Penile Enhancement Leaflets: Spam In Hardcopy?

[lawofnations]

I have a barrage of spam filters set up on my e-mail account to stop precisely this kind of thing getting through to my account.

Now it appears I need to set up a spam filter around each issue of FT.

As amusingly worded as it was, I did not expect this sort of product advertisment in FT, nor was it particularly welcome when it fluttered out of the magazine as I opened it at work.

I suppose this is nothing to do with the editors, and more the publishers?

A polite request - let's not have anything like this included in the magazine again, okay?

Who's with me?

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

I feel disappointed that I never even bother looking at the stuff that falls out of the magazine - I will make more of an effort in the future its just the fun went out when they stopped including those mad leaflets

 

[ArthurASCII]

What's a more pernicious leaflet? One that offers to "enlarge your penis", or one that offers to "consolidate all of your debts onto one east payment".

I really don't see the problem.

If Mrs ASCII decides to reward me (and by extension, herself) with the gift of an enlarged penis, prompted by a leaflet in FT, I'm sure that my fellow posters will be very pleased for me.


After all...It's only fair... I just bought her a new extension on the house

 

[_Lizard23_]

Crap falls out of magazines, fact of life. I seldom look at it closely enough to see what it is for, it just goes in the bin. I don't see that penis enhancement is any better or worse a subject for crap-that-falls-out-of-magazines than anything else.
There was something in FT a few months ago that reckoned it was a cure for cancer wasn't there? Surely that's worse. I mean there actually *are* ways of making your dick bigger.

 

[Timble2]

Crap falls out of magazines, fact of life. I seldom look at it closely enough to see what it is for, it just goes in the bin. I don't see that penis enhancement is any better or worse a subject for crap-that-falls-out-of-magazines than anything else.
There was something in FT a few months ago that reckoned it was a cure for cancer wasn't there? Surely that's worse. I mean there actually *are* ways of making your dick bigger.

I didn't get the penile enhancement leaflet, though I got that bizarre one you mention a few months back.

If I'm buying magazines in WH Smith's I just leave the junk on their shelves....

 

[CodenameThrow]

I don't see what the problem is, you can just put it in the bin. As for it embarrassing you at work, what were you doing reading the Fortean Times at work anyway?

if they mag didn't have advertisers, it would not be able to carry on. would you rather they give over more page space to ads than carry inserts?

 

[mrpoultice]

But under what criteria is the advertising to readership market base worked out? And how come other magazines that share the shelves with FT seem to get it so right?

I occasionally buy Artists & Illustrators magazine, the adverts therein: Cheap canvas, bulk Oil paints, collapsible painting easels, adjustable desk lights etc…. yep seems about right to me

I also get BBC History magazine on occasions, what am I offered? Holidays to Pompeii and Herculaneum, genealogical / family tree data on CD ROM, Tea Towels with the Beaux tapestry on (ok, kitsch I admit but you can see where they were coming from)

So I’m a Fortean, what would I like eh? Well it appears I want a raging soft drug habit, that leaves me too “tired” to wing my samurai sword around, so I can slob about my foetid poster covered room under to the glare of UV growing lights wearing a t shirt with a crap slogan on it worrying about the size of my “love pump”.

 

[lawofnations]

Crap may fall out of magazines all the time, and if pick up a magazine in the shops I can leave all the crap behind, but I'm a subscriber, and my magazine arrives in a nicely sealed bag - I don't have the luxury of leaving the crap behind.

This piece of crap was nicely wedged inside the middle of the magazine, so it wasn't even apparent until I got to the relevant page, and it came fluttering out. Hence, in many ways, it is like spam. It may be a fact of life, but (a) I don't have to like it, (b) as with spam filters I'm entitled to try to stop it reaching me, and (c) just as I take action against those accounts that send the spam to get them closed down, I'm entitled to complain about inappropriate adverts and take action to try to ensure it doesn't happen again.

As mrpoultice says, it's the bizarre criteria that the publishers have picked for the advertising - every other magazine on the shelves appears to pitch it right and get the targeting spot on, but not FT.

As for what I was doing reading the FT at work, I was on my lunch break! Surely no-one would begrudge me bringing a little ray of Fortean sunshine into a soulless corporation? It didn't embarrass me, I'm not a prude, but I did find it inappropriate, in much the same way (to harp back to my spam comments) that I find spam e-mails advertising shares, sex drugs etc inappropriate.

CodenameThrow makes an excellent point though - should we actually embrace the inserts if they lead to fewer ads in the mag? I would actually have to say yes, but only under certain conditions: if the number of ads DID decrease (doesn't appear to have done so in this issue), that the pages were freed up for fortean articles (again, no evidence it has), and finally that the adverts bear some relevance to the readership and the subject matter. We're not a magazine about sex and relationships - so there is no legitimate expectation that sex toys and drugs to help with sexual dysfunctions would be advertised.

I know in my mind the point I'm trying to make, but I arrived home tonight to find that my house has been flooded and I've had a big glass of wine to get over it, so I'm not at my most coherent!

 

[James_H]

I gather that FT is not exactly a mag the advertisers are fighting for space in, so they have to take what they get.

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

...

