DM Lexus

THE HATEFULNESS OF SPAM, AND WHY AUTOMOTIVE MANUFACTURERS WILL NEVER GET DIRECT MARKETING RIGHT

James R. Rosenfield

January 2002

A few years ago, during the dot-com bubble, people used to talk about "Internet time," the intoxicating sense of speed that seemed at the core of the Internet experience. But right now what mostly occurs to me is how quickly the Internet has become one of the most obnoxious of all direct marketing media.

What took direct mail and telemarketing decades to achieve has taken the Internet but a few years. What I thought would be a profound conceptual breakthrough - the knowledge that the Internet is a direct marketing medium, not an advertising medium - has been transformed almost instantly into the same sort of hectoring hokum that plagues the offline addressable media.

Just now, for example, I accessed The World Time Server, a useful website that tells you the current time anywhere in the world. But I was so assaulted by pop-ups that I felt like a pup beaten with a stick. The most hideous of them was Casino on Net, which followed me right into my Word document, like a stalker invading your home.

And SPAM! Wow, it's roaring out of my computer like a hurricane, more and more every day. According to a recent article in The News York Times, most heavy e-mail users are now getting at least two or three spam messages for each legitimate e-mail they receive, and an entire industry of screening software has now sprung up.

Look at these four screens for an example of what's sleazing into my machine these days:

Note the wacky salutations, reminiscent of direct mail at its worst: "Dear jimra" and "Dear Stephanie." Junk e-mail has, with warp speed, combined the worst of the on-line world with the worst of the off-line world. Bizarre come-ons, sleazy offers, mangled salutations - all that we've come to expect from direct mail.

But you can throw direct mail away in a millisecond, whereas you have to delete spam, which takes enough time to be annoying, and/or get off the mailing list, which usually requires clicking onto a website that normally takes a while to access, even with the T1 connection I have at the office.

The lowest of the low, the sleaziest of the sleazy, all of it sent to an old e-mail address I never use. A lot of this stuff just started a week ago, so undoubtedly some list broker just added it to his file. I'm looking at anti-spam software even as I write.

BACK TO THE OFF-LINE WORLD

It's almost a relief to return to the off-line world, but not really…

Is customer service getting better now that we're in a painful recession? Not so far, as near as I can see.

Take that customer service exemplar, Lexus, for example.

Last year I bought a Lexus GS 300, a handsome vehicle with the soul of a robot.

It's filled with conveniences, but drives like a boat. There's an add-on package that supposedly hardens the ride and improves the handling. My wife wanted to give this to me as a surprise holiday gift, so she called the local Lexus dealer, where I bought the car:

"Do you know about a sports package that can be added to a 2001 GS 300?"

"Sorry, you'll have to talk to Sales."

"Do you know about…"

"Sorry, you'll have to talk to Service."

"Do you know about…"

"Sorry, you'll have to talk to Parts."

"Do you know about…"

"Sorry, you'll have to talk to Sales."

She gave up, of course, costing Lexus about $3,500, most of it pure profit, I suspect. No one was willing to own the problem and help the customer - and it wasn't even a problem, it was someone wanting to spend money, for Pete's sake! So much for Lexus' vaunted customer service.

Speaking of Lexus reminds me of one of my favorite subjects, automotive direct marketing.

AUTOMOTIVE DIRECT MARKETING: THEY WILL NEVER GET IT RIGHT!

I used to ask "Will they ever get it right?" but I know now that they never will.

"Never?" you say. "Never," I say.

No category lends itself better to direct marketing than the automotive industry. There is plenty of access to information. There are predictable purchase or lease cycles, and predictable service cycles. There is a host of aftermarket products and services.

Nonetheless, they always screw it up. They don't think in terms of problems and solutions. They don't think in terms of direct marketing process. They don't think conceptually, strategically, or even tactically.

What thinking there is - and it's actually more akin to limbic cerebration - is subtactical, and the only aim is to make the ad agency as much money as possible.

And there's one subtactic that looms over everything else: Put it in a box.

I get more direct mail boxes from more auto manufacturers than from all other categories combined, by a wide, wide margin.

Why are they so bad at direct marketing? And why do they put things in boxes? Let me count the ways:

1) Above-the-line general ad agencies do the direct marketing, and are interested in winning awards and spending as much of the client's money as possible.

2) Below-the-line direct marketing agencies do the direct marketing, are these days no better at direct marketing than their above-the-line brethren, are interested in winning awards and spending as much of the client's money as possible.

3) The client is interested in winning awards.

4) No matter how expensive the box mailing is, it pales in comparison to the enormous amounts spent on TV advertising. Even the most costly direct mail seems cheap to the auto manufacturer client.

5) There are no metrics. Or the metrics are fudged. Or the metrics are impossible, because the dealer forgets to report on ultimate sales.

Lexus, of course, sent me a box.

The box has a blurry blue and white background, and the words "2002 LEXUS ES 300" on the front. There is a headline that makes no sense: "Whenever something extraordinary happens to get our attention, it's human nature to be drawn to it." At best, this is a redundant commonplace: The "something extraordinary" that gets "our attention" already encapsulates the idea that "it's human nature to be drawn to it." At worst, it's ambiguous, since it's unclear whether the final "it" refers to "something extraordinary" or "attention."

But forget splitting linguistic hairs. From a direct marketing standpoint it's a lousy headline because there's no specificity and no benefit.

When you open the shrink wrap, you find a DVD, a letter asking me to watch the DVD and to call my local Lexus dealer for a test drive, and a questionnaire asking me my opinions about the DVD.

There is no name and number of my local dealer, nor is there any incentive offered to go and take the test drive. The questionnaire does not have my name and address, only a list code, so the only thing that can be measured from this costly mailing is the number of questionnaires returned.

Total, stupefying direct marketing ignorance! Plus, as the owner of a 2001 GS300, I'm an unlikely candidate for a 2002 ES 300, making this even more of a waste.

Really, the people responsible for this should be sentenced to attend Direct Marketing Association seminars, as cruel as that might be.

Never is a long time, but I say with confidence: When it comes to direct marketing, automobile manufacturers are never, ever going to get it right.