They say everything is bigger in Texas, but there are some enterprises that just absolutely do not need to expand any larger than they are now. Advertising is one such enterprise. It’s bad enough that we can hardly engage with any aspect of the wider world without having commercials or billboards shoved down our throats, but can you imagine a world where images of products are projected into the night sky as you’re trying to appreciate the latest appearance of Orion? The buzzkill to end all buzzkills, truly.
We’re not quite there yet, thankfully, but TikTok‘s @doctor.vick may have discovered the next worst thing. It goes without saying that we cannot allow corporations to get any ideas from this, so watch with caution.
As documented in the 13-second video above, Vick was enjoying a day out on the town somewhere in Texas when he returned to a rather unsavory surprise upon his vehicle — a furniture spam flyer from Bestway tucked underneath his windshield wiper. All spam flyers are nuisances, to be sure, but not all spam flyers come bundled with the power of a thousand suns (it was 98°F in Texas that day). This one did, and this ungodly union allowed the flyer to stick to the windshield with no hope of easy removal — Vick’s attempts just made the problem worse, as you can see.
The only thing worse than spam mail is invincible spam mail, and several commenters urged Vick to haul on over to Bestway and demand removal, lest his vehicle’s remaining life be forever defined by all the decor deals that it announced to the world.
But unreasonable heat was never going to stop the ongoing advent of spam flyers, and to that point, nothing probably ever will. According to Leaflet Distribution Team, 35 of every 1000 victims recipients of spam flyers will respond to the offers contained within, with another study suggesting that 62 percent of people would be more likely to shop with a company if they received a flyer.
That, of course, sounds like complete and utter balderdash. Did the focus group specifically respond in such a way to that question, or did the study also count individuals who received a Walmart flyer in their mailbox, and then happened to make a trip to Walmart without checking their mailbox first?
After all, if Vick did take the commenters’ advice and showed up at Bestway to get this flyer removed, who’s to say that wouldn’t count as corporate-customer engagement? It’s a diabolical machine indeed, folks.