As amusingly worded as it was, I did not expect this sort of product advertisment in FT, nor was it particularly welcome when it fluttered out of the magazine as I opened it at work.

...

This is the Fortean Times, we're talking about? The only non-porn, non-excessive violence, mag, with dodgier adds, that i know of, is Private Eye.

Dodgy adds for dodgy T-shirts, dodgy videos, dodgy books, dodgy 'legal highs', dodgy drugs paraphanelia, dodgy realistic replicas, dodgy edged weapons, dodgy 'personal massagers' and dodgy 'fisherman's friends'.

All, dead dodgy. It's virtually a hallmark.

 

[Heckler]

This is the Fortean Times, we're talking about? The only non-porn, non-excessive violence, mag, with dodgier adds, that i know of, is Private Eye.

I am going to rush out and buy a number of Porn and excessive violence magazines and test your claim.

Purely for research you understand.

 

[mrpoultice]

Heckler20 wrote:

I am going to rush out and buy a number of Porn and excessive violence magazines and test your claim.

Any excuse eh

 

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Heckler20 wrote:

I am going to rush out and buy a number of Porn and excessive violence magazines and test your claim.

Any excuse eh

Note how the word 'Porn' gets capitalized...

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

I gather that FT is not exactly a mag the advertisers are fighting for space in, so they have to take what they get.

I also suspect that a lot of things we have expressed an intrest in (I do hope everyone has filled out the surveys) don't have great profit margins so only the most niche books would advertise. Meanwhile DVDs, knob stretchers, bongs, T shirts, etc. are worth advertising heavily (even when the returns might not be too high) as they have a better markup.

 

[escargot]

I want a raging soft drug habit, that leaves me too “tired” to wing my samurai sword around, so I can slob about my foetid poster covered room under to the glare of UV growing lights wearing a t shirt with a crap slogan on it worrying about the size of my “love pump”.

Mother!

 

[Daftbugger1]

Oddly, most of the people I know that read FT are women - not much use to use! I mostly shake the magazine over a bin before I read it any how.

 

[escargot]

A needy subscriber could always roll up the leaflet and use it as a splint.

 

[Bilderberger]

This is the Fortean Times, we're talking about? The only non-porn, non-excessive violence, mag, with dodgier adds, that i know of, is Private Eye.

I subscribe to two magazines - FT and Private Eye. I am immune to the impact of dodgy ads. In fairness to Private Eye though - the dodginess is in a seperate section at the back - the only inserts are for worthy charities (e.g. Amnesty International, Medicine sans Frontiere (spelling?)), cars and other non-dodgy magazines/journals. But the thing to remember is that Private Eye has a bi-weekly circulation of 200,000 and appeals to social classes A and B with decent salaries (yes, there will be exceptions to this - but nevertheless, this is the main profile). Such people are prime targets for advertising. Private Eye doesn't need to insert ads for penis enlargers. FT circulates 25,000 per month - has no real pattern to social class of readership and must live on the edge of finanical security.

Anyway, I found the whole thing hilarious - claims of increasing "thrusting power" as though this was a medical term had me nearly wetting myself. Now, all I need is an advert for adult nappies...perhaps next month?

I am surprised that no one has linked the presence of a naked woman on the front cover with the inclusion of the penis enlarger insert ad. You never know - the odd member of the dirty mac brigade may have purchased the mag by mistake - a nice bit of reader profiling!?

 

[ArthurASCII]

I love dodgy Ads.

They are a testament to the wild, wacky and diverse universe of Fortean fun.

Bring 'em on - especially if they keep the cost of FT down.

Plus, they've helped me to cure my premature baldness (fuzzy felt paint spray), provided me with all the home-grown ganga I can smoke and allowed me to sport the flimsiest of speedo swimming shorts without recourse to lengths of rubber hose.

 

[escargot]

Does anyone REALLY believe that men can be induced to buy a magazine just because it has a naked woman on the cover?



Oh, right.

 

[Stormkhan]

It must be remembered that unrequested leaflets in magazines were the spam of the pre-internet days.
While I just bin all the rubbish that gets enclosed with my beloved FT, I think it's an immense waste of paper, ink etc.
It must be noted that I'm so virtuous, by 'binning' the leaflets I mean I bung them into recycling.

 

[oll_lewis]

The trouble is I'm sure a lot of fortean groups and publishers would love to advertise in FT but it prices itself out of that market as it's readership is a lot larger than that of the books and societies that might want to advertise. therefore it ends up that mostly only nonfortean things can afford to advertise out of the classified section. A casualty of it's own success.

However I propose a partial solution. If every reader of FT would like to buy 2 or more subscriptions to the CFZ's animals and men each then we promise that in that instance we would buy a half page advert in ft, thus leaving less space for adverts of shirts with slogans lifted from JJ Alan and the Murder Junkies songs. Everyone would be a winner.

 

[_Lizard23_]

If every reader of FT would like to buy 2 or more subscriptions to the CFZ's animals and men each

then shurely it would have twice the circulation of FT and would therefore presumably become

A casualty of it's own success

too?

 

[henry]

A needy subscriber could always roll up the leaflet and use it as a splint.

Just making sure no one misses this priceless comment.

 

[escargot]

Most kind, Sir!