Helping who, exactly?

Another week, another round of bank bail-outs. The latest cost to UK taxpayers? £30.5 billion. That’s around £500 for every person in the country. Seems like rather a lot to pay for three new high street banking brands, which may or may not be viable sales propositions three or four years down the track, does it not?

It appears we’re set to end 2009 where we began it, namely with bankers’ grubby mitts deep in the public purse. Just out of interest, does anyone feel they’ve benefited directly from any of Darling Alistair’s largesse? I’m thinking in particular of his fleet of business assistance programmes from back in Q1 - the Working Capital Scheme, Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme and Capital for Enterprise Fund, among them – all of which were designed (supposedly) to increase lending to companies feeling the pinch.

Is it just me or have all of these schemes done b*gger all? It’s certainly hard to know who’s helping who sometimes.

Absurdity Rules?

On the back of continuing postal disruption comes the threat of industrial action on British Airways. More will undoubtedly follow, undoubtedly. Commentators are right: Is this 2009 or 1979? Amidst all the economic doom and gloom, rising industrial action and political paralysis, everything certainly seems to be going back to the future at present - albeit without Michael J. Fox and a Delorean.

Many are hoping that the forthcoming Christmas season will see a return of consumer confidence and the beginnings of recovery. My bet’s still on Q3 of next year for the latter, but hey – I and others would be delighted to see a bit of premature recuperation!

That said, if we’re meant to be shopping our way out of recession, maybe Westminster is missing the ultimate sales pop. The United States owes China around US$772 billion, so maybe we should be upping the sovereignty-endangering ante and offering Beijing some sort of lease-back arrangement. A bit like Hong Kong, only in reverse: a 100-year lease over the entire UK, say, for £5 trillion. Cash.

That would work out to about £81,000 per person. Invested wisely, that could work out quite nicely for us Brits. Plus Boris could learn Chinese, the Queen could install a pagoda in front of Buckingham Palace and certain polies could give free reign to their Tiananmen-admiring tendencies and crush union dissent once and for all.

I mean, in a week that’s seen Nick Griffin spouting bollocks on Question Time and Sterling dipping ever-further in value, absurdity rules and anything seems possible.

And not a lot of it good, alas.

The Funniest B.S. Around

Modern life is rubbish

 Ironic, isn’t it? For all Royal Mail’s talk of ‘modernisation’, we’re in for a good, old-fashioned mail strike on October 22 and 23. Oh joy. As if the rolling regional industrial action that has severely affected deliveries in recent months hasn’t been disruptive enough.

I’ve earned the ire of some readers for previously sounding ‘unsympathetic’ towards postal workers. They I do feel for, believe me. Sudden shift changes, pay cuts and the like must be playing havoc with many people’s lives. But at least they still have a job. At last count there’s around 2.47 million Britons who’d give their eye teeth for the opportunity of working odd hours.

As for Royal Mail management and the CWU’s executive… Guys, you’ve collectively had over two years to resolve the grievances that precipitated the last general postal strike in 2007. Issues which, if memory serves, even then had to do with job cuts and modernisation. So WTF have you been doing?

Postal Affairs Minister Pat McFadden is right in saying that ‘a national strike would be completely self-defeating.’ And yet Westminster has been seemingly content to preside over this defeat – to common sense, to workers just wanting to earn a decent buck for a day’s work, to businesses trying to trade their way out of this god-awful recession.

Royal Mail management and the CWU, in my opinion, you both stand guilty of gross acts of inefficiency and ill faith against the British public.

We await their apology.

Hooray for Michael Palin

Notwithstanding that I’m a huge Monty Python fan, and that last week marked the 40^th anniversary of the Flying Circus’ debut on the BBC (I suddenly feel old typing that!), Michael Palin’s comments of late that Britain should stop apologising for its colonial past had me applauding.

His ’10 achievements to be proud of’, which include not insignificant little gems like parliamentary democracy (#1), the English language (#4) entrepreneurs (#8), and yes, even cricket (#10), were a breath of fresh air after years of PC thuggery which have deliberately downplayed Britain’s cultural, social and political legacy across the Commonwealth and beyond.

