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#490657 - 01/30/06 10:57 PM Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
Darkhorse Offline
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Darkhorse
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Has anyone had a customer who wanted to put their advertisment (glossy flyer) in your statements? I think this could be a slippery slope issue, but hey, I'm the compliance girl. I looked at Reg DD, but didn't see anything there. If anyone has addressed this issue before, I'd be grateful for their insight. Thanks in advance!
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#490658 - 01/30/06 10:59 PM Re: Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
CubDave Offline
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I just flat out say "no"! I just tell them we have a policy forbidding it because we would have to then allow any and all of our business customers to have that right, and that is not gonna happen!

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#490659 - 01/31/06 04:54 AM Re: Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
Darkhorse Offline
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Darkhorse
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Yeah, that's what I was thinking too - also possibly we could be creating some sort of endorsement of the products/services advertised when we have no control over the product. However, my marketing folks are looking for something in writing that prohibits the practice. Some sort of solicitation (sp?) or something?
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#490660 - 01/31/06 01:38 PM Re: Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
Andy_Z Offline
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We offered pizza coupons in our statements a few times. The company was a customer. We never had any problems. They paid for the ad, we made a buck and the customer got a better deal.

Reputation risk and co-branding could have been an issue, but that never materialized.
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#490661 - 01/31/06 03:09 PM Re: Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
CubDave Offline
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The problem becomes this Andy - what happens when your other Pizza businesses want to do the same, and then the other industries want a piece of the pie (no pun intended). Soon, you would have to stuff your envelopes with potentially tons of crap - even though some like getting coupons, some will find it annoying and postage costs could rise.

I know this is not an earth shatttering problem, but it opens up a potential headache. I have addressed this by asking my business department to investigate creating a value added option for their customers by which they would create an insert with a variety of offers from our business customers, as an ongoing effort, something which could also be translated to our web site. They have not gone forward with anything to date, but that is the option I left them with.

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#490662 - 01/31/06 10:45 PM Re: Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
Darkhorse Offline
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Darkhorse
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Posts: 501
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Well, they did offer to pay for a portion of the postage - but I'm not really sure how to determine how big a difference their stuffer would make.

Dave, that is an excellent idea - send it back to marketing

Thanks guys!
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#490663 - 01/31/06 11:58 PM Re: Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
Andy_Z Offline
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We didn't have others request it. But you can price it to the point of an obvious good deal for you.
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R+R-R=R+R
Rules and Regs minus Relationships equals Resentment and Rebellion. John Maxwell

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#490664 - 02/01/06 05:40 AM Re: Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
rainman Offline
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Not to hijack the thread, but do you realize that in the main index, in the "last post" column for this thread, the "re" line appears (at least on my computer) as "Customers' glossy as s"?

That would be a different marketing problem.

In all seriousness, though, depending on who your regulator is, there might be a regulation that prohibits endorsements of products. I've known of at least one state regulator with such a prohibition.
Last edited by rainman; 02/01/06 05:41 AM.
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#490665 - 02/02/06 09:38 PM Re: Customers' glossy as statement stuffer?
Darkhorse Offline
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Thanks Rainman - I SOOOOO needed a laugh right now!
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