Paper advertising: who still reads the leaflets in letterboxes across the Three Borders?

Sometimes all it takes is opening a letterbox to see the pile-up of free advertising papers, catalogues and commercial leaflets. For some residents, these documents remain useful for spotting special offers and planning their shopping. For others, they are mostly just more paper to sort, read or throw away.

In the Three Borders area, where residents travel daily between France, Germany and Luxembourg, the question of paper advertising deserves to be asked: does the mass distribution of leaflets still meet consumers' expectations?

Overflowing letterboxes, increasingly selective attention.

In daily lives already punctuated by notifications, emails, social media and sales pitches, every new advertising medium competes for consumers' available time.

Faced with this build-up, reading often becomes selective. A leaflet may be skimmed for a specific offer, kept for a few days, then forgotten. Other printed materials are sometimes not even opened.

This situation raises a question that goes beyond simply cluttered letterboxes: how relevant is an advertisement when the person receiving it does not look at it?

The overload felt by some consumers is therefore not only about the volume of paper. It also concerns the time spent sorting and selecting the information they consider useful.

In Luxembourg, unsolicited advertising is regulated.

Since 1 January 2024, Luxembourg has tightened the rules on commercial advertising delivered to letterboxes. Its distribution is prohibited without the recipient's prior consent, except for exemptions provided for in the regulations. The scheme aims in particular to reduce waste and unwanted printed materials. Source: Luxembourg government.

A sticker indicating that the recipient accepts advertising, for example "Oui Pub", can serve as proof of this consent. This change reflects a desire to take better account of residents' choices regarding the commercial printed materials they receive.

On the French side, the "Stop Pub" scheme allows people to refuse leaflets.

In France, the "Stop Pub" scheme allows individuals to indicate that they do not wish to receive unaddressed advertising material by putting a sticker on their letterbox. The Ministry for the Ecological Transition points out that the scheme has existed since 2004. Source: Ministry for the Ecological Transition.

The issue of waste is also well documented. According to ADEME, more than 766,000 tonnes of unaddressed advertising material were distributed in France in 2021, a significant share of which was thrown away unread. Source: ADEME, June 2023.

These national figures do not make it possible to measure precisely the habits of residents in the border area, but they illustrate the scale of the debate.

From paper to digital: habits are changing.

Browsing offers online, retailers' apps and newsletters now provide other ways of keeping informed. Businesses can also communicate through local news websites, videos, social media or digital media outlets.

Paper nevertheless retains some advantages: it is tangible, can be read without a screen and allows people to come across offers they were not necessarily looking for. For some shops, targeted distribution may therefore still make sense.

The challenge is not necessarily to do away with printed advertising, but to better tailor the media used to the expectations of audiences, avoiding the distribution of documents that may never be read.

An open question for residents of the Three Borders.

At a time when environmental concerns and managing screen time are taking up a growing place in public debate, one question remains: do residents still want to receive leaflets in their letterboxes, or would they rather choose for themselves which adverts they look at?

Between France and Luxembourg, the rules differ, but the thinking is shared: how can consumers be informed without multiplying needless solicitations?

And you? Do you still read the advertising leaflets that land in your letterbox, or have you chosen to do without them?

Radio Tripoint is opening the debate and invites its readers to share their experience.