"OK, I get that it’s flexible and cost-effective, but how do we make it good?"
"I’m sure the bean-counters will be happy, but shouldn’t we make sure email supports rather than denigrates the brand?"
"Electronic mail, eh? So all those decades of learning from direct response should be applied to this new stuff, right?"
Well, gentle readers, judging from my inbox, the answer to all three of these questions is a resounding "Nah, can’t be arsed."
According to friends at a new-ish digital agency, one of their clients’ biggest moans is the decreasing response rates for their email campaigns. Well this is hardly surprising.
The novelty of the medium is now a distant memory. In the interval all that seems to have happened is the increasing use of colour, graphics, photography and film – because we can, not because any of these baubles improves the creative product.
Email is still largely copy-driven. Yet most of the copy I see is at best functional. Like you, no doubt, I’m on a variety of email lists. And like you as well, perhaps, it’s an eclectic collection.
Mine includes: Agent Provocateur; Amazon; Apple; Blacks (the outdoor gear and the private club in Soho!); Brand Republic; D&AD; The University of Sheffield Alumni; TravelZoo; Wimbledon Comedy Club.
And what are the lessons from this motley crew? Simply this. The biggest brands – so those with all the expertise and the budgets - seem to think that they can bore me into submission.
Conversely, I always look forward to the intelligence of my old uni, the quirkiness of my club and the wit of the gentlemen behind Wimbledon Comedy. Not the first time in this column, it is the so-called experts who have much to learn from the gifted amateurs.