I don't believe for a minute that it is. Rather, the Advertising Association and World Advertising Research Centre have fallen into the rather telling and short-sighted trap of believing that direct marketing equals direct mail in their report. Their survey, therefore, says more to me about their lack of grasp on the direct marketing industry of today than it does about the real state of our discipline.
It is true that direct mail is a core medium for us, but only one aspect of what we are involved in. And, actually, a declining part of our overall media mix. Within our repertoire, we use a mix of press, radio, outdoor and DRTV, not to mention the burgeoning realm of digital media. In truth, much as they may not like it, their figures showing the growth in these areas may well actually be coming from below-the-line.
Essentially, direct marketing has undergone a quiet and stealthy revolution over the past five years. When digital media was first grasped by the marketing industry, despite an initial flurry of activity from a rash of new-media agencies, direct marketing, with its knowledge and understanding of customer relationships and direct communications, was the sector which won ownership in the area. Similarly, while media and advertising agencies were talking about media neutrality, we were the ones just getting on with it.
However, I believe that the direct marketing revolution has only just begun. With the advent of the mighty MPEG, we are now in a position to take an even greater slice of the action. Moving imagery is enabling us to unleash creativity that our creative teams could only dream of before. We are now producing interactive moving image ads with sound and viral campaigns that are getting advertisers to really sit up and take notice of the excellence in creativity which has perhaps, to some extent, been hidden within the more static format of some of our media.
Add to this, clients' growing desire to understand exactly what they get for every pound of their marketing budget spend and direct marketing completes the circle. As custodians of the customer database, we have the ability to measure not just response, but profitability that comes from each penny spent. Also, we can ensure that they are prioritising their budget appropriately by spending it where they will get best return. This heady combination of broad media repertoire, strong creative, targetibility and measurability is going to have a dramatic effect on the pecking order within the marketing disciplines, with ad agencies being the most likely to lose out unless they too look beyond their traditional way of working.
It is dangerous to make predictions, but in five years time I would not be at all surprised if we see the direct marketing industry growing by 50% again, a growth which will be, in particular, fuelled by the online revolution (with 80% of what direct marketing agencies do being digital). AA and WARC take note.
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