blow-in card

noun

: a card printed typically with a subscription offer or advertisement that is inserted loosely by a machine using air pressure between the pages of a magazine

What demon dreamed up "blow-in cards"—those subscription cards that drop out of a magazine as you pick it up to read? Reportedly a machine, at some stage in the mailing process, riffles each magazine's pages and blows in anywhere from one to six of these cards. The method a cheaper than stapling the card in, and presumably the dropping-out process forces the card on your attention.

—Alan L. Otten, Wall Street Journal, 21 Nov. 1974

Inside the magazine there were lots of blow-in cards offering subscription deals, but he didn't want to have to fill out a coupon and mail it in and wait six weeks for his subscription to kick in.

—Harvey Mackay, Albany (New York) Times Union, 13 Apr. 1997

Word History

First Known Use

1974, in the meaning defined above

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Rhymes for blow-in card

• bodyguard
• boulevard
• disregard
• asgard
• backyard
• barnyard
• blackguard
• bombard
• brickyard
• canard
• churchyard
• coastguard