Should Direct Marketing Lose the Name?

Sometimes a brand identity can become so trashed through a combination of mismanagement and general public backlash, that it becomes unsalveagable. This is clearly the case with the name "Direct Marketing."

If one thing became clear to me through the course of three days here at the Direct Marketing Association annual convention, it's that the word "direct" is dragging an entire industry down. The word is reviled by everyone except its practitioners. It stands for "mail," interruptive telemarketing, shoddy TV production and lower standards in creative, when it should be standing for principles like response and measurement. It's become associated with tactics that are dated. It's known as a marketing discipline that sacrifices the long-term brand for the short-term gain. And while it's core principles (targeting, measurement and engagement) are still relevant — even desirable — to digital, PR and brand marketers, these other areas of marketing would sooner bite off a foot than admit that they were part of what DMA CEO John Greco calls, "Direct Marketing's big tent."

Where An Industry Message Went Wrong

The problems are complex and I'm currently dealing with them in another, much longer piece. But if we want to boil things down, the main issue is that the Direct Marketing industry has become the defender of "tactics," when then they should have been a defender of "processes." Where we should have focused on education and outreach, to infuse the principles of response-based marketing into the lexicon of all marketers, we instead have spent the industry's time and money defending a fading medium (mail) and lobbying against legislation that consumers actually want.

The most telling moment in the convention for me was in John Greco's opening session comments, where he said, "We will continue to fight do-not-mail registries wherever they come up."

Excuse me?

Let's do a little a translation here. Essentially he was telling the world that, "We will continue to fight for the right to communicate to individuals in ways that they don't want, because you all are too fat on doing things the old way and too lazy to change." Why not work with governments to craft smarter opt-out/opt-in systems that allows customers to choose how and when they receive messages? Don't we all already pay money to have such systems put in place?

This is what "direct" means to people. It means old thinking. It means dated tactics. It means unwillingness to change. It means interruption. It means irrelevance. The monikers may not be entirely true or fair in all cases, but the charges certainly stick far too often for comfort.

Change Doesn't Come From Lip-Service

Direct marketers can say, "Well, we can change our ways" or "We embrace digital" or "We need to help brand advertisers measure better" or "We're social," but who will listen now? Just about all the industry has left in the way of defenders are the USPS, the printers and the practicing direct agencies. And no, don't throw Google at me, because just being a sponsor doesn't mean they are adopting the name "direct marketer." They may say they do direct marketing to the DMA or say they embrace direct marketing principles, but I can guarantee they're shuffling those slides from the deck for every other presentation they make.

There is no longer any pride in the name "direct." So clearly the time has come to drop the word from what we do.

Surprisingly, I'm not alone in this evaluation. I talked to many individuals here who have arrived at this conclusion on their own; not least of which is the incoming Chairman of the DMA Board of Directors, Gene Raitt. The general consensus is that to get back to being an organization focused on principles and processes, the industry as a whole needs to eliminate the word that has defined them as a single tactic — mail.

And when you think about it, this decision makes so much sense it's mind-boggling why it hasn't happened sooner.

Certainly no one would claim that just changing a name alone can solve all the problems. But it does signal a much clearer focus on the changes that need to be made, as well as communicates a definitive decision to get away from defending the old in favor of being a resource for the new.

So what would be the the Unique Selling Proposition of an International Marketing Association? I'll cover that one tomorrow.