The spring 2006 White Flower Farm catalog's frontpiece "Notes from the Farm" contains a bit of self-flagellation from Amos Pettingill. It's worth quoting.
"In recent years, we've slipped into the invidious practice of sending multiple issues of our catalogues to each customer. It was supposed to be a convenience for you and a marketing tool for us. In our recent E-mail survey, we received a loud, clear message that the practice is wasteful and irritating, and we are mending our ways."
Further down, Pettingill writes "We are reducing prices on several dozen varieties of perennials…we are simply sharing with you the savings we will realize by sending out fewer catalogues each year…."
These sentiments have more in common with what is often used to fertilize flowers than the flowers themselves. It's hard to believe the marketers at White Flower Farm were sending multiple copies of the catalog, unbidden, in hopes altruistic horticulturalists would pass them along.
Why does this ring false? Because if the e-mail survey's respondents were complaining about the extra copies, the intended goal of having them pass along the duplicates was apparently not made clear to them. Mind, this goal would have been resoundingly clear if White Flower Farm had offered a premium of some sort for passing along the catalogs. In light of this, Pettingill's claim strikes me as a bit of revisionism.
The claim is also unfortunate, given that the gardening enthusiast who tipped me off to Pettingill's message received two copies of the spring 2006 catalog. So much for those savings.
One can understand how Amos might be a tad confused: The two 148-page catalogs are superficially different, at least as far as their covers are concerned. One features a photo of pretty yellow Hemerocallis "Apricot Sparkles" daylilies, while the other features a shot of pretty yellow Harvest Moon Echinacea. The cover copy varies slightly.
Other than that, the two catalogs are the same. Same copy. Same mea culpa. Same content. Same spring 2006 cover date. Same customer number printed on the order form in the middle of the book, which you figure might have tipped somebody off. The only thing that was different was a source code. (And that raises another question: Two source codes? These catalogs were mailed to a long-time customer. A very bemused long-time customer.)
So don't look for Amos Pettingill to be elevated to the Direct Marketing Association's Hall of Fame anytime soon. But not for any of these offenses: The DMA doesn't usually induct fictitious folk, and "Amos Pettingill," whose notes have graced the inside of the White Flower Farm catalogs for more than 50 years, was the creation of husband-and-wife founders William Harris and Jane Grant. They've both gone to the great hothouse in the sky, while the character lives on.
Can't say I blame current management for continuing the tradition: If I had tempted the gods with a note apologizing for sending multiple copies, and then sent out a mailing without an extremely careful deduping process, as they apparently did, I'd want to use a pseudonym, too.
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