Wednesday, September 18, 2013
I dread Saturday mornings. I bet you have never heard a teenager say that before. However, I realized the reason I hate Saturday mornings is directly related to advertisements. As I mentioned before, I deliver newspapers to Marina Bay every Sunday but my job is more than just dropping a newspaper on a front door step. It is the process of getting the paper ready that directly relates to the exorbitant amount of advertisements in our world. Every Saturday morning around 8 a.m. my dad brings in the bundles of "colors" as we call it. The colors are the advertisements in the bundle that we put in the newspapers. We usually have about 30 bundles of advertisements. So anyways, I sit down on the hard floor of my hallway and open up each of these bundles. I sort through them individually making sure none are sticking out or are messy. There are about 40 advertisements in one newspaper. Just one. The advertisements range from Bob's to Kohl's to even Chipotle. Who knew Chipotle could appeal to someone on a Sunday morning. My deep hatred for these advertisements grew as I realized that no one has the time to read through all these. No one cares that Ford has been having their Labor Day sale for two weeks now. It baffles me when I feel how heavy these fliers make the paper. It is as if all the advertisers in this one paper are counting on me to deliver their product to the people of Marina Bay. I am in a sense their mule. When I first started this job, there were never as many advertisements as there are now. Maybe advertisers have become desperate to spread their products and hold the minds of the buyers. I did the math and each Sunday I distribute 3,600 advertisements. Probably only a quarter of those are read. Sometimes I think it is so pointless to have this amount of fliers in a paper that I take some out (don't tell my boss). I am standing up against the constant bombarding of useless items and scams. But then again I'm not. I am the one delivering the 3,600 advertisements to the citizens of Quincy. So, as I get ready for another Saturday morning, my animosity grows more and more yet I sit down on my hard, cold floor and open the next bundle.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Katrina, this is a really good post. You have a compelling personal story through which we can explore the ubiquity of ads in our lives. I love the metaphor about the "mule." I also love the image of the ads being stuffed inside the news. In your case, the news is literally the means of delivering the ads to the consumers. The news is actually the packaging - like wrapping paper - in which the ads come, like a gift.
ReplyDeleteMy only real complaint about your post is that many of the numbers you use feel like estimates, and therefore less compelling. You write that you are delivering more ads now than you used to. It would have been nice if you could have quantified this. You write really well, and I enjoyed reading this. I just feel like you are being loose with the numbers.