Here's another card to carry around

When buying a couple of cans of mixed nuts that were advertised in the sales flier inside the Sunday paper today, I was told that the price was good only for customers with a preferred shopper card from the store. It was in the fine print on the flier. So, to get the price, my wife and I applied for and received, on the spot, a card to add to the five I'm already carrying on a key chain in my pants pocket, plus the three or four more that are stuffed in a drawer somewhere that I use too seldom to carry.

How long will it be before every national chain requires a shopping card to get the best deals? Retailers have jumped aboard this system, which was pioneered by grocery stores, because it allows them to track purchases. Your supermarket receipt shows each item you bought, along with your preferred shopper card number. All of this information is also stored on computers, and that information can be used by the store to target specific promotions to your interests. Do you buy dog food? Then you're likely to receive dog food coupons. Buy canned fruit? Look for those coupons, too. And if a company is initiating a new type of canned fruit or dog food, it might want to send promotions to you. This information can be sold to other retailers or marketing companies. "Information just wants to be free" might be the Internet mantra, but information about what you buy is valuable, and it's not free.

We are witnessing a conversion from broadcast advertising, that is, advertising that is addressed to the entire community or entire population, to advertising that is individualized and personalized. Marketers say this individualized approach is more effective because advertisers only pay to address customers who are interested. We are losing our sense of community and commonality in so many things, and advertising is aiding and abetting this loss of community.

Marketers knowing what I buy does not bother me as much as the bother of producing that card each time I check out in order to get the best prices. And the sheer burden of carrying around a half dozen or dozen store-specific preferred shopper cards also wearies me. When these cards first came out, I placed a grocer's card in my wallet. But when the cards proliferated, they began taking up too much room in my wallet, so I switched to the smaller, key chain cards. Now, they have multiplied to the point that their bulk is noticeable and annoying.

But I don't want to pass up a half-price deal on mixed nuts, so I'm stuck.