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The Dirty Truth About Blow-ins
September 3, 2007

Chevrolet's agency wanted to make its client seem greener, and they used a natural medium for the effort--printing a 16-page insert for the Aug. 27 New Yorker. The recycled paper for the 7x7-inch square booklet contained 35% postconsumer waste paper. The French Paper Co. mill was turned by 100% hydroelectric-generated power (as it has been since 1922, notes president Jerry French). The requisite soy-based inks were used--even if the tractor was spouting sooty diesel fumes as it harvested the beans.

The piece was well-intentioned. But recycled paper and soy inks are no guarantee of a project with a low "carbon footprint," as our sustainability editor Don Carli would be quick to point out. In fact, the piece was magnastripped to a very large card, and bound around 56 pages of ROP in the stitched issue--a construction that may have been needed to balance it in the binding line. (If it were tipped in, that could have saved the mechanics of the binding and the extra paper, but perhaps the creatives wanted the booklet to flop away to reveal the related full-page ad beneath.)

The big problem with the piece is not the intention, but the copy: It's all about cars that would get great mileage, if they ever come to market. So in the meantime, suggest the concept-starved copywriters, here's how to save the planet while we wait for GM to develop batteries and a fuel-cells for these futuristic vehicles: just trash printers, converters, packagers and paper makers--get on a "do not mail" list; skip ATM receipts; share popcorn at the movies (saves 2.5 billion popcorn bags); lose your phonebook (makes up 10% of waste at dump sites, they claim). It's fine for the agency to order a print job; but don't anyone else do so.

There is one idea not suggested that printers might find equally unpalatable, and perhaps that's why I've never heard anyone suggest it--why not blow-in passalong subscription cards only in magazine copies intended for retail newstands?

Posted by Bill Esler on September 3, 2007 | Comments (0)