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Puzzle Lovers Club

"},"founded":{"wt":"1963 "},"defunct":{"wt":"ca. 1980 "},"hq_location":{"wt":"[[New York, New York]], U.S. "},"industry":{"wt":"[[Publishing]]"}},"i":0}}]}"> The Puzzle Lovers C...

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The Puzzle Lovers Club was an American company which ran word game contests by mail.

The company was founded in 1963 by direct marketer René Gnam.[1][2] Rather than following a conventional publishing or sweepstakes business model, he hit on the idea of presenting his enterprise as an exclusive "club" with a dedicated members' journal, the Puzzle Lovers Newspaper.[2] The Club regularly ran full-page, testimonial-laden ads in magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics offering tens of thousands of dollars in cash prizes to members who solved its journal's puzzles.[3][4]

Gnam used the Club as a testbed for hundreds of direct marketing techniques, including upselling books and creative use of mailing lists.[2][4] Gnam would even rent and send mailshots to other marketers' "No lists"—that is, mailing lists of sweepstakes participants who had explicitly opted out of buying merchandise. Contrary to expectations, this technique produced a very high percentage of responses, and Gnam ended up repeating it for over half a million addressees.[4][5] Gnam also discovered that it was particularly profitable to use mailing lists which had anything to do with astrology.[4]

Despite its unabashed marketing tactics, the Club successfully wooed several notable puzzle creators. From 1968 to 1971 logologistDmitri Borgmann was a regular contributor to the Puzzle Lovers Newspaper,[6][7][8] and the Club's 1964 reference book Puzzle Lovers Dictionary was a favorite of New York Times crossword editor Will Weng.[9] Both men would go on to start their own respective mail-order puzzle organizations.[6][9][7][8]

Bibliography

  • Club de Amantes de los Rompecabezas (6 de noviembre de 1964). Pfeiffer, Orville (ed.). Diccionario de Amantes de los Rompecabezas . New International Library.

Referencias

  1. 1 2 3 4 Catálogo de entradas de derechos de autor. Tercera serie. Volumen 17, parte 1, número 2. Libros y folletos, incluidas publicaciones seriadas y contribuciones a publicaciones periódicas, julio-diciembre de 1963. Washington, DC, EE. UU.: Biblioteca del Congreso, Oficina de Derechos de Autor. 1965. pág. 1920. 
  2. ^ Gnam , René (1990 ) . Taller de Correo Directo de René Gnam . Prentice Hall. ISBN 0137734336.
  3. ↑ "¡70.000,00 dólares en premios en efectivo! (anuncio)". Popular Science . 187 (6): 200. Diciembre de 1965.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Trillin, Calvin (24 de septiembre de 1966). "No se puede desgastar una lista" . The New Yorker : 126–179 .
  5. ↑ Baus, Herbert M.; Ross, William B. (1968). Plan de batalla política . Macmillan. pág. 341 . 
  6. 1 2 Eckler, Jr., A. Ross (febrero de 2013). "¿Maldita sea, qué aburrido y tacaño?" . Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics . 46 (1): 35– 42.
  7. 1 2 "Dmitri Alfred Borgmann". Quién es quién en finanzas e industria . Vol. 22. Marquis Who's Who . 1981. pág. 68.  
  8. 1 2 "Dmitri Alfred Borgmann". Quién es quién en Occidente . Vol. 18. Marquis Who's Who . 1981. pág. 73.  
  9. 1 2 Nita Lelyveld (14 de octubre de 1991). "El club enviará rompecabezas por correo" . Kentucky New Era . Consultado el 23 de octubre de 2014 .
  • Sitio web oficial de René Gnam