APS Direct Marketing Crap

Something really annoyed me yesterday. Imagine that. When I opened a "newsletter" from the Atlanta Public School system (APS) branded APS Family Matters, out fell a shower of direct marketing pieces of paper trash!

I HATE being direct marketed to with crap I don't want or need. It's a waste of everyone's time and effort, except for the company getting a check from someone to WASTE our time with commercial promotional crap stuffed into envelopes supposedly containing information about our public school system and our children's education.

Here's a list of what fell out of the "newletter" yesterday. Flyers for:
1.) Vonage
2.) Snapfish
3.) Pepboys (do they even teach shop anymore in public schools? Always wanted to take shop.)
4.) http://www.ordermydish.com/ (dish tv broker thingee)
5.) ADT Security Systems
6.) Proactiv Solutions (acne treatments, but they can't even spell!)
7.) Tutor.com (APS kids might actually need this service.)

Also hiding in this entire envelope of commerical crap flyers was the itty bitty APS 4-page newsletter, with the alleged main meat of the newletter being a flimsy, seven graph "Letter from Dr. Hall" (APS Superintendent). Heck, I crank out 7-graphs of total yaya every morning here before 8am! I sure don't waste money mailing it, either.

The entire dubious content of the envelope was "brought to you by 1st Hour Communications, LLC."

I think I'm going to pay an e-visit to the 1st Hour Communications site, and have a talk with their President and COO, Scott Keller... and also call-up the APS communications office this morning. Jeez.

FOLLOW-UP: I had a very nice chat with Teretta Scope, head of Communications for APS about this issue. I asked why they felt the need to send flyers for junk around to APS households when anyone can send out an (Internet) newletter nowadays for virtually nothing.

Ms. Scope patiently explained to me that a lot of APS households don't have or use computers, meaning they are too low income to have computers I must assume.

So APS does business with these direct marketing companies, gives them our APS household mailing lists and data, in exchange for flimsy "newletters?" Allowing a company out of Colorado to pump promotional literature for a bunch of commercial crap we don't need into low income families' homes? Flyers for stuff we don't need to spend supposed non-existent disposable income on in the first place if those without computers are so darn needy and poor that they don't have computers in the home!?

Go figure the logic of that...

I say... no matter what the income level of an APS household, virtually ALL of 'em have at least one cell phone. APS: send your communications through the darn phones!

Of course someone will just clean up pumping dubious "newsletters" through cell phones at some point, when APS might could just figure out how to "communicate" with all their households without using these outside direct mail companies to do so.

As if any low income family here in the APS will ever benefit from the profits made by these marketing companies' public school system scamming techniques anyway. At least an Atlanta-based direct marketing company might have some incentive to give back to our always-desperate school system at some point in the game.


But a company out of Colorado? What's in it for them, other than APS just handing over our household data in exchange for a silly, glossy four page "newletter?"

It's a simple piece of paper you can just put in every child's backpack!!!

Or just start a blog. Jeez...