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Now you might not think a small item on page five of last week's

±±¾©Èü³µpk10 was of great significance, but I'd beg to differ. Of itself,

the story that PHD was launching a specialist direct media arm would not

cause the news editor to shout "Hold the front page" in a state of high

excitement. It is, nevertheless, one that should give us pause for

thought.

We can argue about the precise numbers, but there's no denying that

direct marketing has grown rapidly in the past decade. Total expenditure

last year was £2.2 billion, a year-on-year rise of 5.9 per cent.

Its basic strengths - targeting, accountability, low capital cost -

should ensure that it continues to grow and perhaps even take share from

other media such as press and TV.

Curious then that the media buyers don't really seem to take it very

seriously as a medium. If you exclude the likes of WWAV, just four of

the media buyers have specialist direct arms with any real muscle:

Zenith, Carat, MediaCom and now PHD.

I'm struggling to understand why. After all, if your media buyer didn't

have a broadcast director or a press director you wouldn't think it was

proper. Yet here we have a medium with a share of about 13 per cent, and

one in which clients are showing a growing interest, and it's almost as

if the media buyers are pretending it doesn't exist. Setting up a

specialist direct arm at least makes a public statement of

commitment.

You can offer a number of explanations why so few do take it seriously:

it's not sexy; there's no money in it; it's complicated; they wish it

would go away; or just plain ignorance. Now it may be a little bit of

all of these things, but if I had to pick the single biggest, it would

be the last one. The reason, I'd suggest, is that they simply don't

think of it as a medium. Partly this may be to do with terminology (how

many of us still call it direct mail or direct marketing?), partly some

kind of mental block associated with the words "Royal" and "Mail".

And yet, insofar as it delivers an audience for advertisers, it is a

medium. Yes, it could do more to sell itself as one - for example,

talking in terms of audiences and schedules, a language planners and

buyers understand - as opposed to selling a method but, hey, a long

journey begins with a single step.

If you want to see how, pop in to the Mail Media Centre in Covent Garden

(next to a tattoo parlour, incidentally). Visitors should prepare for a

shock: it's modern, whizzy, switched on and full of helpful people and

information - everything you think the Royal Mail isn't. Its aim is to

do for mail media (note that airbrushed term - so much more contemporary

than direct mail) what the RAB did for radio which, in a nutshell, means

persuading media buyers it is something they ignore at their peril. It

won't necessarily be difficult, but it will take time.

- Claire Beale is on maternity leave.