No More AOL CDs
No More AOL CDs was a campaign initiated by US computer scientists John Lieberman and Jim McKenna to protest against the mass production and distribution of CD-ROMs by the online service AOL . The campaign was launched in August 2001. The declared goal was to collect a million AOL CDs in order to then unload them for media coverage with heavy trucks in front of the AOL headquarters located in Dulles in the US state of Virginia. For this purpose, in addition to the central collection point in El Cerrito , California , several national collection points were operated by volunteers, including in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
The CDs were collected without sleeves to save space and shipping costs. An incentive for the participants were international and national ranking lists in which the 100 most successful collectors competed. Placing a million CDs on top of one another would have resulted in a stack 1.2 kilometers high and weighing around 16 tons.
The campaign was frequently picked up by technology and tabloid media , especially in 2002 and 2003 . On August 10, 2007, the campaign was concluded because the AOL company no longer sends CDs, according to the organizers. A total of 410,176 CDs were collected.
background
AOL ran an advertising campaign in the 1990s and early 2000s that produced large quantities of floppy disks and, later, CDs containing AOL access software and coupons for a limited number of free hours to attract new customers . Critics of the campaign see it as a waste of resources , since a large part of the data carriers are thrown in the trash without being used.
In addition to being included in magazines, AOL also relied on the direct mailing of the data carriers, some of which were elaborately packed in metal sleeves and printed with collective motifs. Because of the wastage , many data carriers ended up in the mailboxes and garbage cans of households that did not even have a computer. In the following years, AOL no longer adhered to this distribution strategy.
In response to the criticism, AOL Germany offered the opportunity to return AOL CDs that were no longer required, freight collect. According to AOL, the CDs were processed by specialist companies and the raw material was reused.
AOL employees reported in late 2010 that over $ 300 million had been spent on direct marketing using the AOL CDs. In the early 1990s, the goal was to spend 10% of all income on new customers ; Such a subscriber is said to have been won every six seconds . For a while, 50% of all CDs produced worldwide had an AOL logo.
Individual evidence
- ↑ CBC : What to do with those AOL CDs ( Memento from April 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) . March 4, 2003.
- ↑ heise online : "You have mail" with a difference . October 20, 2002.
- ↑ The German-language collection at nomoreaolcds.org ( Memento of 7 February 2005 at the Internet Archive ) in late 2005 was abandoned.
- ↑ CNN : Campaign: Send AOL CDs back . October 18, 2002.
- ↑ Last information from the official website nomoreaolcds.com, which was switched off at the beginning of 2008 ( Memento from March 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Quora : How much did it cost AOL to distribute all those CDs back in the 1990's? . December 27, 2010.