I could tell by the double ring of the phone that someone from off campus was calling me. Typically that means a vendor or a magazine rep. It was the latter, calling from a magazine I thought I had already canceled. After several years in the computer industry, I've collected several complementary subscriptions to trade journals, but I've found that I get too many to keep up with, and some are of more value than others. This particular magazine I thought I'd let lapse because it was one that I really didn't see much use in it. I usually like to curtail the call center people before they get into their spiel, so I interrupted the woman after she identified herself, and told her that I wasn't interested in receiving the magazine. Usually, that gets one of two reactions; either the caller will thank me and hang up, or they will go off on some extra text designed to make me feel privileged to receive their magazine. The woman shifted to her prepared text, but this time instead of telling me how great their publication is, she began talking about the troubling economy, and how by simply taking their magazine for free, I can help keep their subscription numbers up and keep their magazine in circulation.
I was a little stunned and surprised. I ended up accepting the complementary subscription, and indicated that I'd take distribution electronically. I think I already have email rules in place to dump the magazine into an archive folder, and I'll probably never even look at a single issue of the magazine, but I'm a sucker for doing things for the economy. Call me a softie, call me a dupe, I guess I'm an easy mark. I wonder if I'll be hearing this approach from other magazines in the future.
