Branding Gone Amok

Written By Ted Grigg

Imagine this story I experienced recently.

I got a call from a printer who wanted some input on a direct mail package he was producing. His client had just completed a mailing and was concerned about why his 100,000-package mailing was not performing better.

In a nutshell, this package consisted of a #10 envelope package containing a trifold response device that served as a self-assembled reply envelope. The respondent would enclose the payment into this reply envelope.

The target consisted of past customers. Historically, this type of mailing had not worked in the past. In fact, this client had not found success with any mailing for the last couple of years no matter what list segment he selected.

The printer had suggested using a self-gluing response form saving the client nearly 20% on the mailing. This was an excellent recommendation for another reason besides cost savings. The piece mailed required that the respondent use a strip of tape he had to find on his own to construct the reply envelope. Whereas the printer’s less expensive option would have provided peel-off glue strips to construct the reply form.

But the company’s internal creative team opted for the more expensive format even though their internal direct marketer warned them that this format would depress response. They were more concerned about the look and feel of the package than the response rate.  

No wonder this company’s direct marketing programs were not working!

This creative group overruled the marketing team, as always, and decided to use the heavier, nicer stock that did not allow the self-gluing process. This same internal creative team also insisted that all direct mail envelopes always look the same regardless of the offer or list segment. The company’s creative team consists of non-direct marketing creative people who came from the school of branding for branding’s sake.

As a side note, that is one of the reasons why I am writing the series in my blog on identifying qualified direct marketing talent. General advertisers should not attempt to create direct response messages.

Their first devotion is to the brand, treating it as the goal rather than a strategy. Direct marketers want to respect the brand, but their interpretation is that the brand must support the bottom line.

I can already see the prospect getting this mailing. They have received this same package --- or at least what looks like the same package --- many times over the years. They make the logical leap that this is the same offer from the company they dropped before. The envelopes are never opened because they always look the same. The package goes directly to the trash.

There is an Einstein saying that applies to this thought process.

“Insanity: doing the same thing

over and over again

and expecting different results.“

In my view, the problem here is a misunderstanding of what the brand is about. Branding is a strategy and not an objective. Branding serves and supports the objective. That objective is to make money for the organization.

So interpreting the application of the brand so rigidly that it costs the company legitimate sales makes no sense.

How do we support the brand without sacrificing sales? In fact, should that even be an issue? Is branding totally dependent on making everything look the same? Why does the letter, for example, need to follow the font rules making it look more like a brochure than a letter? Yet this occurs daily in the direct marketing world. How do you maintain the proper balance so branding and the direct marketing message work synergistically to increase sales?

Ted Grigg

Ted Grigg is a direct response strategist who helps growth-focused companies reduce risk by identifying weak assumptions before they become costly mistakes.

Over the course of his career, Ted has evaluated several hundred million dollars in direct response testing across direct mail, digital, print, television, telephone, and other channels. His work combines direct response strategy, acquisition economics, customer analysis, creative evaluation, offer development, and disciplined testing.

Ted has worked on both the client and agency sides of the business. That experience gives him a practical understanding of the pressures facing executives, marketing teams, agencies, and service providers—and of the problems that arise when activity, media volume, or creative preference replaces a clear economic objective.

His consulting work helps organizations examine such questions as:

  • Are acquisition goals economically realistic?

  • Is the allowable Cost Per Sale supported by customer value?

  • Are targeting, offers, creative, media, and response paths working together?

  • Are tests structured to produce reliable business decisions?

  • Are unproven assumptions being treated as facts?

  • Is the organization measuring sales outcomes rather than convenient proxies?

Ted’s experience includes the development of direct mail and multichannel acquisition programs for insurance, healthcare, financial services, technology, nonprofit, manufacturing, retail, transportation, communications, government, and business-to-business organizations.

For a national direct-to-consumer insurance company, he developed a direct mail format that defeated established controls and helped expand the productive use of compiled prospect lists from less than 10 percent to more than 30 percent of total direct mail circulation within one year. He also planned Medicare lead-generation programs for more than 60 regional and national HMO and PPO organizations, with some programs exceeding sales projections by as much as 60 percent.

Ted founded Wyse Direct, a direct marketing division of Wyse Advertising in Cleveland, where he developed acquisition programs and helped launch a new technology product for Seiko Instruments by generating a predictable flow of qualified sales leads for its national sales organization. As vice president of new business development for the Grizzard Agency, he helped broaden the agency’s strategic capabilities and pursue new commercial and fundraising opportunities.

He is the author of The HMO/PPO Marketing Plan—A Step-by-Step Guide, published by Executive Enterprises, and has written numerous articles and conducted webinars on direct response strategy, testing, creative development, and marketing economics.

Ted earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Abilene Christian University and completed two years of graduate study at Texas Tech University. He is the founder of DMCG, LLC.

http://www.dmcgresults.com
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