So taking a page from Mr Palin’s book (his latest, Halfway to Hollywood, is a fun read, incidentally), below is my direct marketing ‘achievements to be proud of’ Top 10. These lest we forget the marketing savvy we accumulated in the days before digital started touting itself as marketing’s messiah (when, in fact, to paraphrase the Pythons, it’s largely just a naughty boy/girl – take your pick). 

1.            Suppression          

Self-interest aside, allowing marketers to identify deceaseds and gone-aways has saved billions, both in terms of money and the environment. 

2.      Empowering consumer choice         

Right customer, right offer, right time – direct marketing continues to allow consumers to make informed purchase decisions. 

3.      The DMA         

That we have a credible, self-governing industry peak body is something we should all be proud of (while never taking for granted!). 

4.      UK Marketers         

The DM sector employs over 250,000 people and we have some fantastic talent here. Kudos to all those who are maintaining or even increasing market share during this recession. You’re doing a fantastic job. 

5.      Be thankful we’re not the US         

Shame on the 30 per cent or so of UK data base managers who don’t keep their records clean and up-to-date. But compared to the US’ unsuppressed mess, GB’s a paragon of virtue. 

6.      Electoral Roll Access         

Still very important for address verification purposes. But we’d all do well to remember that access is a privilege - not a right – and shouldn’t be abused. 

7.      PAS 2020 and ISO 14001         

PAS 2020 and ISO 14001 both have helpful checklists to run through when making important marketing decisions concerning targeting, suppression and the use of recycled materials in your campaigns. Sign up and you’ll not only be helping the environment but enhancing your brand image.  

8.      Giving data its due

Even in the days pre-CRM (remember those?), DM was driving data best practice. By cleaning data, avoiding waste, keeping information fit for purpose and obtaining the maximum transactional insight possible, countless DM-er’s have seen their campaign response rates and ROI enhanced.

US DMA = Deep Doo-Doo

 The US Direct Marketing Association certainly seems to be in the wars at present. After a job lot of redundancies earlier this year comes news of a major PR fracas in the trade press, with former board member Gerry Pike baying for blood over the US DMA’s ‘budget-buster dues and conference fees’.

I’ve been privy to some, but not all, of the Stateside DMA machinations, and concede that Mr Pike has a point – the US DMA’s financial and identity pressures are indeed troublesome. But why all this talk of re-branding the Association as the Digital Marketing Association? Given that an estimated 22 per cent of US households have no internet connection (2008 Nielsen Claritas Convergence Audit), and the still millions more are only light users, having the DMA put all of its eggs in one digi-basket is surely a recipe for disaster.

Call me old fashioned, but why is ‘direct’ apparently becoming a dirty word in some quarters? What happened to appropriately tailoring your proposition and choosing the most appropriate marcoms channels for your target audience? Be it via mail, e-mail, SMS, print, inserts, telemarketing or face-to-face – or any combination thereof, for that matter -  why are some advocating jettisoning sophisticated, multi-channelled marketing best practice in favour of a simplistic, digital-dominant marcoms model?

Yes, digital’s a very big and important marketing channel. But unless customer journey mapping and planning has suddenly become entirely redundant,  looking for a ‘magic’ channel bullet when what’s required is constant analysis and innovation is just plain dumb.

So all best wishes to our colleagues at the US DMA. I hope y’all can get your house in order toot sweet. But please resist digital’s alluring siren’s song. Choosing this as your sole focus will end in tears for all concerned, I believe.

To the Royal Mail Strike: ‘On yer bike…’

 Is the silly season still with us? I’m beginning to wonder, what with strike action at Royal Mail affecting deliveries around the country. After finally seeing a welcome uplift in DM activity in recent weeks, comes not only a spate of regional mail delivery disruptions but the threat of a national strike next month.

Perfect timing, huh? And all happening right when direct mail’s just starting to get its mojo back after months of recession-bred doldrums.

