In response to Panorama's 'Why Hate Junk Mail?' programme the Direct Marketing Association has produced a propaganda fact sheet [ Link removed as the DMA has now removed the page, JB ]. Time for some myth busting…
Fiction and fact
With my comments in red and italics:
How damaging is advertising mail to the environment?
We agree wastage from advertising mail needs to be reduced and the DMA has been helping the industry shape up. In 2003, Defra set the industry the target of ensuring that 70% of all used advertising mail is recycled by 2013. This target was smashed four years early in 2009, with 76% of advertising mail being recycled.
Since 2003, the volume of advertising mail now being sent to landfill every year has fallen by 80%. Now, advertising mail represents just 0.4% of the average household's unrecycled waste.
Recycling rates for advertising mail have increased in line with recycling rates of other types of paper. There's no reason for the DMA to congratulate itself with anything. Apart from encouraging DMA members to print recycling logos on advertising mail the junk mail lobby group hasn't done anything to increase recycling rates. The DMA ought to thank recipients of junk mail for making the effort to recycle more despite its complacency.
What is the industry doing to clean up its act?
The DMA and BSi have produced an environmental standard called PAS 2020, which provides the guidelines for producing environmentally sustainable advertising mail.
Targeting practices are continually improving, meaning that excess advertising mail is not produced. The Mailing Preference Service is an industry funded scheme for householders to opt out of receiving unwanted advertising mail. More than five million households are now registered – nearly 20% of all households.
The statement about PAS 2020 is missing the the adjectives 'voluntary' and 'non-binding' before 'environmental standard'. There's a lot of good stuff in PAS 2020, to be sure. It's a good and much-needed initiative but shouldn't be presented as a compulsory, industry-wide standard. Nor can we assume PAS 2020 is making a real impact. It's a voluntary code, and we'll have to wait and see to what extend it's cleaning up the industry's act. (And, as and aside, I wouldn't call it a blueprint for "environmentally sustainble advertising mail". PAS 2020 isn't exactly revolutionary and the standard has nothing to say on such things as encourging people to stop junk mail they're not interested in.)
The statement about the Mailing Preference Service is also missing a vital bit of information, namely that the scheme will only prevent advertising mail from companies that are members of the DMA. Only a couple of weeks ago the DMA dropped its misleading and unsubstantiated claim that the Mailing Preference Service can stop up to 95%
of addressed advertising mail. The DMA should start giving people honest information about how effective its opt-out schemes actually are.
On that subject, why doesn't the DMA mention its Your Choice Preference Scheme? Maybe because it's rather embarrassing to tell the public that only 1,600 households (0.006%) have registered with the scheme?
I've never bought anything from junk mail. Does it really work?
Really, you've never redeemed a coupon you've received in the post? The vast majority of people have. Advertising mail works; if it didn't then companies would not spend money on it. According to the Mail Media Centre, 17.7 million people bought something after receiving a mail order catalogue in the past 12 months.
Every year, advertising mail generates £16 billion in sales – a massive contribution to UK plc at a time when high street retailers are suffering. For the majority of businesses, it's the only form of advertising they can afford. Most companies can't afford to pay for TV, radio, billboard, or newspaper ads.
Response rates to junk mail are extremely low. A response rate of 1 to 2% for addressed junk mail is considered a success; response rates for unaddressed junk mail usually aren't even measured. To be fair, this doesn't prove anything. Junk mail, like other forms of advertising, is not about getting responses directly. Rather, it's about putting the name of a brand into people's heads. In that sense junk mail works, just like any other type of advertising.
Similarly, the (alledged) fact that 17.7 million people bought something after receiving a mail order catalogue doesn't tell us anything about how effective advertising mail is. If I request a catalogue and then buy something from it we're talking about what we could define as 'solicited mail'. Nobody has an issue with this. But how many people buy stuff from unsolicited catalogues? I'd hope the DMA realises the junk mail issue is about unwanted, unsolicited mail?
The second figure, about the £16 billion in sales advertising mail generates, is also unsubstantiated. In the Panorama broadcast Chris Combemale, the lobby group's executive director, seemed to claim that this £16 billion is the result of unsolicited mail - the postal equivalent of cold calling - rather than solicited mail. I'd be keen to verify this claim, but of course the general public is not supposed to doubt whatever marketeers tell them.
That most (local / small) companies can't afford to pay radio and television adverts is rather irrelevant. I mean, thank heavens they can't! If they could there wouldn't be any television programmes any more, we would have adverts 24/7. Newspaper ads are perfectly affordable though; if you can afford to organise a mail-shot you can afford a newspaper ad (at least in a local paper). That said, it is true that junk mail is the cheap option for companies. And I mean 'cheap' as in 'cheap and nasty'. All those companies that constantly bombard us with untargeted, irrelevant advertisements (Virgin, BT, Direct Line, Farm Foods - talk of companies that can't afford other types of advertising, right?) choose 'direct mail' because they don't have to buy advertising space if they dump adverts straight into people's letterboxes. Sure, it's good for the advertiser, but not so good for all those newspapers and magazine desperate for advertisers. In short, junk mailers save money by making sure that society at large doesn't benefit from advertisements.
