LIKEABILITY AND DIRECT MAIL: SOME OBSERVATIONS

LIKEABILITY AND DIRECT MAIL: SOME OBSERVATIONS

James R. Rosenfield

September 2000

I left the room recently as an adwoman extolled the "enjoyability" and "likeability" of her
company's TV commercials. I'm getting too old now for certain things, including nonsense palpable enough to be massaged.

It's nice to be liked and enjoyable to be enjoyed, but there's not a shred of empirical evidence linking these factors to recall, market share, brand awareness, or anything else in the world, except on the most ephemeral basis and non-sustainable basis. (Read Randall Rothenberg's great book Where the Suckers Moon for a real eye-opener.).

Further, non-likeable, non-enjoyable advertising often works the best, its irritating qualities sticking to the mind like nettles to a sweater. Most famous example of the observe is probably "I can't believe I ate the whole thing," a campaign Alka Selzer ran about 20 years ago. It was the talk of the town, even parodied, if memory serves me, on the Tonight Show, the very empyrean of advertising glory. Alka Selzer's market share sank during this whole period like a fizzy rock.

Concurrent with these ads ran one of the most inane and loathsome campaigns ever, singing the praises of Procter & Gamble's Charmin toilet paper through the vehicle of Mr. Whipple, an ostensibly kindly but in truth irascible old gent, whose business it was to admonish housewives (housewives!) who were surreptitiously squeezing the Charmin, in order to luxuriate in its gentle softness. (We will not go into the Freudian implications of this, save to observe that the commercials fixate at a pre-genital stage of development.)

Knowing all of this, you might ask, why do I get so upset at unlikeable direct mail?

Good point! Let me be first to confess that I am hoist on the petard of my own logic. Following are some packages I don't like, but which probably work pretty well.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

OK, my vice is no longer secret: I kind of abhor National Geographic, but I simply can't stop subscribing. Somewhere I must be convinced that it's un-American to let a subscription lapse-it's certainly unpatriotic to throw any out, a vexing problem here in Southern California, where we have no basements or attics, both of which were designed, in more traditional climes, to store lifetimes' worth of the magazines.

When's the last time you actually read an article? C'mon, admit it, it's been at least 15 years. I can't even get myself to open it any more, even when they're featuring places I know and love.

Yet according to "The Officers and Board of Trustees… Mr. James G. Rosenfield, this will be your 13th year as a member." I do believe I was young and reckless enough in the mid-'80s to let my subscription expire, but I soon surrendered to a barrage of renewal notices not unlike the German blitzkrieg of London in its sheer mindless relentlessness. (The "G" used for my middle initial stands for "Geographic," which has enabled me to identify companies that have used the Geographic's mailing list.)

When we were kids we devoured National Geographic, in hopes of spotting photos of what we then called "naked natives," not realizing that we ourselves were "natives," albeit usually clothed. The "naked natives" were always happy in their primitive simplicity (according to the Geographic), picking and choosing among the delights of civilization as they pleased. If only! What a happy band of colonialists the "Officers and Board of Trustees" used to be.

This time around, I'm going to try desperately not to re-subscribe. I want to see how many forests will be sacrificed in order to lure me back. Also, the renewal mailing annoys me. It's filled enough with good practices that the specific presence of a bad one and the specific absence of a good one raises my direct mail hackles.

"Mr. James G. Rosenfield" gives us the worst of two worlds, from a personalization standpoint. You use the full name to avoid the honorific, since honorifics will invariably get you into trouble with female names (you don't know if "Mary" is "Miss" or "Mrs," and lots of women abhor "Ms") and with bi-gender names such as Kim, Lee, Dana. But if you're going to use the honorific anyway, you might as well eliminate the full name and at least achieve a polite and businesslike tone, "Dear Mr. Rosenfield" rather than "Dear Mr. James G. Rosenfield."

Absence of good practice: A signal advantage of a one-page laser letter is the ability to personalize the P.S. at minimal cost. This places direct mail's most important verbal icon -your customer's name-on one of the most critical surfaces. This kind of technique should be a checklist no-brainer, and will usually improve response rate by at least a few basis points.

The letter is fast-moving, easy-to-read, and technically good excepting the aforementioned, as well as a 6 line plus widow paragraph 2/3 down the page. Never go over 5 lines and a widow in year 2000, guys. It looks too dense, and discourages readership.

The response device is perforated above the letter and has a large headline, which is good thinking. They'd do a tad better, though, if the headline said "2001 Annual Membership" rather than "2001 Annual Membership Dues." "Membership" is a good thing, "Dues" are a bad thing.

The only other piece aside from a return envelope ("PLACE STAMP HERE" is tried-and-true for fundraising/charity, which this is not, but you have to read really, really, really small fine print to pick up on that) is a "Benefits of Membership…Gift Memberships" flyer, which is both exceptionable and non-exceptional.
I wonder how many more of these things I'm going to get. Should make for an article about a year down the line.

