'PRIVACIST' RESPONDS
A recent issue of Direct ran an editorial about Bob Wientzen retiring (Direct Hit, February), which included the following:
"But [Wientzen] served during a tumultuous period, and what we ended up with in Washington is better than we had any right to expect. Go out there and talk to the consumerists, and to crazies like Bob Bulmash....You will find that we have dodged some bullets on the regulatory front."
Cute!
When the God of Money is supplanted by a simple respect for human rights, those who promote those rights are labeled as crazy by a standard-bearer of the direct marketing industry.
Perhaps the privacist's mantra should be, "We don't want to sue those who don't want to be sued."
But what about the industry's dismissive view of those who act to protect their fundamental right of privacy? Mahatma Gandhi reportedly said, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
The direct marketing industry can change. It must, in the end, truly respect an individual's privacy. We have seen what happened in the telemarketing arena. Direct marketing blinders will not prevent similar pro-privacy legislative initiatives (which will inevitably succeed). Lawmakers smell blood. The national do-not-call list's popularity invites them to seriously examine the privacy implications of database marketing and unremitting direct mail.
Indeed, the office of a state attorney general, seeking a legal "hook" to limit advertising mail, recently contacted Private Citizen. The AG's query was incited by the rash of toxins sent via the USPS as well as the public's general aversion to the increased flood of (what they view as) junk mail. Note that interstate commerce does not preclude states from enacting laws that ultimately can limit junk mail.
The DMA's two recent Pyrrhic victories will inevitably elevate consumer privacy at the cost of the direct marketing industry's current business model.
One such "victory" was the DMA's strong support of the Can Spam Act. The act was promoted as a means to assuage abusive direct marketing e-mail practices, but was actually intended to derail California's more effective anti-spam law. The act's spectacular failure in reducing spam is now a pro-privacy legislative beacon in Congress.
The other was the DMA's court challenge of the Federal Trade Commission's authority to establish the national do-not-call list. The DMA's success enabled Congress to nullify the court's decision with lightning speed and a vote so nearly unanimous as to be comparable to Congress' vote declaring war on Japan.
Thanks to the DMA, federal courts will likely view future conflicts between direct marketing and privacy with more sensitivity toward consumer rights. With friends like the DMA, who needs crazy privacists?
To deflect crushing legislation, direct marketers should stop pretending to believe their own ersatz pro-privacy publicity. Privacy is a political hot button and rearranging DM deck chairs will no longer prevent the industry's hull from being legislatively breached.
My suggestion to direct marketers: Implement real pro-privacy policies as a marketing tool to attract and hold customers. Most DMers will dismiss this new business model initially, but ultimately it will result in increased sales through consumer confidence. It may also save the industry from being further hobbled.
Either way, this privacist is here to help. Bob Bulmash Private Citizen Inc.
HOME FOR WAYWARD PRONOUNS
You do a disservice to your readers, your interview subjects and your language - presumably, three crucial components in your business - when you include constructions such as this, from "Pet Cause" (February): "We brought she and her puppies back...."
It doesn't matter whether the wayward pronoun came from the speaker, the copy editor or the proofreader; somebody should have caught it before it escaped to sully your publication. Bruce Rhodewalt La Quinta, CA
ASK FOR A PREDICTION...
Beth Negus Viveiros has a great idea (Pushing the Envelope, February). I'm happy to list my predictions of what will happen in direct marketing in the next 12 months.
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Urged by Republican congressmen to "learn more from private enterprise," the U.S. Postal Service reduces postage rates for anyone who will enclose piggybacking magazine subscription renewal notices and credit card offers in their Valentine's Day and Christmas cards.
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Hallmark responds to the piggybacking innovation with a Valentine's Day card that says, "Roses are red/Violets are blue/Not only do I love you/But it's your last chance to renew." Companion Christmas card burbles, "Ho ho ho ho ho/This season is such fun/Enjoy zero percent APR/Until June 2101."
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New DMA chief persuades Congress to require all consumers who want to continue opting out of telephone solicitations to appear in person at the Department of Commerce office in Washington. There they must wait hours in line to fill out a 15-page form and pay a $20 fee. Law is named the Defense of the Right to Know Act.
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After the Defense of the Right to Know Act passes, new DMA chief is derided by association members for "doing too little" his first year in office.
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In an attempt to befuddle terrorists while reducing airline security costs, former air passengers win permission to affix stamps and address labels to their foreheads and mail themselves to their destinations.
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Last-minute legislative change bans electronic voting machines but permits voters to download ballots from the Internet and then snail mail them. Election goes to the U.S. Supreme Court after 700,000 ballots are discovered, along with an equal number of lingerie and electronics parts catalogs, dumped in a New Jersey swamp.
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To save on printing costs, USPS eliminates postage stamps and permits bulk mailers and consumers alike to simply tape the correct amount of postage to the upper right-hand corners of envelopes. Due to an unfortunate glitch in the way the rules are written, weight of the coins counts as part of the weight of each mailed piece. Postal customers who try to affix extra coins to envelopes to pay for the added weight discover they have added still more weight.
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A market test of a USPS e-mail tax, designed to prevent spam and reduce the postal deficit, is quickly abandoned. Test reveals spammers simply combine 500 to 1,000 offers in a single e-mail, thus controlling costs-per-offer. Biggest payers of the tax are out-of-work job seekers trying to distribute their resumes.
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USPS cuts labor costs 85% by outsourcing all postal carrier jobs to Bombay. Unfortunately, American postal customers are now required to travel to Bombay to post letters or pick up their mail.
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Congressional leaders declare that there will never be a national identity card; however, all citizens are required after Nov. 30 to maintain a registered Web site containing a recent photograph of themselves, their right index fingerprint, a list of all books they have ordered from Amazon.com or any other bookseller, and their most recent federal income tax returns. They are also required to tattoo their URLs on various parts of their bodies. Janet Jackson, finally permitted back on TV after a year of banishment, is banished again after she reveals one of her URLs to the camera.
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A 14-year-old kid in Yellow Springs, Ohio invents and releases the Gingerbread Man virus. This insidious computer code attaches itself to cookies each time consumers visit various Web sites. Then the Gingerbread Man steals credit card numbers and wildly orders merchandise from online catalogs. The entire Internet closes down for a week. When service is finally restored, every household in America owns at least one tacky porcelain figurine, one Vermont Teddy Bear, one Orvis necktie bearing a life-size representation of a fish, and three pairs of Blu Blockers. Peter Hochstein DM Creative Consultant/Copywriter New York
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