Taking the Reins

A day shy of his one-month anniversary on the job, Direct sat down with new Direct Marketing Association president and CEO John A. Greco Jr. to talk about his thoughts on direct marketing and the future of the association. Greco comes to the DMA not only with association leadership experience, but with time spent in the DM trenches as well. He is the former president and CEO of the Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association, and has held executive positions at R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co., RCA and AT&T. “Outstanding” was the word he used to describe his first month at the DMA. “I could not be happier about the reception I’ve received,” he said, sitting in his New York office. “I’ve had the opportunity to interact with stakeholders from the external environment in the government, with our members and with our staff. Everyone has made this a very warm and engaging welcome and I’m very excited about that.”

DIRECT: What are you hearing from members?

GRECO: A major part of the agenda here [has been] to get with a cross section of members from all the segments. I think the dominant theme is that we need to understand how to raise the bar on our performance as an industry, and that we need to find a way to positively [affect] consumer perception of the industry and the association. While there are many member segments with different needs and unique characteristics, there are certainly some common themes emerging.

DIRECT: As I’m sure you’re aware, direct marketing isn’t always the most popular medium to some members of the public. Did that give you any hesitation about taking the job?

GRECO: Oh, not at all. Far from it. As a matter of fact, that was one of the many things that made it so exciting. I think this is a tremendous opportunity to lead the organization at a point in time when we’re truly going to shape the parameters of this industry for many, many years to come. Consumer perception of the industry is a positive challenge, because we already have some very positive pieces of a story to tell here. There’s a dimension that has to do with education, instead of regulation. We need to understand how to work the dynamic that exists when we do an outstanding job targeting. The flip side of that is the emerging discussion around privacy. [It’s] a balance that has to be struck. I’m looking forward to leading the charge and sorting that out.

DIRECT: With regard to consumer perception, what do you think the DMA has been doing right, and what do you think it could be doing better?

GRECO: I think it’s been doing a lot of things right. I think the DMA clearly has [been] administering best practices. It’s one thing to have a set of policies, it’s another to attempt to enforce [them], and [the DMA] has been doing both, through the ethics committees, best practices and the operational side which actually reviews case violations and makes sure people who are not adhering to those practices understand what they’re doing wrong and get a chance to [correct] it and learn from it. I don’t believe consumers are as aware as they could be, and this is where there’s room for improvement in terms of a communications or public relations program.

DIRECT: Can you talk a bit about your experience in the Yellow Pages Association and how you think your experience there will help you coming into this role?

GRECO: There are many similarities, not the least of which is the need for consensus building that existed at the Yellow Pages, because there were a diverse set of member segments, including large, small, telecom and independent publishers, [as well as] people who had nothing to do with publishing — certified marketing representatives [from] the sales channel, specialized agencies, print only, electronic only. We had supplier side, we had printers, database managers — is this sounding a little familiar in terms of synergy?

DIRECT: Very familiar. People refer to direct marketing as an industry, but it’s really a community built up of different industries.

GRECO: I’m glad you mentioned that. [Among] the things that came up in some of the member discussions is that frequently people will say one of the greatest challenges we have is we’re not ‘an’ industry, a single industry. My reaction is, that’s OK, we’re still all part of a process, the direct and interactive marketing process. We have participants that touch that process all along the value chain, and that’s the community.

DIRECT: What were the big issues you faced at the Yellow Pages?

GRECO: We had major regulatory issues [involving] copyright infringement, FTC issues [with] copyright policies, we had fascinating issues around dealing with national accounts vs. local and small businesses. We certainly had interesting issues around the infrastructure of delivery, similar to the postal issues we face here, getting a ubiquitous distribution of directories into everybody’s home. We also were facing Internet/electronic issues, in terms of remote advertising, where a particular client chose to place an ad in the directory out of state. [There were] many similar public policy [matters].

DIRECT: What are your thoughts on telemarketing? Obviously, a big part of the industry is still reeling from the impact of the do-not-call list.

GRECO: While the telemarketing segment historically has had a cloud [over it], there are some wonderful things happening. The telemarketing industry was responsible for interacting and closing business with, I believe, 66 million consumers in 2003. That says we’re doing something very right. There’s still a very vital role for telemarketing. Telemarketing can be done correctly, professionally within the realm of the consumer’s desire to receive that call and act on it. The membership needs to continue to understand what consumers want [regarding] that contact, but there’s no reason to believe [that] isn’t a strong, vital channel. Sixty-six million transactions proves it.

DIRECT: What about online marketing, especially e-mail?

GRECO: What’s exciting about online marketing is clearly the interactive component. Just look at what’s going on in the keyword search arena, the degree to which consumers are reaching out to businesses and trying to find relevant offers. I think we have nothing but potential there. I think we’ve just begun to see the tip of the iceberg in terms of what [e-mail] can do to round out the relationship with the consumer and the real bonding that can occur.

