbers, (which are used for ad rates,) based on DISTRIBUTION? Or are they somehow whittled down to actual customer USE.
Point being – if myself, other consumers, and businesses choose to dispose of just 20% of the phone books thrown about the city that’s a huge discrepency. I can’t see how its ethical to use the total distribution number in front of a client.
Is the “disposal” factor taken into account?
All the best – james…
No reason to ever be ashamed about being eco-friendly — we all need to share this planet (unless we have a back-up somewhere). My comments are more oriented towards suggesting that the dialog be fact based. If you don’t want a book, fine. But a lot of others do.
“Distribution” is just that — total number of books distributed. “Disposal” can’t be actually measured — was it this years book, last years (yes, my wife tends to save them for years — don’t know why but she does). But the volume of those rejecting books is no where near the 20% you are suggesting.
As this is about “advertising”, it’s not measured much differently in any other media:
1) TV extrapolates eyeballs but doesn’t account for people multi-tasking and not actually watching the ads (if you watched TV last night — quick — name one commercial you actually saw — what was the product and the company???)
2) radio counts cars traveling in an area and merges some demographics and provides a count
3) newspaper/magazines/etc do same thing with audited delivery.
Every advertiser knows this about advertising (“80% is wasted, I just don’t which 80%”). That’s why even the smallest business keeps track on how their business comes in. They then do their own ROI because it really doesn’t matter if a zillion books are delivered — is my ad making my phone ring and generating business is all that matters. And print yellow pages does that. Not my opinion. Fact. And many of the telephone numbers in those ads are unique to that book — so there would no way for the buyer to reach the business unless they looked at the books.
Good dialog. thanks for the opportunity to respond
James, I see you have been “visited” by Ken Clark. The same thing happened on my blog (http://matsu.wordpress.com) and he definitely had an offensive edge to his comments (he posted to two different posts I made about phone books). He is a self-proclaimed advocate of the Yellow Pages industry. I’m not sure his tactic is very effective, at least he’s not winning any friends to his cause.
I appreciate what you said. Keep up the good work.
Thanks for the note Matsu.
Since writing this a month ago I’ve received yet another dump at my doorstep. I actually kept these since by niece Lili may be visiting soon and might need a booster seat at the dinner table.
I would say the only people using phone books reside in non Wi-Fi equipped caves or retirement centers – however local news tells me today’s seniors are computer literate, savvy in e-mail, and go Wii bowling., so I certainly wouldn’t insult the intelligence of my elders by saying they’re incapable of using the internet. (So long as McAfee Pro is installed and running)
Hi
We have started a website for an opt-in in Denver. Then the only people who want phonebooks get phonebooks.
http://www.stopthephonebooks.com
Thanks for the link Paul. Good site.
Also to others: check out the 4/2 MSNBC story featuring Paul’s site. I’m glad to see names bigger than me are recognizing this issue.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23922427/
Here are some ways to opt out from getting telephone books delivered that I have found on the web. This is getting to be a pretty big issue:
Consumers can “opt out” of receiving telephone books at http://www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org. This organization will contact the publishers and inform them to stop delivering books. This is a free service for consumers.
Or you can call them at the following numbers and tell them. Not sure how well this works but it looks good for them to state they offer this.
— ATT/ Yellow Pages: 1-800-479-2977
— Verizon: 800-555-4833, press 4, then 5, then 2
— DEX: 1-877-243-8339, press 2
— Yellow Book: 1-800-929-3556, press 2
Wow great site Bob. Well done. Thanks for the link. I especially like the ideas under the “Movement” page – which gives great ideas for cities, towns, and property owners for dealing with this onslaught.
My appreciation and keep up the good work!
Bob and James,
Thanks for pointing me to that site (YellowPagesGoesGreen). I was very impressed with the idea and government action ideas. I propose that the YP industry send me a postcard with a sticker on it the week before they plan to harass my neighborhood. I can place the sticker on my mailbox IF I WANT a book. So the distributor walking down the street can see if the sticker is on the mailbox. If it is give me one. If not keep walking.
Just another view but I do like that opt out site.
Edward