Try This. It’s Really Good.
About a week after the new year, I received a letter in the mail with no return address. It was in a normal white business envelope, and my address looked like it was typed. I was suspicious of the letter, as it didn’t look like junk mail, but it didn’t look right. I opened it, and inside was a a business article that had been ripped from a magazine with a sticky note that said, “Adam, Try this. It’s really good! -L.” (Or what looked like an “L”.)
I immediately thought of my grandmother. My mom’s mom will sporadically send me newspaper clippings when something she reads reminds her of me. When I get the clipping, it will always have some sort of note attached with a short anecdote or news update from her world. She sent me a postcard of a summertime Grand Haven beach last winter. As usual it was brief, thanking me for my Christmas gift certificate to the local taxi service.
Dear Adam,
Thanks again - I’m really enjoying Red’s Taxi. Driver escorts me to the door - wherever. Saves me digging out my car everyday.
Time to get out your skis!!
Love Ya, Gran
Grandma gets to the point quickly, then heads right off it. I never got my skis out.
Nonetheless, I scanned the clipping and was baffled. I could only associate this behavior with a family member like Grandma, and she didn’t live in California. Did Grandma have a ghost writer? I didn’t know, and after scanning the title, “Don’t Just Survive — Thrive!,” I didn’t have the time to think about it. If this was someone’s idea of self help for the new workers of the world, I wasn’t ready to read. So I put the clipping back into its envelope and set it aside, where it sat for the next 8 months.
I was going through the stack of papers that had accumulated on top of my filing cabinet today. I shuffled and piled them on my floor and bed so that I had to hop my way in and out of the bedroom. When all the bills, paychecks, statements, and letters had been filed away, I had one lone pile left. On my bed sat my New Year’s resolution list and the mystery letter. I read my resolutions, went to the kitchen, took my multivitamin and came back to read the article again.
The more I read, the less I knew where it was going. The first few paragraphs started by talking about how many business executives have found ways to manage their time and resources so that they have time for their families and friends, but by the second page, it was using terms like “I-power” and “leveraging” without explaining them. Then I looked at the top of the page and printed in the center was the word “A D V E R T I S E M E N T.” Turning the page over, I noticed a cut-out order form for a subscription to The Organized Executive newsletter… Sherlock Holmes, I am surely not.
“Try this” on the sticky note was not referring to the article but to the magazine subscription. Upon closer inspection of the envelope, I realized that the address was not typed-out but rather printed by a computer. I should have paid closer attention the first time I looked at the letter, but then again, getting a letter without a return address seemed to hold more weight than the actual content of the article inside. It seemed too real to come from someone other than a friend or relative, so I set it aside to sort out later. I had been had.
This is what I would call an act of guerrilla advertising, when an advertiser/company poses as a personal entity giving advice through whichever personal medium. I’ve never been approached by an advertiser like this, but in its originality (or my perceived originality) it drew me in, making me question what I would have normally just thrown away. The article was torn from a magazine. The sticky note was written with a pen and attached to the article. The envelope was a generic white envelope you could buy at any office supply store. All in all, pretty tricky.
Please, if I haven’t been “had,” could the appropriate friend or relative contact me regarding your letter and tell me why I should get a subscription to The Organized Executive.