The Price of Becoming a Millionaire Is Too High
While it hasn’t been easy, I’ve always tried to be open-minded and receptive to the approaches of others, to avoid reflexive defensiveness or the view that most people can’t be trusted, that civilization is going down the toilet.
Still, it’s difficult to keep from regressing into deep cynicism whenever I am accosted by that pervasive modern irritant, direct-mail advertising. Try as I might, I can’t help feeling hostile toward an industry that works so hard to mislead me.
Case in point: An envelope that arrived a few weeks ago informing me that I had won TEN MILLION DOLLARS!
Well, no, I hadn’t really won such a princely sum. In fact, I hadn’t won anything. It’s just that the envelope and its contents strongly suggested that I could win, that I had been selected as a Contender from a very large number of candidates, and I was now in the Final Round. That’s what it said on my Official Entry Document: “ONLY CONTENDERS MAY WIN TEN MILLION DOLLARS.”
A more careful reading confirmed my immediate suspicions: the package was about me spending money, not receiving it.
Not that you could tell from all the fake-outs and fudges blaring from the dozen pieces of paper contained inside, such as “Congratulations” or “Mark January 29th on your calendar! That’s the day your life will change. . . . “
How terrific, receiving a letter that promises to change your life. A wonderful thought, approaching the next millennium.
Religious zealots may fear the imminent End of the World. But direct mailers declare that a bright future awaits, if only I will take the time to follow their instructions and allow them the opportunity to give me money--tons of money--TEN MILLION DOLLARS.
What’s more, they want to immortalize the event by televising it live today, after Super Bowl XXIX. They’ve even enclosed a convenient release form for me to sign so they may use my name and face in their TV extravaganza--just in case I win.
A dream come true. Imagine receiving TEN MILLION DOLLARS in front of the whole nation, including every seller of insurance and investments, as well as charitable institutions and charlatans of all stripes.
Except that I didn’t return my entry form. I didn’t remove my special number, lifting it from one computer-coded piece of paper and attaching it to another, per instructions. I also didn’t select my favorite color for the Jaguar XJS convertible consolation prize, or paste the color stamp in the designated space. I didn’t even enter the scratch-off “instant winner” contest, although my curious scratching revealed that I had “won” $50.
According to the fine print, I only get to collect my prize if I’m one of the first 50 respondents in my state. Sure.
I resisted the whole pitch, and therefore I’m out of the running. I ignored the word PRIORITY printed on both sides of the envelope in large blue letters. Instead, I obeyed my own law of mail, cultivated through long and painful experience: The more words on the envelope, the more suspect the contents.
I disobeyed all the directions and orders--”lift here” and “peel this off” and “place sticker here.” A friend of mine who’s involved in direct mail says this kind of stuff is very effective in luring customers. It actually makes them feel like they have some control in the situation. Pardon me? You’re directing me to do silly things and as a result I’m supposed to feel in control? But he insists it works.
It must. Otherwise respectable institutions stoop to these tactics all the time. When public TV or radio stations solicit funds these days--which is bound to be more frequent, if the Newt Congress has its way--they often try to lure you with their own versions of sweepstakes and giveaways.
I view all this with equal parts bemusement and annoyance. I admire their sense of whimsy, as these folks strive to paint fantasies in my head: dream homes, perpetual income, freedom to pursue my artistic proclivities, etc.
But taken at their most basic, these packages represent acts of predation. They’re faint echoes of a drama that has taken place countless times throughout the history of the planet. Instead of fang and claw pursuing antler and hoof, it’s now the obfuscator pursuing the contents of the addressee’s wallet.
Advertising at the end of the 20th Century is a festering sewer of deception, whose limits are defined not by honor or morality, but by legal judgments and ad copy writers’ imaginations. Test pilots may “push the envelope,” gingerly stretching the limits of aviation technology. In advertising, the challenge is to see how far the truth can be bent without breaking.
It’s improper, unsavory and downright dishonest. But it’s everywhere because it works. Sooner or later, we all fall for it. We end up peeling and lifting, carefully and exactly according to instructions, because we don’t want to do anything that might endanger our chances of winning.
And of course, we do order at least one subscription, because we fear if we don’t our entry won’t be placed in the right pile. We may start out intending not to buy anything. But we inevitably hesitate when we see that prominent empty space on the entry envelope, the space that signifies whether an order has been placed.
That’s what this whole routine is always about--placing an order and spending money.
We know this, and yet we still do it because we succumb to that old rationalization: Somebody’s Got to Win. We forget or ignore the reality: Everybody Else Pays.
What a gullible bunch of characters we are. At least, that’s what these people must believe. Why else would the Publishers Clearinghouse package contain an “Urgent Mailing Status Update,” warning that I may be dropped from their list if I don’t order something this time?
Are they kidding? They’re threatening to stop mailing junk to me? And they want me to feel bad about it? They must, because that’s what the warning says: “It’s not that we don’t want to keep you as a friend. . . .”
Sometimes I wonder what George Orwell would think of all this. He might be amazed at how accurate his imaginings were, some 45 years ago, when he wrote “1984.” We truly live in the age of Doublespeak. It can be observed hundreds of times a day. This sweepstakes thing is merely one manifestation. Hey, we’re not in the business of selling magazines. We give away money! We’re the people with the Prize Patrol and the blimp. Miracles can happen!
Forget the truth. The truth is no fun. It’s dull and, most important, unprofitable.
Can you picture modern life if all advertisers told the simple truth?
“Publishers Clearinghouse calling. We have some good discount deals on subscriptions. Save a few bucks here and there. How about buying a few? No, thanks? OK, try you later.”
It’s too much to hope for, as is the fantasy that they stop these solicitations entirely. No more grossly expensive efforts by highly-paid souls, based on calculations that produce profits even if up to 99% of us throw the stuff immediately into the wastebasket.
Imagine. Mail consisting of only personal letters and bills, and magazines and merchandise that are expected and wanted.
Talk about a dream come true.
