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Sometimes our mail just makes us laugh.

Take a recent mailing we received from O magazine. What's the first thing we read on the letter?

Market Development Test:

In an effort to attract readers who fit various demographic profiles, O, The Oprah Magazine is please to offer you a special discounted rate.”

Wait. Did I just read that right? Have I been profiled by…Oprah?

What demographic profile is she trying to reach? Working moms? College graduates? Post-punk, pre-menopausal journalists? Cat-owning comic book readers? Registered voters of Scottish descent?

Whatever the target audience Ms. Winfrey thinks I'm in, I do have to wonder if this tactic really works. Maybe it succeeds in making prospective readers feel like they're part of a special club.

But I dunno. Considering they're trying to woo me into subscribership, the whole affair is darn unromantic. I'm promised that “in exchange for your readership, we'll send you a year of O, The Oprah Magazine at a special test rate of $15.”

Wow! I send you money and you send me a product? Why didn't anyone ever think of that before? Genius!

To be fair, the rest of the copy isn't bad. The portions purportedly written by the talk show host do sound like her voice, even if they really don't give a strong idea of exactly what I'd find in O.

Then again, if I really was part of Oprah's tribe, I'd know that whatever she'd chosen for me to read was what I should be reading. D'oh!