I wish DIRECT had called to suggest I write a report on the worst direct response campaigns of the year. Most of those that came to my door or online screen are moldering in the city dump or in the ether beyond the moons of Jupiter.
But not to worry. Plenty of these are available for our contempt and for the first annual Ugly DM Awards.
Now, before we get into a shooting war, consider that when somebody attacks your “creative” work, a public “You’re one, too!” just gives secondary exposure to the original assault. So if you’re the source of some of these selections, discretion suggests you chuckle and then surreptitiously dispose of all the copies of this issue of DIRECT in your office. You’ll be safe, because these awards don’t include trophies or graffiti.
Who Wants to Be a Schmuck?
I’ll place in the No. 1 position for worst campaign and the Grand Ugly DM Award the direct response ad the ABC Network put in Sunday newspaper supplements this summer. The heading: “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” The subhead: “Play Network TV’s First $1,000,000 Quiz Show.”
Below the subhead, here’s a grinning Regis, holding a bunch of what seem to be $10 bills. Uh…that can’t be the whole payout. He’d need 100,000 $10 bills, and I don’t think he’s holding that many.
No big deal there. No big deal, either, that the pitch is to call a 900 number (are they still around?), at $1.50 per call. Display type says proudly, “Presented in part by AT&T.”
What is a big deal (in shrunken size) is the explanation. Here are 32 lines of 5-point type, set solid, in one paragraph, and — get this! — reversed, with half the background a yellowish green. Nice obfuscation, guys.
I’ll reprint — for the first time in readable size — a fragment of the rules jumbled into that formidable copy:
One (1) Quiz Show will be taped each day from August 15 through August 28 (excluding August 22). To enter the first Telephone Qualifying round, entrants must call the 900# and select a specific tape date they wish to compete for (from among the remaining available tape dates). Qualification for each tape date closes at noon (EDT) two (2) days prior to the tape date. Once a tape date has been selected, the player will…
Aw, the hell with it (those last words are mine, as you may have surmised).
Oh, a nice little bonus. Toward the end of the copy we read, assuming we have a magnifying glass: “It is estimated that in the first round 5.5 million people will participate and 12.5% of all callers will answer all three (3) questions correctly.” Not bad. At $1.50 per call, that’s $7,500,000 to be split between ABC and AT&T. Nice way to offset production costs, guys.
Froggies Go “Rebate, Rebate”
A close second is the rash (now apparently at least partially healed) of ads by computer retailers offering a complete desktop system, excluding monitor, for under $200 (after rebate).
Whoever is setting type in 5-point was working overtime. I’ll transcribe just the beginning of the copy:
$400 mail-in rebate requires (1) purchase of any eligible computer, (2) contract commitment to a 3-year (36 months) subscription to CompuServe 2000 Internet service at the monthly rate of $21.95 or full prepayment of $790.20 at the time of registration, (3) a completed mail-in rebate form, (4) a dated photocopy of the purchase receipt with the eligible computer and (5) a copy of the UPC code from the computer box.
Buried in the text is the dire warning about what happens if the buyer doesn’t prepay the $790.20 and poops out before paying for 36 months. For example, if you pay CompuServe for 35 months and then don’t pay the final month, they sock your credit card with a $50 service fee and a $200 penalty. Well, OK. People who sign up are expected to pay for what they buy. Fair enough. Still, while we admire the cunning way the computer stores have buried the cost, we have to wonder about the craftiness behind the pitch.
(What would we have done? Depending on the balance between implicit greed and the hope that we wouldn’t further damage the reputation of people in “the advertising bid-niss,” we might have headed the proposal “Wow! A state-of-the-art computer PLUS three years of Internet service for less than the usual cost of the computer alone”…or something like that.)
What Continent Are You From?
Today’s airplanes boast about their redundancies. If one set of controls doesn’t work, another can take over. If the hydraulics leak, a manual override assures safety.
But that doesn’t mean mailings from airlines should emphasize redundancies.
One of the stupidest mailings I’ve seen this year is the semi-professional (I’m being generous) message Continental Airlines sent to meeting planners. Talk about redundancies! The first sentence of the letter:
Bringing people together can be a lot of work.
The first sentence of the brochure:
Bringing people together can be a lot of work.
Yeah. It’s a lot more work than structuring a proper direct mail package. And this isn’t a case of one component reinforcing another. Heading after heading, body text after body text, it’s straight copy-lift. Look, guys: Have your letter exhort and your brochure describe and you have a shot at creating a mailing that sells. Not here. The first subhead of the letter:
Discounts for meeting attendees and more.