As reported on Marketing Direct, big mailers like insurance giant BT and More Than are already feeling the effects of the Royal Mail industrial action. As the second and fifteen biggest UK direct marketers, respectively, you can be certain that if the ‘big end’ of DM is seeing response rates dip, others are also suffering. The market’s already shaky enough without the entire mail channel’s reliability being called into question during the lead-up to Christmas campaign season.

So put October 9^th in your diary and keep your worry beads handy, for that’s when the Communications Workers Union will announce whether there’s to be a national mail strike. We’ll all need Sherpa guides to help scale the mountains of undelivered mail accumulating over Swindon way, otherwise.

Happy Anniversary (Not!)

 This week has, of course, marked the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse. Which triggered the global economic meltdown etc etc. (By now we all know the drill, alas.) Should the US government bailed the failing investment bank out, as it did insurance giant AIG, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and their ilk and thus avoided the biggest bankruptcy in US history? The blogosphere and US bookshelves are chock full of debate on this topic at present. My theory is that the powers that be simply didn’t like the cut of Lehman Brother’s CEO, Richard Fuld. Every crisis needs a scapegoat, and Fuld – a self-proclaimed business ‘gorilla’ who amassed an enormous personal fortune while presiding over Lehman Brother’s inexorable descent into over-leveraged, toxic asset hell – was arguably the perfect candidate. A bit like RBS’s much maligned former Chief Executive Sir Fred Goodwin here in the UK – only without the obscene pension fund and Monte Carlo tax haven.

Twelve months after Wall Street’s unprecedented meltdown and the hundreds of billions in government handouts to banks, stunned disbelief has given way to hardship and bitterness for many. Thousands of people have lost jobs and homes, relationship breakdown is rife – it’s been hideous. And to think that if we’d had tighter banking regulation, none of this would have happened. (Don’t believe me? Look at how the likes of France, Australia and Canada have weathered the sub-prime storm comparatively unscathed. Something more than just luck’s been involved.)

So on this, the first anniversary of the recession we didn’t have to have, what have we learned? That maven of financial misfortune, former US Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, is apparently already predicting that another economic meltdown is inevitable because it's human nature to want more. Which is a bit rich coming from the man who arguably paved the way for the current recession in the first place, if you ask me.

Yes, it might be human nature to always want more. But when we’ve seen the all too abundant pain that unfettered greed can bring, surely enough can sometimes indeed be, well…enough?

Happy first anniversary, folks. Here’s hoping the economy's in better shape come September 15^th, 2010.

R.I.P John Jay Daly

John Jay Daly, the Godfather of Opt-Out, died in Washington D.C. on August 27th of a blood infection. The man credited with pioneering DM opt-out in 1970 was also a popular D.C. spin doctor and, in an earlier incarnation (while working at the US National Institute of Drycleaning), John claimed credit for expanding dry-cleaning facilities in the former Soviet Union. Good to know that the Cold War was also a clean war, is it not?

I’m not sure it was necessarily Mr Daly’s intent, but by giving rise to the Age of Opt-Out, he did transform campaign planning worldwide by forcing marketers to better target their offers towards those consumers demonstrating the greatest interest and propensity to purchase.

That’s a considerable legacy indeed – particularly as DM (or ‘advertising mail’ as our American cousins call it), still accounts for 21 per cent of total US advertising spend and generated US$702 billion in economic activity States-side in 2008.

Yet almost 40 years on from Mr Daly’s pioneering efforts, how disappointing that only 47 per cent of US mailers use any form of suppression file, according to the American DMA. As I noted on this blog back in March, perhaps it’s little wonder then that 19 State Legislatures across the United States currently have ‘Do Not Mail’ registries on their agenda – such is the volume of mis-addressed and unwanted mail swamping American households. Because with DM volume totaling 101.9 billion items and an estimated 40 million Americans changing address last year, that’s potentially one hell of a big offer mis-matched and ‘return to sender’ junk mail swamp.

My views on the UK’s own rather shoddy suppression rates and attitudes to consumers are well documented. But compared to our American cousins, we’re paragons of best practice virtue.

