The other day, I got this envelope in the mail. It was addressed to me in actual handwriting, in a nondescript plain white standard 5×3 envelope. At first, I thought it might have been another wedding invitation, or maybe a card or something from the past, two of the only things that I could really warrant receiving mail from. There was no return address anywhere on the envelope either, so for a fleeting moment, I thought maybe it was full of anthrax or something too.
Inside the envelope was a folded piece of newspaper, and a post-it note with some fairly illegible cursive writing, signed off “-J” at the very end. I figured the newspaper must have been concealing something, acting as a wrapper for something else, maybe a card or a ticket, or something. But it turns out that there’s nothing at all. It was just a sheet of newsprint.
I took another stab at reading the post-it note, and realized it said “up to $3,500 for your trade-in!” And then I took another look at the actual newsprint itself, and it coincidentally a page for a Toyota dealership in the Atlanta area. It then dawned on me that this whole elaborate ruse was nothing but a creepily personalized advertisement, meant to fool me into thinking that an acquaintance really wants me to look at a Toyota.
- Firstly, just $3,500? My car doesn’t even have 12,000 miles on it yet, and it MSRPs at $21,000 new. I owe a significant amount way more than $3,500 left on the loan, and that’s a criminally low-balled offer.
- When I was looking for cars, I didn’t even consider a Toyota in the first place. I know too many people with Corollas already, and I’m not 16; I don’t want a Scion. So I’m a little puzzled to why this was sent to me, but I guess dealerships don’t need any reason to spam.
I examined the post-it in the light to see if I could see indentation from a pen, and sure enough, it looked legitimately hand-written. The handwriting on the envelope matched the post-it. The envelope also seemed to have a postage stamp mark from within Atlanta, and I certainly know that other than wedding/formal occasions, nobody remotely local would bother to mail me anything.
But the point remains is that a tremendous amount of effort evidently went into some sneaky form of advertisement. There’s actually someone at this dealership who’s sitting in an office with a stack of newspaper sheets, envelopes and post-it notes, hand folding, hand writing, licking and stamping hundreds of letters, and writing everything themselves so that it looks personal and authentic.
I’m a bit astonished at this idea, but the truth of the matter is that it certainly was effective at getting my attention, and getting me to open and look at everything at least once. And I’m writing about it now too, so in some capacity, I guess it really does work.
