Recently, following the closure of several local newspapers in the Niagara
Region, many of you will have noticed a weekly deposit of a bundle of flyers, in a
non-biodegradable plastic bag, at the end of your driveway. Some of your
neighbours will have picked them up and perused them for deals before disposing of
the plastic and paper in the requisite blue and grey bins. And we’re talking a lot of
paper. The flyers are enclosed in a very large, blank jacket of paper that actually
announces this egregiously wasteful quality as if it should be a selling point for
potential clients. (And does so using incorrect grammar and punctuation, but I
digress …)
You’ll also have noticed that a good number of those non-biodegradable
plastic-paper bundles are now, unretrieved, polluting your neighbourhood ditches
and roadsides. (See photos.) Several large national and multi-national corporations
– the ones that used to send their flyers out in those now defunct local newspapers –
have chosen to contribute to this environmental blight. What does this say about
those businesses? Many of these very same businesses have announced in recent
months – with great fanfare – that they will no longer provide their customers with
plastic bags, in order to protect the environment. Do they believe that their customers won’t notice the mixed messages?
Where you advertise your brand is important, as it reflects on you and your values. There are many ways to advertise that are less wasteful and more environmentally conscious, both in print and online. Both print advertising and electronic advertising are going to use resources and energy. How you, as a business owner can limit how much is used is the question.
I usually don’t mention my own product in my blogs because my intent is to offer information that will help local businesses make the best choices for them. For this blog I am making an exception. I am not going to say that my magazine is best suited to all businesses. What I will say is that in my magazine I stress that we use limited copies to reduce waste and that positive message gets applied to every company who advertises with me.
One of the things the businesses that choose to advertise in Laugh About It
Magazine understand is the importance of brand association: where and how they
choose to advertise matters! Laugh About it is specifically designed to be both
accessible and eco-friendly. It is printed on high quality paper that withstands
multiple readings, and encourages, with a request on every cover, that readers leave
the magazine behind for others – a system that is working wonderfully well, and
allows thousands of potential customers to enjoy its healthy humour every month!
If you do your advertising online perhaps you should highlight that on your website and in your messaging. It is true that we use a large amount of energy online, but I would argue that it is less energy used than advertising on a bus or in a book of coupons that go out to tens of thousands of homes. Don’t get me wrong. Though most of those coupon books are thrown out, they do advertise your business and sales will be made because of them, but what message is being conveyed to the consumer? Do you want your business to be associated with wilful waste? It is a question worth asking yourself.
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