Yellow's PR BS

From Mediawatch, Radio New Zealand, 18th April

Firstly, thank you to all of those organisations and individuals who have spoken out against this dumb waste so far.

Secondly, let's answer the question "Does the Yellow Pages have a future?"

Yellow New Zealand could and should absolutely have a very strong future, but they're risking that if they keep ignoring the majority of Kiwis on the environmental damage and social nuisance they're creating. Physical Yellow pages should go to those who want one, and not those who don't. They simple solution is to make them either:

1. Opt-in (like White Pages or like email spam since the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007)
2. Treated like junk mail

Yell UK did the right thing and made their final print run in January 2019!. They put the planet first, got ahead of the negative PR, and leveraged it into positive momentum for their digital offering. Smart business.

Thirdly, let's get into the nonsense that Yellow's PR agency(s) is putting to the public...

You can’t use Trump-like labels like “alternative facts” and “fake news”, and then not give any numbers yourself.

My numbers are well researched and informed. In contrast, Yellow has given no numbers on the unnecessary waste they're creating.

1. Tracey said herself in the interview that “We distribute over 1.9 million copies.” Let’s round that down to 1.9m to be conservative.
2. The Auckland 2021 book I got (despite opting-out) weighs 666g. Last year’s Marlborough one is 216g. That’s one of the largest and smallest territories, so lets average that at 441g per book. (Yellow - you are welcome to provide data at any time)
3. Former Yellow staff have called me and said “[Back in 2016] 70-90% got instantly thrown out depending on the region.” Yellow knows full well that a massive majority are instantly trashed! My LinkedIn poll of 1,060 votes says that 96% don’t want one, but that’s an online site with some bias, so let’s again be conservative and go with 80%.

1.9m x 441g x 80% = 670 TONNES of unnecessary, unwanted, unsolicited trash.

• My original post estimated 609 tonnes (Heather du Plessis-Allan misquoted me at 709 tonnes) so, if anything, I likely underestimated how much unnecessary pollution they’re causing.
• Yellow New Zealand, despite multiple opportunities, have not provided any figures around how many tonnes they send out, or what % get instantly trashed. They won’t because they know it’s very high.
• That poll of 1,060 Kiwis paints a very clear picture of how few want a Yellow pages forced on them every year. I can’t remember ever seeing such one-sided support from Kiwis on any issue before.

Well Kiwis don't appreciate the fake value proposition!

And Kiwis don't appreciate their Yellow trash being dumped upon us!

This is not "fake news" or fake waste. Yellow has had multiple opportunities to provide alternative figures, but they have refused every time. What does that tell us?

It saddens me greatly that a corporate would try to use the recycling angle to excuse their pollution like this.

Recycling doesn’t undo all of the environmental damage that has already been done before it – the chemicals, the inks, the plastic, the energy, the fossil fuels – and the further environmental damage done by most going straight back to waste processing plants again.

We have a major problem in NZ with so many Kiwis thinking that recycling magically neutralizes all environmental harm.

Recycling is the last resort in the “Re framework” for reducing waste. Rethink, Refuse, and Reduce are the first three and Yellow are failing on all of those measures.

• Yellow are not thinking about the planet.
• Yellow never gave us an opt-in to refuse like every other business has to (or that they offer us for White Pages)
• Yellow are not reducing this dumb waste that goes straight into rubbish bins.

Giving the distribution job to charities and community groups doesn't undo or justify this environmental damage either. However, it does raise other questions that we'd love Yellow to answer:

• Are they paying these charities market rates?
• Are they paying them minimum wage?
• Some of these groups have contacted me and shared how stressful it is dumping these on on households and businesses who actively, and sometimes aggressively, refuse them - and rightly so!
• I’ve also received calls from former Yellow staff who have said they use charities to deliver these to further increase their profits.
• More questions need to be asked, and more research needs to be done here. Yellow, of course, are welcome to frontfoot this.

