Creative Direct Mail or Stalking?

Did this headline get your attention? It sure got mine. It got the attention of a lot of people on an industry online discussion board, too. The result was a lively debate about just how “personal” personalization ought to be.

Here’s the initial question whose posting was so creatively titled:

A friend of mine recently received a postcard from a potential vendor. The postcard had pictures of the sales rep in front of their building and in the lobby touting how personalized print can improve response rates. My friend has never met nor spoken with the vendor. Is this a creative approach or crossing the line?

While nearly every person involved in the discussion agreed that this was over the line, they were split on whether the campaign would have a positive result. Even if would, they split over whether it was worth the risk.

Of course, the salesperson wasn’t actually in each of the recipients’ locations. That’s the magic of 1:1 printing. So how could the campaign be an invasion if the salesperson was never actually there? Because the marketer had to obtain the images of the inside and outside of the building.

The external images could be obtained from a service like Google Earth, but the interior of the lobby had to be obtained in by someone going in and taking the image. Not to mention the impact of perception.

The effectiveness of personalized mailings is about showing relevance to the recipient, not how much you know about them.

The result, showing the salesperson in the lobby of each prospect location, certainly showcases the technical proficiency of marketing agency or 1:1 printer, but how “personal” is too personal for campaigns of this type?

I know if it had been me, I’d have spent the next half hour wondering when the photographer was in my lobby taking the picture, whether anyone on my staff noticed, and if so, why this person was allowed to snap away unchallenged.

Forget the marketing message. I’d be thinking about building security.

Is All Publicity Good Publicity?

Wrote one of the discussion group members, “It was pretty creative, but I’m guessing anything that puts a stranger, uninvited, within physical presence of the customer (digitally or otherwise) risks a cold shoulder.” I would add, or worse. It’s been said that a person with a positive experience with a company will tell two to three other people. A person with a bad experience will tell the world.

At the same time, others suggested that, creepy or not, the campaign got attention. After all, we were all talking about it, weren’t we? Doesn’t that suggest that the campaign was a success? Others were ready to judge its merits based on results. Forget the creepiness factor. What was the ROI once the cost of the photographer was taken into consideration? (Reading between the lines was, “If it works, we’ll do it, too! If it doesn’t, then we won’t bother!”)

For me, it doesn’t matter. Anything that makes recipients feel uncomfortable should be avoided—period. If the marketing staff who produced the postcard hadn’t thought about the potential discomfort of recipients, they should have. This isn’t Hollywood. Not all publicity is good publicity.

As readers of this column know, I’m a firm believer in variable data and personalization, but privacy always has to be respected. The effectiveness of personalized mailings is about showing relevance to the recipient, not how much you know about them.

In this case, the end result was that the recipient’s company conducted a background check on the salesperson and sent a letter to the vendor asking them to not contact the prospect or others in the organization again and to stay off private property. Not the result the marketer was likely looking for!

Relevance Over Personalization

For us, the discussion should prompt us to ask the broader question, what else crosses the line? Imagine it was your client asking the same question about a campaign you created.