If You Don’t Buy This Newspaper, We’ll Kill This Woman
The dismal Philadelphia Inquirer, ranking a lowly #19 in national circulation despite being in the 5th-largest readership market in the nation, has hit a new advertising depth. In a spam email received twice by me in as many weeks, the Inky appears to be taking their marketing cues from the January 1973 edition of National Lampoon [larger image], whose writers and editors considered the dead dog thing to be a joke. Philadelphia’s Knight-Ridder fast-food style news franchise, however, has upped the stakes to human women, substituting cancer for the bullet.
If the Knight-Ridder Corporation wished, it could easily donate large sums of money to fighting breast cancer independently of boosted subscriptions. It could also donate advertising space to the appropriate non-profits. It could, better yet, take a strong line against environmental pollutants, their producers, defenders and elected recipients of campaign cash from same. They could kick a little cash into investigative reporting on these issues instead of regurgitating press releases of the powerful and cutting city coverage in favor of expanded wine columns and suburban high school sports coverage. (This could have the added benefit of raising their subscription numbers organically.)
It never ceases to amaze me that corporate America doesn’t only not get criticized for these self-promotional stunts, but actually earns accoaldes for them. Private Americans, overburdened on the whole with low wages, regressive taxation schemes (lobbied for by corporations no less), lack of access to basic services such as health care, and so forth, routinely out-give the corporations as both a percentage of their income and in raw numbers when compiled. This is true even in our era of record-low taxation for corporations; many of them receive rebates, even as social services go begging.
Can you imagine this sort of emotional blackmail attached to individual relationships, to the credit of the manipulator? Let’s eavesdrop on Bob and Mary at the end of their third date:
Bob: "Here we are, your place."
Mary: "I had a lovely evening."
Smooch!
Mary:"Well, I should get going now…"
Bob: "Wait, Mary - I have a proposal. I know you care about your community, and you should hear me out."
Mary: "What is it, Bob? I try to be a good citizen, you know that."
Bob: " I do, cutie. And that’s why I think I have a package here that could work for everyone. For a limited time, I’m offering a donation of $100 to the Susan G. Koman Breast Cancer Foundation if you give me head. Think it over, but I encourage you to act quickly, because this offer won’t last forever."
Mary: "Well, breast cancer is an issue we all should be concerned with… and the fact of the matter is I was considering going down on you at some point in the future anyway. … OK, then, park the car and come on in!"
Bob: "Thanks, Mary, you’re doing a good thing!"
Mary: "Well, Bob, I mean, if I’m going to be doing this sort of thing sometimes anyway, it makes me feel better about blowing a guy who cares enough about the community to make his support for non-profits conditional upon my choice of giving him what he wants!"
You can, instead, give money directly to the foundation by following this link.
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A sample of their guilt-based marketing approach, decorated in the original with mandatory pink ribbons:
"The fight against breast cancer is fueled with money. And now, you can help the fight while enjoying something so many people enjoy…The Inquirer.
The Inquirer has partnered with the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Philadelphia Affiliate in the Subscribe to Save Lives program. Now, when you subscribe to The Inquirer, $10 will go to the battle against breast cancer.
LIMITED TIME OFFER. ORDER TODAY!"
May 2nd, 2005 at 8:56 am
OK, this is funny and all. But I see no need to knock this sort of promotion if it actually gets money into the orgs coffers that wouldn’t be there otherwise. The relationship between coms and orgs is a strange one, but I know if they did a similar promotion with the Learning Lab, I’d be pretty pumped. We non-profits need cash to operate. More people reading newspapers is a small tradeoff for cancer research funding. Wait, that’s not a trade off at all. What were you talking about again, chris?
May 2nd, 2005 at 10:50 am
If there were a genuine concern on the part of Knight-Ridder to aid the breast cancer fight, they would do it without tying it to newspaper subscriptions. This is an efficient way of raising ad revenue (because ad rates go up with subscription figures), but one hell of a roundabout way of getting money for research. Of course the foundation will accept this cash, because they want it. Just like PBS takes money from the oil industry, runs auto ads and signs marketing deals with toy companies. (Perhaps “S Is for Sell-Out” should be replaced with “A Sell-Out Is a Sometimes Fundraiser.”)
But is this any way to fund healthcare in America? When Knight-Ridder takes a pro-healthcare editorial line, is critical of corporate polluters (a mjor cause of the spike in cancer rates) and doesn’t break strikes of their own employees who want, among other things, healthcare coverage, I’ll take their concern seriously.
In the meantime, it’s a cynical move, by a substandard newspaper which no longer cares to serve its community, to push product. I thought of the Lampoon cover immediately.