Experts Say Familiar Mail will be Opened

Will Americans open their mail? That’s the big unanswered question as marketers scramble to control the damage after two pieces of mail tested positive for anthrax.

The industry is certain to take a hit, but the duration and severity of the damage are not known, experts said.

“We just don’t know what the impact of this is going to be,” said Emily Soell, vice chairman and chief creative officer at DraftWorldwide.

But Soell believes that most mail is “truly recognizable” and will likely be opened while packages and mail that arrive from unidentified or unrecognizable sources will quickly be trashed. “I’m making a leap of faith and an assumption based on my own behavior and I am the fraidy cat of the universe,” she said.

Many direct marketing packages and envelopes that purposely don’t include a return address to improve response, are now identifying the sender and the return address, said Dan Capell, editor of Capell’s Circulation Report.

Marketers are investigating postcards and other mail pieces that aren’t sealed while other look closely at outer envelope and package creative.

“Given the concerns that some people have we thought it was sensible to go back and look at all our packages with a critical eye and then make a determination as to what we might change if anything,” said Time spokesperson Peter Costiglio.

Time Inc. has no plan to alter mail volume at this time, he said.

Meanwhile, some predict doom for the industry.

A bioterrorism expert, Judith Miller, was asked Monday night by a caller to CNN about “junk mail.” Miller said that American’s wouldn’t open it and that direct marketing was an industry in “serious trouble.”

Of a larger concern to some in the industry—other than consumer’s fears of opening mail–is a possible shift in advertising dollars away from direct mail to “safer” channels like the Internet, TV or radio.

“Mail has become such a bad word,” said Deborah Wallis, president of Deborah Data Inc., a data processing business in Miami, FL. “They may make decisions that are going to be very long range.”

The Direct Marketing, which offered suggestions this week for securing direct mail, will next week consider reducing its growth projections for the year. After the Sept. 11 attacks, projections for direct marketing-industry growth were reduced from 3.6% to 3.3%.

“We will learn to cope, said Gordon Grossman, a circulation consultant. “We’ll still have a viable direct mail industry six months from now, but its going to hurt in the short term. People are not going to want to open their mail.