I fly a lot less than I used to (and I never flew that often), so I was surprised when I received this piece of mail that seemed to be about frequent flyer miles expiring. It was either open the junk mail or keep cleaning the kitchen, so clearly I had to open the junk mail right away. I was surprised to learn that the direct mail had hardly anything to do with frequent flyer miles; it was a solicitation to restart my subscription to FORTUNE.
This is how bad it’s gotten for at least one prominent print publication: It has to masquerade as something other than what it is to entice customers to open an envelope. Time Inc., the newly AOL-free owner of FORTUNE, has a history of misleading marketing offers (example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4, example 5), but this particular maneuver feels like desperation. It’s as if the marketers realize that their best chance to get readers to return to their product is to trick them. The marketing says, “Yeah, we’re doomed.”
