My mail goes through a slot next to the front door, so most days it is laying on the floor when I come home. Today there was one of those large "Inter-Office" envelopes laying there, with a crossed out list of names face up (see pic at left). Weird, I thought. When I picked it up I realized it was a subscription offer from The Economist and the office memo thing was just a cute act to make a point. Here were the names that were already crossed off of the envelope:
- Richard Branson
- Ben Bernanke
- George Bush
- Nelson Mandela
- Tony Blair
- Stephen Harper
- Larry Ellison
- Bill Gates
Ok I get it… successful people read your magazine. I'm not going to subscribe, but they definitely caught my attention. That's rare in a world where I'm bombarded with so many advertising messages I 've tuned out 90% of what comes at me.
Of course, it may all be a spurious correlation – I think they’re trying to imprint the belief that these people are successful because they read the Economist.
Of course, I absolutely love the magazine, and have been a subscriber for years now. I’ve found reading weekly magazines is a much better way of reducing the amount of noise you get from the “must-know-it-now” internet/daily news. With time comes perspective.
Rob,
You beat me to it! I got one of those solicitations too, and it was definitely attention-grabbing.
a related post about The Economist;
http://truckandbarter.com/mt/archives/2006/05/iraqs_trade_uni.html