In June, when American military officials captured Saddam Hussein's top aide, Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Tikriti, the tabloid headlines blared that the U.S. had snared an ace.
The ace they were referring to is al-Tikriti's face card in the Iraqi card deck. That's the deck the military distributed to soldiers in Iraq to help them recognize the “most wanted” officials of the former government that the United States wanted to find and arrest.
And the replica of that deck, Iraqi Most Wanted playing cards, sold direct, is anecdotally thought to be the best-selling product in the U.S. More than 1 million decks were sold in the first three weeks at $5.95 a pack. But the average order per customer was $35.
Marketed by GreatUSAFlags.com, the replica deck was put on the market April 11, days after the United States invaded Iraq. (GreatUSAFlags was constructed on a whim by parent companies Lionstone International, a direct seller of wine in Lake Forest, IL — which figured patriotic products might sell well at that moment in time — and Los Angeles e-mail marketing firm JDR Media.)
The deck was mentioned on a satirical Web site about Iraq's minister of information (WeLovetheIraqiInformationMinister.com), and demand exploded.
“We started with 10,000 decks, and in two days we needed half a million,” said Ed Jack, co-owner of Lionstone.
Demand didn't relent for about a month. “We were taking 4,500 orders an hour — 90 orders a minute,” said Jack.
Word went out over the Internet as self-appointed affiliate marketers transmitted word of the deck. GreatUSAFlags paid these companies only if they made sales. “Without us spending much money, [the deck] was going to millions and millions of people,” Jack said. “The whole thing took on a life of its own.”
No product has flown off the shelves with greater abandon since the days of Hula Hoops and Frisbees. But those fads sold slower and had a longer life span. The speed of the Internet — and perhaps the urgency of a war expected to be short — quickened the pace of sales with the Most Wanted deck.
But there was a price in stress and lack of sleep.
Jack's one-word description of the experience: overwhelming.
“We weren't prepared to handle the volume, but we knew how to handle problems,” said the veteran marketer.
He and his partners hired 80 temps to handle the order volume, installed a new server and brought in 15 more computers. Workers slept on cots in between shifts. “It was a whole business we had to build around the product,” Jack said.
But looking back, neither Jack nor his partners have any regrets. They've recently put out a deck of U.S. Military Heroes of the Iraq war. And it sold well, along with flags and patriotic lapel pins, particularly around Father's Day, “but nothing will ever go like the Iraqi card decks,” Jack said.
Still, GreatUSA put its buyers file on the market in earlier this month. A 375,000-name postal file and e-mail file are available through Loring Direct Response Inc. A package insert program has been started too with a universe of 1 million. Not bad for two month's work.