So keep up the good work, everyone. We Brits may yet do Mr Daly proud as responsible direct marketers.

Skank, anyone?

It appears that calling someone a ‘skank’ in a blog can be costly. In a precedent-setting court case, a Manhattan judge recently forced Google to provide the identity of an anonymous blogger who had trashed former Canadian supermodel Liskula Cohen on the website ‘Skanks in NYC’ by being rather rude about her. I wont repeat the libel.

A case of Fendi handbags at ten paces, methinks.

The moral of this story? Nothing but nothing’s private in cyberspace. 

In other, less skanky news… The Institute of Chartered Accountants last week declared that recession in Britain is ‘at an end’. The ICA’s Index of Business Confidence posted the biggest rise for two years, peaking at 4.8 by the end of June – up from -28.2 in March. Additionally, the Institute predicts that the UK will grow by 0.5 per cent during the current quarter.

So are the squints right? Is the recession on its way out?

How engaged are you?

Here’s a stat guaranteed to curdle your latte: According to Gallup Management Journal’s latest Employee Engagement Index, 29 per cent of US employees are actively motivated and engaged in their jobs, while 71 per cent are unmotivated and disengaged either through being not engaged at all (54 per cent) or actively disengaged (17 per cent). A troubling set of numbers, certainly, and as pertinent to the UK as they are Stateside - particularly at a time when maintaining productivity has arguably never been more acute.

But who’s to blame for this workplace malaise? Bad managers incapable of fostering a supportive, rewarding and goal-orientated office environment or disgruntled employees doing only the bare minimum and not giving a toss?

This recession is definitely testing everyone’s mettle – business owners and employees alike. You don’t need me to tell you times are tough. But even in a nil-increase wage environment (Have you received a raise this year? Probably not, methinks), maintaining value for employees is as essential as maintaining value for shareholders.  After all, the former are at the front line when it comes to driving customer engagement. And god knows we need plenty of both.

We’ll see the HR proof when the recessional pudding’s finished being baked, I reckon – ie. staff either staying put or leaving en masse after enduring months of management fit hitting the employee relations shan. 

As we prep for recovery, like The Clash once sang: Should I stay or should I go?

Summertime, and the living is semi-easy

 
Hello from Spain, where Mrs Roy has graciously allowed me 10 minutes of quality BlackBerry time before confiscating the bloody thing again and hauling me off on yet another shopping expedition. I’d voted for a spot of golf but have been outvoted.

There is no god.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re still at the office. My commiserations – I’ll be back at the salt mine soon enough myself.  Regardless of whether or not you have sangria in hand, however, let’s all give a thought to work-life balance this silly season, shall we?

Yes, the recession sucks and we’re all working harder and feeling stressed. But even a mini-break somewhere can recharge the batteries and aid productivity. Think of it as a kind of annual emo-MOT – a ‘must do’ item. I’m certainly feeling better for it (bad family outing decisions notwithstanding).

Keep your work-life equation balanced, is all I’m saying. You, your associates and your significant other(s) will all thank you for it.

PS. Can someone bring back Porgy & Bess? Gotta love the Gershwins. Great musical.

 

All Hail Neo-DM

According to figures released recently by the Central Office of Information (COI – tres Orwellian, huh?), the Government has become the UK’s biggest advertiser, spending £540 on marcoms during 2008-09 – a rise of 43 per cent on the previous year.

DM expenditure grew by one-third (accounting for £45.6 million), which Marc Michaels, Director of Direct and Relationship Marketing at the COI, attributes in part to the Government’s ongoing Change4Life and tobacco control campaigns.

Being something of a digi-doubter, this is a promising sign. In fact I’m predicting that DM will make something of a comeback in the lead-up to Christmas and beyond. As badly targeted e-mail offers have spammed everyone senseless in recent months (the cheapest channel isn’t necessarily the best response driver), Neo-DM campaigns which are personalized, attractive and powered by well-segmented, suppressed and up-to-date transactional data stands to deliver excellent ROI as we try to claw our way out of this recession, I reckon.

