Emboldened by the recent New York City Transit Workers’ strike, I am setting aside this year’s wistful resolutions for the direct marketing industry in favor of issuing a manifesto DMers can present to society in 2006. Happy solidarity, my brothers and sisters! To the barricades!
1. The direct marketing industry demands that it receive product placement opportunities within television shows similar to those enjoyed by brand marketers. Our ultimate goal is getting the usual pace vehicle at the Daytona 500 replaced by the Publishers’ Clearing House Prize Patrol van.
2. DMers require Amtrak to include one “shopping-only” car on every train line. Seats in this car would be reserved for anyone promising to make a purchase via a wireless device during the trip. Riders will be required to show an e-mailed confirmation letter at their journey’s end, but those doing so will receive a $10 credit good on future Amtrak journeys. We also require that the airlines invest in technology that allows consumers the same privileges without causing the planes to plummet out of the sky.
3. The industry will not rest until TiVo includes an eBay-style “Buy It Now” button on its next iteration of remotes. Next year, we’ll agitate for that button to actually do something, but for now it will be the TV remote equivalent of a “door close” button in an elevator — a feel-good extra that makes consumers happy without actually doing anything.
4. We charge the U.S. Postal Service with improving its on-time delivery rates for Standard A mailings by the same percentage as the pending postage cost increase, upon pain of forfeiting the increase.
5. We call for the word “convergence” to be stricken from the direct marketing lexicon until ten learned DMers converge on its exact meaning.
6. The direct marketing press insists that any public relations hired gun be able to tell trade reporters how the software he/she is representing makes life easier for marketers in his/her own words, rather than reading an incomprehensible statement from a cheat sheet.
7. Network executives, having mined direct marketers’ potential as fodder for prime-time and daytime TV shows, must take the next logical step and create a Saturday morning cartoon devoted to fuzzy animals with superpowers who work in a customer contact center.
8. We call on politicians, who are comfortable letting voters cast ballots on obscure bond referendums, to explain why asking these same consumers to pick which industries they want to receive telemarketing calls from is too complicated, necessitating an all-or-nothing federal do-not-call list.
9. We stipulate that when e-mail service providers block our legitimate marketing messages, the e-mail service providers make up the lost tax revenue to the U.S. government.
10. Finally, we require that all C-level executives at companies suffering data breaches have their dates of birth, Social Security numbers and mothers’ maiden names extensively publicized as part of their punishment.
To add demands of your own to this list, please contact e-mail: [email protected]
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