Bob Wientzen began his day last Wednesday the same way he had spent most of the previous one: by talking to a reporter.
Wientzen, the president of the Direct Marketing Association, had spent weeks fielding questions about the impact of Sept. 11. But now he was being barraged with queries about the very survival of direct mail.
Most consumer reporters were not convinced by his claims that the anthrax scare was a “handful of letters sent to a very targeted audience,” and that they did not threaten direct mail.
“I am not getting that message across,” he admitted. “I did seven interviews yesterday, but reporters aren’t interested in that story.”
Worse yet, the DMA alleged that one of them misquoted him as saying that mailers should switch to other media, which is far from his position.
“I’m telling people to go ahead with their mail plans, because frankly there aren’t really good alternatives,” he said. “They may want to add another media channel if they can-supplemental postcards, teleservices, get some e-mail addresses to match up with mail.”
But isn’t there some truth to the idea that response will suffer if people aren’t opening their mail?
“The public will eventually figure out, hopefully sooner rather than later, that this scare is a handmade, one-up effort, that’s not likely to involve much of a threat,” he answered. “If it’s a Unabomber-type guy, that will end the scare as far as we’re concerned.”
Has it hurt members?
“People are certainly indicating business is soft, but they’re not saying the immediate crisis has made it all that much worse,” Wientzen said. “I think it could, yes, but we don’t see that this has done that much damage.”
But anthrax is only one of the things on Wientzen’s mind as the DMA’s annual fall conference opens in Chicago. Many people had predicted that it would never come off.
“It’s looking pretty good to me,” Wientzen said when asked about attendance. “We got a lot of registrations when we did our promotions, and there were some cancellations when the anthrax thing started.”
Anyone in particular?
“The overseas group has been the hardest for us to figure out. We were doing great, but then we got a lot of cancellations from overseas.” Wientzen wouldn’t reveal exact numbers.
Will the DMA make money on this show? “We probably will,” he said. “I think the issue here is this is a time when people need to go to a conference.”
“It’s a service [we have to] provide whether we lose money on it or not. This meeting is part business meeting and part family reunion.”
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