Why is Yeo so good, so relatable? His cartoon humanised the issue. Instead of talking about postal price increases, he gives us Tommy, Grandma and a birthday card. Immediately, the policy has a face.
Corporate logic looks absurd once stripped back, and Yeo does it with a smile. We chuckle while nodding. One frame cuts straight to the heart: the innocent child, the loving grandmother, the system as the villain. Delivering the punchline in the PS is an added touch of class.
What distinguishes Yeo from most media cartoonists is his use of everyday people rather than politicians and business leaders. Last Saturday’s cartoon is a classic in this style.
The NZ Post CEO is not sweating over a graph. Yeo draws a birthday card and a puzzled boy.
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Civis, conscious of feeble efforts compared with Yeo’s, has had a go before at New Zealand Post for undermining its retail network. Postal outlets within other businesses give the company coverage far beyond its parcel competitors.
While NZ Post’s traditional postal deliveries were always going to decline markedly, management has decided over the past decade to accelerate the fall.
Those letter price rises are punishing and prohibitive. From July 1, the standard letter cost jumped another 70c to $3.60. That compares to $1 at the start of 2018. Adjusted for inflation, it should be $1.37. Oversize letters have risen to $4.90 and $6.20.
Just before seeing Yeo’s masterpiece, Civis received a survey from a magazine publisher lamenting NZ Post’s apparent determination to kill them off and asking subscribers for advice.
The magazine said the huge increases in postal rates were continuing. It now costs more to post than to print the magazine. The number of issues a year had already been cut, but further cuts or substantial price increases could be required.
Yet, the print edition was valued, and print advertising outperformed digital. Subscribers also pay less than shop buyers, forcing up retail prices.
Without the massive postal increases, the magazine could be making a reasonable profit.
In other words, NZ Post is doing its best to wipe out its best customers and accelerate the decline in deliveries far beyond what is necessary. Driven by an evangelical belief that traditional deliveries have no future, it is fast fulfilling that future.
Grey Power’s quarterly magazine cost $200,000 to post in 2024. That would be much more now, boosting NZ Post’s income. Instead, Grey Power reluctantly went digital and added a surcharge for hard-copy delivery.
NZ Post has fixed costs, regardless of volume. Cutting back delivery days is understandable and, grudgingly, acceptable. But instead of a steady descent, NZ Post seems determined to hasten it.
There remains much value in ‘‘hard copies’’ and the way they are read and kept around, and not just among older readers. No wonder those advertisements have more engagement and more impact.
Luckily, hard copy book sales are not so heavily reliant on NZ Post. While they might be well past their peak, books have survived, and even sometimes thrived, remarkably well in a world of e-readers, social media and screen subscription services.
Sadly, though, it is becoming harder for grandma to send her grandchildren those cards and cardigans.
