The US Mint would not produce pennies on demand, so the firm turned to vendors of gum ball machines in the New York City region who, as a side venture, also cleaned the pennies they collected and resold them at a small profit to banks and businesses. The response rate to test mailings appeared promising, but as Weintz and his staff prepared to launch a national mailing, they stumbled onto the obstacle of where to get their hands on the necessary 40 million pennies. Updating a tried and true mailing that had helped launch the Reader's Digest – a letter known as ‘The Persian Poet' – Weintz created a test mailing in 1955 that included two real pennies. Some of the devices had consisted of one cent stamps or plastic coins that could be viewed through the envelope window, but Weintz decided to see what happened when he mailed real pennies rather than fakes. Beginning in the late 1940s, Weintz and others who sold through the mail began using ‘hot potato' devices in their mailings to spur recipients to take notice. In addition to the advertiser's perennial challenge of getting the attention of consumers and convincing them to take action, Weintz grappled with hurdles that those who wrote ads for goods in newspapers and magazines would have found laughable. Although the magazine had witnessed phenomenal growth in its first decades, adding more subscribers required new tools and new ideas. Searching for ways to grow the number of subscribers in 1955, Reader's Digest circulation manager Walter Weintz faced an array of peculiar challenges. The article also explores the roots of consumer concerns about privacy and the environment that have characterized responses to direct marketing in recent decades. The article draws much needed attention to the history of direct mail advertising in consumer culture and the role of database technologies in the changing relationships between firms and consumers in the late twentieth century. As firms and marketers searched for ways to segment the mass market of consumer societies in the 1960s and 1970s, direct mail proved to be an effective tool not only for selling products, but also for studying the changing interests and buying behaviors of consumers. Prior to the 1980s, direct mail and its practitioners were largely marginalized in the advertising world. The primary sources include the speeches and papers of prominent figures in direct advertising, as well as industry literature and popular media sources. Through an analysis of direct mail literature, it explores the changing ideas and technologies that transformed marketing by mail and consumer culture. This article explores the changing nature of advertising and marketing by direct mail in the postwar United States.
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