Try as I may I cannot, for the life of me, understand why some commercial retailers – and selective service industries, resort to promoting their wares/services via door-to-door fliers. I, plus most of my friends and acquaintances, normally never bother to even scan these irritating missives, we simply gather them up and chuck them in the waste-paper recycling bag.

And don’t think placing a ‘No junk mail’ sign on your front door is any deterrent either. A neighbour of mine has prominently displayed such a notice for about two years and he still gets his mail box stuffed with fliers and other unsolicited dross.

However, for the purposes of this article I recently decided to actually read some of these things, and yes, as I suspected, they are a complete waste of time. For instance: Does the proprietor of a local supermarket really get a noticeable sales boost by sending out glossy scraps of paper informing the public that: “For one week only, the Flogmore Supermarket is selling tinned tomato pulp at five euro cents... yes, five euro cents less than the usual price”? Frankly I somehow can’t see the punters queuing round the block for that.

Just lately we were inundated with: ‘Trade Fair offers’. These included everything from facial hair trimmers, at a ‘giveaway’ price, to something called: “a home cement mixer” at – what I deemed – not a giveaway price... And who, apart from a more than dedicated DIY fanatic who is contemplating putting an extra wing onto his house, would give houseroom to a home cement mixer?

OK, I can see the value of advertising Trade Fair offers: It’s something that we have all become used to over the decades. And someone requiring a new fridge, washing machine... whatever, may well be tempted by these glossy handouts. But a few years back, when we needed a new fridge, I compared Trade Fair prices with the usual cash discount prices offered during the rest of the year, and it was cheaper to buy the appliance anywhere but at the Trade Fair. Con trick? Sure, and one of the oldest in the book.

I was always taught that the most effective marketing tool was what the trade calls‘targeted marketing’

I was always taught that the most effective marketing tool was, what the trade calls ‘targeted marketing’. This means aiming your advertising directly at your target customer. This makes perfect sense, as opposed to scattergun marketing. Door-to door fliers distribution is a perfect example of this imprecise and frankly random way to get through to a potential buyer.

Before elections, our home letter boxes are crammed with self-congratulatory papers from candidates of all colours and persuasions. At the last general election I actually voted for a candidate who didn’t distribute cajoling paeans, listing his multifarious virtues. Make of that what you will.

But these annoying fliers are not just confined to your home letter box; I have been finding them regularly affixed to the windscreen of my car when I leave it in a car park. This form of random selling gave rise to an amusing incident the other day.

I returned to my motor, parked in the main car park in Victoria, to find the usual shuffle of printed ads under the windscreen. But it was the antics of the couple in the vehicle parked directly next to mine that caused the hilarity. They were an elderly couple, and as I approached my Toyota I noticed the old gent peer at what appeared to be a flier advertising a disco rave. As he prepared to get into his car, his wife piped up with: “Is it a citation? I thought this was a legal parking area.” I heard no more, but I don’t think that particular missive got quite the reaction its perpetrators would have hoped for.

Even more amusing was the sight of a squat little guy distributing fliers door-to-door in Valletta last week. He was diligently filling the mail boxes of a block of flats in St Paul Street with shiny papers advertising the services of a certain landscape gardener. Trouble is, I happen to know that there’s not so much as a window box among the lot of them.

I am currently looking at the latest flier (A4 and a tad crude) that has been distributed by a newly opened gents hairdresser in my village. He is advertising the most amazing start-up bargain, that reads: “Opening offer: half price all cuts plus a free blow.”

How could anyone resist that?