I came home the other day to find a brightly colored yellow flyer taped to my front door. When you see such a thing the first thought that pops into your head is that perhaps it’s some kind of public service announcement “Gas leak, do not enter” or “Will be turning off the water at such and such a time – be advised …” But on this occasion is was none of the above – it turned out to be a shameless promotion for “Hazardous Tree Removals and Stump Grinding”! A nice man, Mr Christian Ray, informed me that he was in the area removing “Hazardous Trees” whatever the hell they are, and for a fee would grind the stump of those “Dangerous Trees” too. While I can vouch for the dangerousness of trees, they are heavy wooden objects that protrude upwards out of the earth, I despise this type of gorilla marketing!
Second Transgressor
Next in the hall of shame we have a Mr Brian Sherwin of Boulder Creative Housing. Now Mr Sherwin also took a liking to my front door and took it upon himself to attach a nice flyer of a lovely couple who are looking for a house in my neighborhood. Now I’ve got nothing against the couple, they look nice (baby too) but Mr Sherwin please don’t tape shite to my front door! If the couple were camped out in front of my house, wielding signs of protest demanding me to sell the house then perhaps it would be Ok but I get the sneaking suspicion that you attached this notice to every house in my neighborhood Mr Sherwin and perhaps even every front door in the whole of Boulder county if not the entire United States!
Who is permitted to tape shite to my front door?
The following people and ONLY THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE are hereby granted permission to tape stuff to my front door:
- Emergency personnel informing me of an impending outbreak of Botchulism or any warnings of possible perilous pandemics
- A girlfriend who wishes to break up with me
- Friendly neighbors who wish to say hi
- Law enforcement personnel (they have permission to use crime scene tape too)
- Bailiffs and Sheriffs (note to Sherrifs: please don’t let horses poo on front lawn)
Summary
On further research it seems that it’s illegal to put a flyer in a persons mail box so perhaps this is some type of loophole in the law these people have found. If Tree Cutters and Real Estate Agents can tape flyers to our front doors what next? Will I come home one day and see an ad for that purple pill or hemorrhoid cream?
Come on people, is this really a cost effective way to advertise? How may people have you pissed off? How many people are going to read this article and not use your
business. Whatever happened to word of mouth marketing. We’re all bombarded with junk mail so I assume you think you can side-step me throwing your flyer away by taping it to the front door of my house. Stop being lazy! Do some research on Google Adwords or read a book or two on marketing and stop taping shite to my front door will you 🙂
Feel free to send me more entries for the wall of shame. I will try to contact the companies I have featured and get their side of the story as well as leave the comments open below just take make it a level playing field.