2024 Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 86-98
Study objective: Effects of individual consumers’ interventions on corporate behavior were examined using consumers’ attempts to reduce the amount of direct mail (DM). Design: Multiple baseline across households. Setting and Participants: 5 collaborators were recruited from different households. Unwanted direct mail delivered to their houses was targeted. Intervention: Each collaborator put a sticker on their mailbox indicating their rejection of direct mail delivery, returned direct mail with a rejection label, and requested the companies’ customer services departments to stop sending direct mail. Measure: The collaborators took a photo of each direct mail item received, categorized its delivery methods and forms, and reported this information to the experimenter. The experimenter calculated the amount of direct mail delivered per week to each collaborator’s household. Results: A comparison of the baseline and intervention data showed that the amount of direct mail delivered was reduced for all households, with an overall reduction rate of 65.2%. All collaborators evaluated the intervention method and the effect size positively. Conclusion: This reduction in the amount of direct mail demonstrates that individual consumers’ intervention can change corporate behavior.