MAILINGS TO SENIORS: PRIORITY DIRECT EXPRESS
I get enormously exercised by some of these mailings, for the following reasons:
· Many of them are exploitative, notably the ones perpetrated by the sweepstakes folks, the herbal remedies quacks, and the investment shysters.
· The terms "seniors" or "senior citizens" are condescending, and need to be put out to pasture, particularly with the oldest baby-boomers about to attain senior-hood.
· I myself, by the time you read this article, will have attained the minimum "senior citizen" age of 55, and if you call me a senior citizen, well…don't.

"Seniors PRIORITY DIRECT EXPRESS OPEN NOW!" asks the handsome, full color envelope, featuring the Mt. Rushmore presidential faces under a blue and white sky.
"You're Invited" proceeds a flyer inside which maintains the Mt. Rushmore motif "TO ATTEND A COMPLEMENTARY LUNCH SEMINAR. FINALLY…A SENIOR SEMINAR WITH A DIFFERENCE…"

The inside is sensible, particularly for its genre-there's a problem, a solution, "EXCITING TOPICS" and "A SPEAKER WORTH HEARING, " a local gentleman clad in shirtsleeves and an American flag tie, looking like the late H. R. Haldeman on a bad hair day.

I can "BRING A FRIEND" plus there are "door prizes." My wife and I have a pact, which is to kill ourselves if we ever talk about door prizes, which are to old age what teething rings are to infancy.
There are some annoying typos: "Securities throught (sic) SII Investments, Inc." "ADMISSION TICKET Good for two (2) complementary (sic) Lunches and Seminar Admissions."

I called the 800-number, feeling like Jerry Seinfeld's father. The person answering the phone was very nice when I realized that the seminar had already taken place. Yes, I'd rather stick pins in my eyes than attend a seminar of this sort, but the mailing isn't bad. I could point out a bunch of things that would improve it, but I reckon these guys are doing OK.

As for me, I'm contemplating all the mailings of this sort I'll receive from now on, month after senior, golden month, like grains of sand piling up to make, at long last, a dune against the tides of time. Which brings me to AARP.

AARP AT LONG LAST DELIVERS THE GOODS!
For those of you outside the U.S. and those Americans too young to know or care, AARP is not the sound of your dog barking, but rather the erstwhile American Association of Retired Persons, since shortened and disguised in order to accommodate (probably too late, but that's another story) the baby boomers' resistance to getting old.
Anyway, like Voltaire's wisecrack about the Holy Roman Empire, you never did have to be retired, American, or even a person to join. All you need is $10.00, to be supposedly at least 50 year old, and the ability to fill out a simple form. Last time I looked, AARP was the biggest group of anything anywhere, with over 50 million members! (I just tried to get an update on this at their website, but forget it!)

I joined AARP in 1995, immediately upon turning 50, and looked forward to tons upon tons of junk mail. Alas, I was disappointed. AARP seemed positively abstemious in their mail rationing, and those packages that were sent were straightforward and mild.
Until yesterday, that is. Pay dirt at last! A double-windowed, brown-kraft envelope, unidentified save for "325 PENNSYVANIA AVE. S.E., WASHINGTON, D.C. 20003." The lower window reveals my name and address, the upper window the most teasing of interruptive teaser copy, "YOUR WILL OR THE COURT'S MEMBER OF AARP YOU PROBABLY READ…"

This is glorious, this is irresistible, this is direct mail in its avatar as the great American vernacular of advertising, paying homage to P.T. Barnum, fear of probate, and the fear of great death itself.

The copy? "IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF AARP YOU PROBABLY READ THE ARTICLE ON REVOCABLE LIVING TRUST IN THE 1991 AUG-SEPT ISSUE OF 'MODERN MATURITY' MAGAZINE…
"LET EXPERTS SHOW YOU HOW A LIVING TRUST BEATS A WILL IN CALIFORNIA."
FOR A FREE ESTATE ANALYSIS AND BROCHURE ON A LIVING TRUST FROM SECURITY FINANCIAL GROUP, JUST COMPLETE AND RETURN THIS CARD TODAY."

As much as I admire the sheer Barnumesque thrust of this gem, I have to admit it's a pretty terrible mailer. The copy is lame, at best - no one's going to remember a 1991 article in an unreadable magazine.

The offer is unmerchandised and unstructured. This is a category calling for numerical specificity, e.g. "7 Startling Answers to Common Questions About Wills in California…Plus a Limited Time Only FREE Estate Analysis." It's a booklet (non-commercial) not a brochure (commercial). And what kind of idiot would send a business reply card naked through the U.S. mail bearing a request for help in estate planning (indicating the person has money) along with age and phone numbers?
AARP, indeed. My Golden Retriever could do better.