In a forthcoming exclusive interview with CATALOG AGE, outgoing Direct Marketing Association president/CEO Bob Wientzen says he regrets never having the funds to do a “Got Milk?”-type ad campaign to promote direct marketing in the mainstream press and media. Well, the DMA might not be able to pull off such a campaign, but the U.S. Postal Service on April 19 launched a modest version of its own.
The program, which will appear in marketing and business periodicals, tries to demonstrate how influential bulk mail can be—all except catalog mail, that is. As the campaign’s point person Rod DeVar, who’s the USPS’s manager of advertising, points out: “The mission here is to seek out new business for us, and to gain new customers not currently using direct mail. Catalogs are obviously a major part of our business, but we sort of feel as though we already have a customer base there.”
The campaign will be presented in three segments: “awareness,” which launched the program, “consideration” (getting customers to consider making purchases direct), beginning May 3; and “purchase” (to create an offer that’s immediate and compelling to drive purchases), starting June 7. The overall campaign is called “Be Here,” to symbolize direct mail’s connection with the customer.
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