“Emergency information” like 111? Everyone knows that most important number when you need help ASAP.

For the rest, there's no problem sending these Yellow books to those who want them.

An “essential service” for how many? What %? Please do give us numbers, Yellow.

If these are an essential service for some Kiwis, then send it to them. No problems. But for most of us, these are definitely not an essential service. Let us opt in.

The “government which has a contract” line is interesting. I’ve spoken with dozens of MPs and public service officials, and not a single one has mentioned this “contract”. I’m keen to learn more…

“access to everyone” but not everyone wants one!!

This is true... back in January 2020, only 7% of households didn’t have internet access. It will be even less now. And it's been 20 years since I came accross a business without internet. Despite this, they still dump their damn books on 96% of all households and businesses. Why can’t they just send these to those who want one, and not those who don’t?

• But how many of these 180,000 are paying for that advertising? Free listings are very common, so I suspect they’re misleading us here with this statistic.

• Tracey says that “There are 7 million lookups per month.” Previously she’s said 7.2m. There’s 5.1m people in NZ now, so that’s only 0.046 lookups per Kiwi per day!! Google will be at least 100x that and without such a heavy environmental footprint.
• I have no idea why they keep using that weak and weird “four out of five people followed up with an inquiry” line. What a useless statistic. A phone call, or email, or website visit or is an inquiry, so it should be 5/5 shouldn't it?

“their demise has been slow” because Yellow pages are forced on us!! The free market never got the chance to opt-in. Even when you opt-out, they still fail to administer this and force them upon many of us. Given an opt in, like White Pages, I believe at least 1.5 million wouldn’t be sent.

• They say “We have to adapt to the way the customers use the media” but they have completed failed to recognise that most of their media is getting instantly trashed.
• They say “Every platform is not for every business” yet they force these books on every business and don’t even let businesses opt-out!
• “Every digital agency should have a print option” is some of the worst business advice I’ve ever heard. Does Tracey really stand by this? I know a lot of specialist digital agencies and I know what they’d say!
• They also talk about a “print option” but we Kiwis were never given a print opt-in. Yet, they do give us the print option for White Pages with an opt in… since they don’t make money on those.

But wait, there's more from the radio interview...

“we had many people call our call centre to make sure that we were still going to send them the book” - Tracey Taylor, CEO, Yellow

• A few people who want one doesn’t outweigh the millions who don’t!
• A few people calling doesn’t justify the hundreds of tonnes of unnecessary waste they’re dumping on New Zealand!

Q: “and does that relationship with the government that you mentioned, does that underpin that, are they committed, to supporting the disaster information and so on for another five or ten years or some sort of contract like that?” - Colin Peacock, Radio NZ

A: “Absolutely! Absolutely. I mean those conversations are always ongoing, and the Government is very supportive. There is actually no time limit on it at this point.” - Tracey, Yellow

• 100% of MPs I’ve heard back from are 100% in support of the argument that these are wasteful and should be opt-in. Some politicians have already gone public on the issue.
• Almost every Kiwi hates this dumb pollution they’re dumping on New Zealand. Even the minority who want a Yellow pages book, don’t want them dumped on the majority who don’t want one and will instantly trash it. Of the thousands of Kiwis I’ve engaged with over this issue, ONLY ONE has supported Yellow’s current mass-dumping practice.
• Another 5-10 years of this crazy waste is unthinkable. “No time limit” is unthinkable. They must stop sending these to those who don’t want one ASAP. Are we serious about environmental and social responsibility or not? Is climate change “my generations nuclear-free moment” or not?

Tracey finishes by saying

“We are really proud of our story. It is a good one… The books are really environmentally friendly… So we’re still really proud of our story.”

• This is disgraceful. 70-90% of books being instantly trashed is the opposite of “environmentally friendly” and is absolutely nothing to be proud about.

New Zealand is speaking.

Yellow - are you listening?