AN ODE TO DIRECT MAIL

AN ODE TO DIRECT MAIL

James R. Rosenfield

April 2002

Direct mail is the medium everyone loves to hate.

Ad agencies abhor it. Your Armani-suited account exec and your pony tail-waving art director would rather fight pigeons for bread crusts than earn their livings grinding out junk mail.

It's pummeled in the press, thanks to varmints such as the U.S. sweepstakes companies (Publishers Clearinghouse, et al.) who have helped sustain direct mail's sleazy image. And consumers throughout the first world of course loathe the unceasing onrush of junk mail.

But in truth it's the least offensive of addressable media.

Telemarketing interrupts your dinner hour: Even if you don't answer, the phone still rings. Spam is the curse of every e-mail user: You have to scroll through ever-increasing garbage, a daily exercise in annoyance. Direct mail, though, you can merely throw away unopened, an action consuming almost no time at all.

As long as direct mailers don't abuse customers' privacy - a big "if" indeed in the laissez faire U.S. -- the only really bad thing about direct mail is its environmental impact. Turning trees into direct mail is a less than heavenly act, but in the great range of commercial depredations probably ranks mid-level in the horror list. And, blessedly, direct mail packages are lighter and thinner than they used to be. A few mailers are even trying to use recycled paper (as opposed to "recyclable," a weasel word that simply means the paper can be recycled).

So let's hear it for direct mail, the most difficult, detail-ridden, and industrialized of all media. Where other media stop, direct mail begins. You send the artwork to the magazine, or the tape to the TV station, and forget about it. When the artwork for a direct mail package or catalog is completed, that's where the fun begins. Pieces have to be printed, mailing lists have to be ordered, lettershops have to be reserved, the post office has to be placated, quality has to be maintained. It's a nightmare living in a quagmire, and it's a wonder that anyone ever gets things right at all!

So again, let's hear it for direct mail! Let me proclaim, "How do I love thee, direct mail?," and supply the answers forthwith…

HOW DO I LOVE THEE, DIRECT MAIL?

"For your unyielding rigor and unstinting discipline."

If direct mail is done correctly, you know what you're spending, you know what you're making, and there's nowhere to hide. That's one reason general above-the-line ad agencies hate it. But, in the year 2002, that's why so-called direct marketing agencies hate it also: Most of them have become general agencies manqué, complete with Armani suits and pony tails. I'm fond of quoting Lester Wunderman, who used to say "They (the general agencies) will become us (the direct marketers)." Alas, we have become them. They bought the great old direct marketing agencies, and the latter became what they beheld, particularly when they saw how much golf time the big agency execs put in. Would that Lester had been right!

"For your large and manipulable canvas."

Picasso made great art in small form and in large form. Great direct mail can come in the form of a postcard or a giant catalog. Excepting the Internet, whose marketing wonders still lie before us, no medium is as versatile as direct mail. Plus, timing is up to you (and the post office, of course). You can mail when you want, whereas you're at the mercy of publication and broadcast schedules with other media.

"For your stubborn counter-intuitiveness."

Direct mail, in reality, is not counter-intuitive once you earn the right to intuition, which comes with about 10 years experience if you're any good. (Guru John Stevenson used to say it takes 5 years before people aren't dangerous.) But for amateurs, outsiders, and beginners, how maddening it is that ugly often outpulls pretty; that dumb things like stamps and tokens tend to increase response; that in certain product categories long copy works better than short copy; that intelligent personalization continues to be effective, even though anyone who can fog a mirror realizes it's a computer talking.

"For your occasional great writing."

Certainly, some of the great copy in advertising history has appeared in the humble form of the direct mail letter. One thinks with wonder of the giants, many of them now deceased: Chris Stagg…Hank Burnett…Frank Johnson…Bill Jayme…many others. All of these late gentlemen were fortunate enough to have thrived in a more literate era, when publications for serious readers abounded, and stylish copy ruled the roost. I would hate to think of Hank Burnett having to grind out a credit card package, although in truth the latter has its challenges and beauties also.

"For your occasional ability to last."

Great control packages can seemingly go on forever. Everyone's favorite example is The Wall Street Journal's "two young men" package, which was first mailed in 1974 and still works (or at least it did the last time I looked). Name an advertising campaign that has lasted even a fraction of that time. The copy, in truth, seems dated, sexist, and stilted to 2002 eyes, yet there's commercial magic in the words:

"On a beautiful late spring afternoon, twenty-five years ago, two young men graduated from the same college. They were very much alike, these two young men. Both had been better than average students, both were personable and both - as young college graduates are - were filled with ambitious dreams for the future."

But you know what? One subscribed to the Journal, the other didn't, and that made all the difference in the world!

"For your physicality."

Direct mail is the most physical of media, demanding the most participation from the body. The consumer fetches the mail from the mailbox, walks to the kitchen, sorts through it, dumps most of it, rips open some of it, and, once in a great, great while, actually responds! Compare this to the TV viewing couch potato, all indolence and passivity.

"For your invisibility."

It's a paradox, but direct mail, so visible that it turns into junk, is at the same time the least visible of media. When people respond to direct mail, the action is so seamless, so unconscious, that they hardly know what they're doing. Play the cocktail party game, as I did back when I was still invited to cocktail parties. When people ask you what you do, tell them you're a junk mail practitioner. If they're sufficiently fueled with martinis, they may well talk about their dislike of junk mail.

Ask them politely if they ever respond. They will vehemently say "No, not, never!" Then ask them if they subscribe to any magazines. They will say, "Yes, Newsweek." Then ask them how they came to subscribe to Newsweek, and they'll become abashed, realizing that, Yes, it was through the mail!

"For your sheer, stubborn resilience."

The Internet? Right now, it's having negligible impact on direct mail. E-mails fly through cyberspace by the zillions, but direct mail keeps on coming. This may well change in the future, but it hasn't happened yet.

The anthrax scare in the U.S. after September 11 freaked people out, for good reason. I did a number of interviews with newspapers and radio stations at the time where the schadenfreude was thick enough to butter bread, the interviewer almost saying, "Well, a couple of people have died, but at least junk mail will cease to exist."

No way. The American pubic, which has survived reality television and Richard Nixon, has also survived the anthrax scare, and likes/dislikes direct mail the same as before it happened.

And so does everyone else. Direct mail is a medium that works pretty much the same across boundaries. TV advertising, for example, in Canada, England, the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand - your basic first world English-speaking countries - differs greatly. But direct mail, save for lower production values in the U.S., is pretty much the same.

So once more, in these dragon-ridden, millennial days of 2002, let's hear it again for direct mail!