Politicians are ever-so-quick to demonize direct mailers in an effort to win cheap political points. But last week, Brooklyn assemblyman William Colton hit on a novel tactic: He chided his constituents for treating an issue-based mailing as “junk mail.”
The mailing was for a cause that Colton supports – he’s trying to rally opposition to a waste treatment plant within his district.
The piece in question was sent out by the New York City Department of Sanitation. It invited Brooklyn residents to an environmental informational meeting. According to Courier Life Publications, Colton is warning people in his district that the mailer “should not be treated as junk mail but as a ‘call to arms’”
As Colton told Courier Life Publications, “Unfortunately, the attractive, first class brochure can easily be mistaken for junk mail. However, it is an informative booklet formally inviting public input from the community … ”.
Wow. We’ve gone from blaming the messenger to blaming the recipient. This isn’t just spin: It’s a pinwheeling of the truth. Because Colton refuses to accept that maybe – just maybe – to the recipients of this piece, it wasn’t, in fact, a call to arms. Maybe some really did consider it “junk mail.”
It’s hard to imagine a cataloger blaming recipients of its latest book for treating the mailing as “junk mail.” If anything, the cataloger would probably take a harsh look at its marketing department. An internal head or two might roll, if the results were bad enough.
Without access to a head or two – Colton didn’t mail the piece, he just supported the cause – Colton did what, to his mind, must have been the next best thing. But he forgot that he doesn’t get to determine what is and isn’t considered “junk mail.” The recipients do. This is a lesson politicians conveniently ignore every time they exempt their own mail efforts from legislative restrictions commercial mailers have to follow.
Under the right circumstances, even a White House Christmas card can be considered “junk mail.” But legislators, freed from the restraints of commercial mailing and with other people’s money funding their efforts, live in a world without accountability for their communication.
If that isn’t a recipe for creating junk mail, I don’t know what is.
Brooklyn environmentalists who received the mailing will doubtless treat it as an important piece of informative communication. But those for whom it is an irrelevant or non-engaging piece of mail have every right to label it junk mail.
No matter what their elected officials decree.
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