The first subhead of the brochure:
Discounts for meeting attendees and more
Oh, I guess the writer can call them different because there’s no period after the weak statement in the brochure. But don’t get hopeful. After this subhead, here’s the text in the letter:
Your attendees can experience Continental’s award-winning service at a discounted fare. If you have 10 or more people traveling on Continental to your event’s destination from two or more originating points, blah blah blah.
After the identical subhead, here’s the text in the brochure:
Your attendees can experience Continental’s award-winning service at a discounted fare. If you have 10 or more people traveling on Continental to your event’s destination from two or more originating points, blah blah blah.
The redundancies continue throughout both pieces. Funny bit, though: The one difference between the two components is…the phone number. That’ll do a lot to help response! Hey, Continental, I have a question: Did you pay for two components? If you did, you were had. C’mon up to claim your award.
E-mail or F-mail?
B-to-B e-mail is both an art and a science.
It’s an art in its ability (or inability) to paint a picture of profit — whether that profit be in dollars or in status. It’s a science in its ability (or inability) to generate an emotional reaction.
Do you regard it as strange that so many business e-mails you get don’t know, don’t care, and because of those two derelictions don’t compete? I don’t. The art and science of e-mail are recent appendages to force-communication, and everybody is an expert. After all, what’s to do? You punch out a provocative headline, which may or may not be relevant to your pitch. Then it’s just a matter of blending benefit and puffery.
So in comes an e-mail with this heading:
Where Will Your Business Be in 2001?
Is that provocative? If you think so, you’re on Prozac. But OK, assume some of the bottom-end businesses will read that and not delete the message. They then will see:
ARE YOU A MERCHANT
IF SO I HAVE VALUABLE INFORMATION FOR YOU!
Merchant? Well, OK; although “Do you operate a retail business?” might seem more encompassing and relevant. The text begins:
I represent a company that can provide you with a Merchant Account which accepts all Major Credit Cards.
If you do not accept credit cards today, then you are loosing $MONEY$
Enough! While I’m “loosing” money, you’re losing your grammar. But then I begin to wonder what you’re selling, because I come upon these words:
Good Credit/Bad Credit or No Credit
“No Problem as most are approved”
Gee, that gives me a lot of confidence. But what does the issuance of credit cards to people with no credit have to do with my acceptance of credit cards? This suggests that a bunch of derelicts with bad credit are going to swarm into my little toy store.
Am I being harsh? Damn right I am. E-mail is both the hottest medium and the most attention-fleeting medium ever devised. With the outrageous cost of e-mail list rental and the tortuous agony of building a house list, bad grammar and muzzy messaging are a luxury. We’ll give a well-deserved Ugly DM Award to this “looser.”
The Left Hand Doesn’t Know What the Right Hand is Writing?
Neither does the right hand.
One of my favorite marketing concepts is the marvelous word verisimilitude — the quality of appearing to be true. We’re wallowing in The Age of Skepticism, and a huge proportion of our targets reject offers that not only lack verisimilitude, but laugh in its face.
Two mailings came on the same day, both from “P.O. Box 85149, Richmond, VA 23285-5149.” One was for a Visa card. The other was for a MasterCard. Envelope size and windows were identical, which indicates it couldn’t have been two independent creative teams somehow finding the same formula.
Copy visible through the window is — well, let’s call it mediocre. The Visa mailing says, “[NAME], you are pre-selected for this offer of a Visa® Platinum card with a 0% introductory APR!” Well, of course this person was pre-selected. (I don’t like “pre-selected”: It puts the recipient in a secondary position, like meat at the supermarket.) If you send an offer to somebody, obviously you’ve selected him/her. The “pre” is beyond me.
That isn’t the big gripe I have with these mailings. No, it’s more basic than that.
On each envelope face is a rubber stamp effect. Each rubber stamp reads:
RELEASE
AUTHORIZATION
CUSTOMER NUMBER: 23469384394
One says, “Reviewed by” with the initials JIS. The other says, “Approval:” with the initials JIS. So I have two questions:
The total population of the world is about 6 billion people. This authorization is beyond 23 billion. They’ve pre-selected everyone who ever lived, plus about 15 billion yet to be born. Now that’s selection! And to have the same authorization number on each envelope? Prime! (So you won’t think this actually was a legitimate number, the addressee names weren’t quite the same.) These mailings are natural award-winners. Congratulations!
Got Any Candidates?
Every now and then, when the gag reflex has calmed, DIRECT may report exposure of marketing miscues like these. If you come across candidates, don’t be selfish. Share them with me. Maybe they’ll achieve the dubious immortality they deserve, and we all can chortle over our own superiority.
Herschell Gordon Lewis writes the column “Curmudgeon-at-Large” for DIRECT.
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