Oh, the irony. A dissident board member of the Direct Marketing Association has launched a campaign against the DMA using the one channel the organization has arguably struggled with most—e-mail.
Gerry Pike on Sept. 25 sent an e-mail to DMA members asking them to sign their proxy votes over to him. As far as Pike is concerned, the DMA hasn’t been serving its members and he’d like to change that.
Pike’s aim is to get two resolutions passed that would give members control over who gets on the board.
If he gets enough votes, conceivably Pike can create a royal ruckus at the DMA’s upcoming annual board meeting in San Diego on Oct. 18—an event that’s reportedly usually a snooze fest.
An ancillary issue is DMA President and CEO John Greco’s compensation: $720,671 in salary and $117,857 in benefits, according to the organization’s 2007 tax filings, the most recent available.
Pike has also put up a Web site outlining his complaints and what he intends to do if he gets enough member votes:
- “Ensure that our members come first at every level: policies, services, programs and support.
- “Get DMA management compensation back in line with industry standards.
- “Make the DMA relevant and [a] market leader again, before it’s too late.”
The DMA is apparently taking Pike’s effort seriously. The group has fired back by launching an e-mail and direct mail proxy-vote campaign of its own to members addressing Pike’s charges. The DMA also sent Pike a cease-and-desist letter claiming Pike got the DMA’s member list under false pretenses.
Pike claims he’s got his own list and it’s working just fine, thank you.
The DMA has also threatened to sue Pike, alleging he has engaged in the “dissemination of misleading and inflammatory public statements about DMA and its representatives.”
As one Direct reader pointed out, it is highly ironic that a man claiming to voice dissatisfaction on behalf of the DMA’s members must spend his own money to do so while the DMA uses its members’ money to silence him.
So far, Pike does not appear to be backing down.
So it all boils down to this: an online marketing campaign versus an online marketing campaign for proxy votes in a David-against-Goliath battle to set the future of an organization that is becoming increasingly irrelevant because of, well, the emergence of online marketing.
The DMA’s track record on interactive marketing is, to put it kindly, not stellar.
For example, the DMA acquired the Association for Interactive Marketing in 1998 and systematically disemboweled it until it was dead in 2003—though, to be fair, the dot-com implosion of 2001 helped push it over the edge.
In 2007, the DMA acquired the Email Experience Council to try and gain some much-needed credibility in e-mail marketing circles. Despite the efforts of some highly talented executive volunteers, the EEC has largely become a non-entity. According to sources, the EEC gets little to no organizational support, and volunteers with full-time jobs outside the DMA can only do so much.
Moreover, the DMA has yet to be able to bring itself to publically state that spam is unsolicited bulk commercial e-mail, and that spamming is unacceptable. Under former DMA President Bob Wientzen, the organization defined spam as only fraudulent e-mail and hasn’t publically addressed the issue since.
Spammers don’t need an association. They just spam.
In any case, can Pike prevail? Who knows?
But in an admittedly highly non-scientific poll taken on Direct’s Web site, of 580 people who answered the question, “Are you giving Gerry Pike your proxy?” 64% said “yes.”
In terms of page views, stories and blog posts on the battle between Pike and the DMA led Direct’s Web site and Chief Marketer’s Big Fat Marketing Blog last week.
If nothing else, Pike got a public conversation started about the DMA among marketers—members and ex-members—that was long overdue if the organization wants to avoid sliding into complete irrelevancy in the 21st century.
Pike said he realizes his proxy battle is a long shot.
“They have a built-in advantage,” he said. “They have all the resources.”
Maybe so, but anyone who understands direct marketing knows it all comes down to the offer and the list.
Both sides apparently have comparable lists. So in this case it all comes down to the offer.
