Marketing and all things related

Marketing Blurb subscribes to umpteen magazines—which is probably too many. But we love thumbing through the new ones that arrive every day, making a quick mental note of what we intend to read in detail later that night—or more realistically--later in the week. But like all magazine readers, we are annoyed by those pesky subscription cards which tumble out of the magazines onto the floor. Sensing our frustration, Philips Electronics has decided to pull another one of their clever “make life easier” campaigns by paying $ 2 million to eliminate all the blow-in subscriptions cards from the September issues of Redbook, O At Home, Weekend and House Beautiful. The cards will be replaced by a two-page Philips advertisement with the tag line "Simplicity is not having subscription cards fall out of your magazine." The move is not without controversy. If you must know, these blow-in subscription cards are responsible for about 12% of new subscribers (down from 20% in pre-web days.) We learned about this clever Philips ploy from The Wall Street Journal (paid subscription required.)