DIRECT: The association’s position on spam has been to differentiate between unsolicited e-mail per se and fraudulent e-mail. Your predecessor took a lot of heat from the privacy lobby on this. What’s your take on the issue?

GRECO: I think from what I’ve seen so far there is a clear distinction between what we call spam vs. unsolicited e-mail. The acid test is, does [the message] have a clear header [that isn’t] misleading in terms of what the message content is going to be about? Do I have a clear identification of [the sender’s] address? All the things [the industry has] described [as being] a legitimate e-mail [apply]. If [the e-mail] is still not wanted, do consumers have a way to provide feedback to say they don’t want to be contacted again? There’s a way to label this and say there’s a level that’s pure spam and is truly misleading and it doesn’t give you a way to reach back to the [sender]. It’s annoying, it’s frustrating. And then there’s unwanted but legitimate communications [where] the person or business that sent it is willing to stand behind the message, be identified and say, ‘If you have a problem you can contact me here.’

DIRECT: Have any not-so-positive experiences as a consumer helped inform you in your new role?

GRECO: Absolutely, and that’s helpful here in bringing a balanced perspective. [With three teenagers], I live in a living focus group, as I call it, at home. Have we been overly spammed, have we been subject to spyware that has invaded and taken over our browsers? Have we had to deal with that? Certainly. Once you go through that level of aggravation, you recognize that there are people in our industry trying to do the right thing, and then there are other players who are the bad actors. Unfortunately — if we don’t do a better job of communicating the difference — they could give us all a bad name. And so I have a very heightened sensitivity to that. There are two different ways [direct marketing] can be done. One is very acceptable and welcome, and one is an annoyance. I want to stay on the right side of that equation all the time.

DIRECT: Are you seeing there are segments of the industry that are perhaps under-served by the DMA?

GRECO: I’m not sure that I would say under-served. I believe there are segments we could engage more directly, and help [them] get the value that’s already there. As an example, take the small business segment. Small businesses in the direct and interactive arena already have expressed to me through some of the membership meetings that they don’t feel that they have a forum. We believe we have a fairly good track on the conference agenda that would apply to small businesses. But for some reason, we haven’t made that visible enough to them. They can’t navigate their way through the conference to see what’s relevant for them. So part of it is doing a better job of packaging for that segment, part of it is engaging that segment. Maybe we need to form a small business council. This is an example where we’ve got some great value but we just haven’t necessarily connected. Historically we will serve many of those small participants through chapters. There are certainly ways for them connect. I want to meet with — I’ve already had some discussions with — a few of the chapter heads, and we’re going to do more of that and [try to] understand how we can serve them better. There’s another thing we’re doing there that’s very exciting. Postmaster General Jack Potter explained to me recently what he has in place to engage smaller businesses around the value of the postal system. There are approximately 200 Postal Customer Councils he runs around the country, complementing and in parallel with his national accounts program. We agreed that [the DMA] should help get the message [across] and [provide] training. We have a very significant professional development and training organization here. We have 40 different programs that, I believe, touched somewhere around 2,500 members last year, many of them multiple times, [concerning] training, development and execution. At each of these Postal Customer Councils, we will deliver part of the content that explains how to effectively use direct mail.

DIRECT: In general, is the DMA thinking of doing more with its chapters and councils on a local level?

GRECO: Absolutely. I think there’s a way to expand the councils and increase local participation. And there’s also [the question of] how we work with the chapter to make sure the [local] members are fully engaged. Those are separate tracks and separate problems that need to be solved, but we’re very much aware that we could be doing more.

DIRECT: Any new local chapters in the offing?

GRECO: None that I can talk about, but we have at least one if not a couple in the hopper.

DIRECT: Is it a large city?

GRECO: It’s an NFL city. Does that narrow it down for you? [Laughs.]

DIRECT: What are your goals for the association? Do you foresee any organizational changes?

GRECO: In the short term, operational excellence for the organization is one [goal]. I think it’s too soon to say exactly what changes [there will be]. Whenever there’s a change in leadership, something will change. I can tell you I will look for opportunities to connect the dots across the organization and really bring value to each of the segments. But the organization chart is just to keep things in focus. We’re all here to serve the members. We’re going to evolve, in many ways morph ourselves continuously, based on the best way to create value for members. When I look out five years from now, I see an organization that’s perceived as extremely strong in terms of operational excellence and doing what it says it’s going to do from a financial [perspective], [and providing] membership satisfaction. I see an organization that has a phenomenal infrastructure in place, both on the technological and the human side. I see a strategic plan that is constantly [being] updated and guiding us to make sure we are putting our resources [into] things that are important to this industry. And I see a public policy agenda, a regulatory and legislative agenda that also is [regularly] updated to make sure we’re representing the common denominators that all our members care about, as well as issues [affecting] individual member segments.