Junk mail has earned a reputation of being inescapable. Sort of like death and taxes.
For millions of ”Occupants,” ”Residents” and people who ”may already be a winner,” it`s an unwelcome intrusion into the home.
For the U.S. Postal Service, it`s big business, although for many letter carriers, it`s about as popular as a pit bull.
For Warren Meyer, third-class or bulk mail, as the stuff is officially known, is art.
Meyer, owner of a Los Angeles bulk-mail distribution company, plans to open a junk-mail museum. And he should know the good junk from the bad:
Meyer`s mailing house is among the largest in the U.S., sending out about 750,000 pieces of the unsolicited stuff each week.
”We want to get the new stuff, the old stuff, the Ed McMahon stuff and the Clearing House stuff,” Meyer said. ”We`re kind of in the infant stage right now.”
For the past month, Meyer has been placing advertisements, asking people to send him their unwanted junk mail. He said he has collected about 100 interesting samples. He`s shooting for about 1,500 pieces for the museum, which he plans to open in Hollywood.
”I was just sitting around one night talking with a friend, and we just got real creative,” said Meyer, who jokingly talked of including an Ed McMahon wing in the museum. ”One piece I came across triggered the idea.”
Bulk mail, Meyer said, has been given a bad rap. And the public is full of misconceptions about its worth.
”If you didn`t have bulk mail, you know what the cost of postage stamp would be?” Meyer said. ”About 80 cents.”
That`s not too far-fetched a figure, according to Larry Dozier, a Postal Service spokesman in Los Angeles. Third-class mail, offered at a discounted rate to bulk mailers, earned the Postal Service $8.2 billion in 1989, more than 20 percent of its total income.
About 63 billion pieces of bulk mail were delivered in the U.S. last year.
”Because bulk mail is so widely used, it generates so much revenue,”
Dozier said. ”Without it, there would be an increase in stamps.”
So why do so many people hate to receive it?
”They don`t,” Dozier said. ”There`s a very small amount of people who don`t like it. Most people want to get the stuff. For some people, it`s the only mail they get, and they look forward to it. The complainers are just more verbal than people who are happy about it.”
Meyer agrees.
”If it didn`t work, people wouldn`t be mailing it,” he said. ”Not everyone just throws it away. And bulk mail is the best buy for your advertising money.”
Junk-mail volume has been increasing since the inception of the Postal Service in 1775.
Meyer said he is searching for mailed advertisements of traveling circuses, which used bulk-mailing extensively as advertising in the early 1900s. He is interested in any ancient piece.
The oldest pieces in Meyer`s collection are advertisements for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. He has another oversized postcard advertising Gruen wristwatches with a reprinted advertisement taken from a 1950 edition of Look magazine.
”We got a call from a guy in Washington, D.C., who said his dad invented the ZIP code,” Meyer said. ”He`s going to send us some stuff.”
For those who want nothing to do with junk mail, there is a way to stop it. Most deliveries, Dozier said, can be prevented by writing the Direct Marketing Association Inc., 11 W. 42nd St., New York, N.Y. 10036-8096.
”Many of the bulk mailers are part of this organization,” Dozier said.
”Your name will be purged from their lists. The ones that slip through the cracks are independent firms or any individual mailer who sends out advertising mail.
”That will stop a lot of it, but not all of it.”
If that doesn`t work, you can always mail your junk mail to Meyer-first class.