Right offer, right person, right time, right channel.  As a certain rather camp meerkat would say: ‘Simples!’

Deutschland, Deutschland über opt-in

With the spectre of edited Roll access still looming over the heads of UK marketers, the ‘Age of Opt-in’ has dawned across in Germany. The country’s data protection regulations have been amended with the explicit aim of curbing the trade in personal information between companies. There’s a three-year transition period involved as well as some exemptions (non-profit organisations, for example), but it’s an ominous sign when a Ministry of the Interior puts out a statement which says, in part: ‘The targeting of advertising is increasingly felt to be a burden, and to work against the desire for greater self-determination.’

From Nietzche’s Übermensch to über opt-in. Dunno about Denmark, but there’s certainly something rotten lurking over in the direction of the Black Forrest.

In other developments… Another day, another data breach, it seems. Brickbats to three HSBC firms (HSBC Life UK, HSBC Actuaries and Consultants, and HSBC Insurance Brokers), who last week were fined £3 million by the Financial Services Authority for losing personal information belonging to over 180,000 policyholders in - you guessed it! - the post.

To all those affected, my commiserations. I can only hope that none of the ‘lost’ information, which included unencrypted name, address, date of birth and NI numbers, has fallen into the wrong hands. And to HSBC management: Kindly remind your staff about the importance of data security, will you? Having previously ‘lost’ 370,000 customer records in April 2008, is it just me or are data protection lessons not being learned in certain quarters?

Spell What??

 Give me an ‘L’! Give me a ‘U’! Give me a ‘V’! Give me a ‘W’! Give me a…

Actually, enough of the alphabet-obsession when it comes to describing the shape of this recession. Is it just me or is a lot of the media punditry of late beginning to collectively sound like some sort of deranged, dyslexic cheer squad? Only without the mini-skirts and pom-poms. All I know is: (i) we’re still in it up to our proverbials; (ii) a few isolated green shoots of recovery do not a sustained upswing make; and (iii) none of Westminster’s rather expensive recovery programmes seem to be doing UK SME’s much in the way of good.

‘Tis indeed a cruel business summer. But maybe – just maybe! – bad times aren’t around the corner and the outlook isn’t necessarily vile. Branding consultancy Clear reported in a recent survey that 42 per cent of Britons are still spending money and feeling positive about their financial situation, so there’s still market share to be gained. In a zero-budget environment, however, the burning question is, of course: How?

All things marketing have earned especially close attention from yours truly since January. Not in any pejorative sense, but as a means by which we can cut better deals with advertisers, gain the most insight from our current client data and generally try to determine which combination of channels delivers the best return. In my opinion, getting ahead during tough times is all about understanding trends. For if you can quantify what and when your sector’s buying, you’ll be able to cut your marketing cloth accordingly. N'est-ce pas?

Unlike some CEO’s I’ve observed (and who shall remain nameless), one’s first impulse during tough times shouldn’t be to slash marketing and PR spends. I’m not advocating blithely carrying on as usual, please note – a recession is attention-worthy, after all – but it is possible to market in ways which increase response rates and ROI even during a downturn (DM and digital is an excellent channel combination, for example). Ditching ye olde volume-based, ‘bigger is better’ approach to marketing in favour of a marcoms stance which is more targeted and that emphasises value is also a canny move. But before you direct your marketing people to press ‘Send’ on your next e-mail campaign in the mistaken belief that online will provide a cheap, accessible channel by which to spam your way to recession-busting sales glory, I suggest you think again. My observation is that online is all but maxed-out at present. Open- and click-through rates are in freefall as punters are being inundated with unsolicited offers. It’s as if we’ve come full circle and are repeating the mistakes of old Eighties-styled direct mail – only digitally and not via letterboxes.

The companies and brands that will not only survive but even prosper during the rest of 2009 and beyond will be those whose marketing messages reassure consumers and whose products/services are perceived to add value. Now is definitely not the time for clever tricks or expensive marketing gimmicks, I believe. So let’s accentuate the positives, better manage the negatives and continue to give clients the right encouragement to part with their hard earned, shall we?