Downtempo LLC: Our Fantastic Blog

Evidently some poor soul in Intuit’s marketing department is still living in 1998, and decided to spend a chunk of their marketing budget actually sending unsolicited “upgrade” CD-ROMs in postal mail to every Quicken customer.

There are a several ironic moments here (for example, since I bought Quicken online years ago, so wouldn’t it make more sense to send me an e-mail to pitch an upgrade?), but the most tragic one is the statement on the back cover:

“As part of Intuit’s commitment to environmentally friendly practices, this is printed on paper from responsibly managed forests and verified recyclable sources.”

Wait, this is the company that was savvy enough to acquire Mint.com before Mint eclipsed Quicken? This doesn’t seem to add up. CD-ROMs were easily recyclable (it requires hauling to a specialty computer/electronics recycling center), so evidently there’s a real cultural disconnect between their M&A

The most annoying thing about getting a CD-ROM in the mail is that it’s one more piece of junk sitting and waiting to be recycled without ever being used (and I’m sure for most consumers, this will end up in their trash cans, and then off to the landfill). At least we can easily recycle the envelope, I suppose.

And for the marketing departments considering still sending out CD-ROMs in the mail in 2009, here’s a handy cartoon poster from the EPA of The Life Cycle of a CD or DVD (complete with word scramble) that illustrates the pretty large waste of effort that goes into getting that piece of plastic into your mailboxes.