Survey: Introduction

We’ve always known it. Direct marketing purchasers are smarter, happier, kinder and more physically fit than everyone else. And they have the best marriages.

Ridiculous? Not really. Those are among the findings of this year’s Direct/Yankelovich survey of consumer attitudes about direct marketing.

The first survey in 2002 explored how consumers shop and how they like to be contacted. This year, Yankelovich went beyond that to explore the attitudes and interests of consumers who shop direct.

It found that DM responders rate very high in areas relating to success and accomplishment, although not always by great margins. In addition, they’re more likely to want to reduce stress in their lives, know themselves better, and improve their physical appearance.

Of course, they also make better shoppers overall. They’re more likely to tell people about a product they like — and about one they don’t like.

As Yankelovich tells it, the findings represent both opportunity and risk.

The results, which we are pleased to have in the pages of Direct, were to be presented in full in a session at the National Center for Database Marketing conference in Long Beach, CA.

Once again, thanks to J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich Inc., Craig Wood, president of Yankelovich division Monitor MindBase, and our own Richard H. Levey, for making it happen.