People hate receiving junk mail, so why bother sending it?
Research conducted by Royal Mail shows that the majority of people still prefer to be contacted by mail by the businesses they’re customers of, than by any other method of communication: for example, 46% of BT customers prefer to be contacted by mail, compared to 22% by email; 50% of Churchill's customers prefer to be contacted by mail, compared to 20% who prefer to be contacted by email.
There's plenty of research to show that the majority of consumers welcome receiving advertising mail that provides them with exclusive offers on products they like. For example, research by BMRB reveals that 75% of consumers like receiving special offers and vouchers through the post. The same research also reveals that consumers like mail alerting them to new products and services they might want to try, etc.
While many people conduct their lives online, there are still plenty of people who don't. Advertising mail is a source of information on products and services they might not otherwise have access to.
The delivery of poorly targeted mail – 'junk mail' – is unacceptable. The industry now has sophisticated data collection methods and data cleaning tools, so there is no excuse for sending poorly targeted mail. And, it's not in the interest of businesses to waste money and annoy consumers with badly targeted mail.
Apart from being unverifiable, Royal Mail's research is biased. If you ask me if I'd rather receive junk mail through the door than by e-mail I'd probably say 'yes'. My preferred option, though, would be to not receive junk mail in the first place. Clearly, that option wasn't given to respondents, and so the claim that people want to be contacted via mail is misleading and false.
I'm sure there's plenty of other (unverifiable) research – paid for by the junk mail industry – that shows we all love advertising mail and just can't get enough of it. So what? I can claim here that 99% of people would like to receive less advertising mail, or that the moon is made of cheese after all. As long as I don't tell you how I did my research you won't be able to prove me wrong. That the DMA constantly quotes unverifiable research just shows it's a lobby group willing to abuse science for marketing purposes.
It's interesting, though, the DMA admits that people who "conduct their lives online" (sounds a bit scary) probably have no need for junk mail! Let's make it easier for them to prevent and stop unsolicited mail, shall we? I got some ideas in the Manifesto, I'm sure you'll agree there are some sound ideas in there.
Making it a bit easier for people to prevent and stop unwanted junk mail would also help those people who don't conduct their lives online, and it would complement all those "sophisticated data collection methods and data cleaning tools". For some reason, despite all those methods and tools, I still get leaflets from companies I'm already doing business with. And do your methods and tools really indicate that I'm interested in junk food?
Why should the taxpayer have to foot the bill for disposing junk mail?
The majority (76% at last count in 2009) of advertising mail is now recycled, and so doesn't go into costly landfill. The cost of disposing advertising mail is more than offset by the industry's contribution to the economy. UK businesses spend £11.2 billion on advertising mail every year and it generates £16 billion in sales.
Also, the advertising mail industry is responsible for an estimated 280,000 jobs, all of whom are taxpayers of course.
Ever heard of the phrase 'the polluter pays'? This could be applied to the junk mail industry. If you want we can offset the cost of disposing of junk mail against the economic benefits of junk mail. However, in order to do so you'd need to become a bit more open about how you calculate these benefits. It seems fairly obvious that junk mail might actually have a negative impact on economic growth. You see, if more companies start advertising in ways that are less environmentally damaging and which are slightly more expensive (for instance because companies need to buy advertising space in a newspaper) this would help the environment, society (it would help keep newspapers afloat, for instance) and the economy. Similarly, a move away from advertising mail to other types of advertising might well create more jobs than are lost. It would be interesting to do a proper cost-benefit analysis on this point. Not that I have any reason to believe your figures are biased, of course.
Why should Royal Mail be allowed to profit from delivering junk mail?
Royal Mail actually loses 6.4p per item of stamped mail that it delivers. The average household now spends less than 40p on postage per week. Royal Mail can't survive on this revenue alone. Advertising mail provides 25% of Royal Mail’s revenue and therefore subsidises the postal service. (Source: Hooper Report / Postcomm)
Consumers accept that commercial TV, radio, online, free press are funded and subsidised by advertising. However, consumers don't understand the fact that advertising provides them with an economical postal service.
Also, consumers can't blame the messenger if they receive mail they don't like. Royal Mail has a legal obligation to deliver the mail.
I agree Royal Mail should be allowed to profit from delivering advertising mail. This really isn't an issue. What is an issue is that it should be easier for people to prevent / stop unwanted mail. In the case of Royal Mail, wouldn't it be fair if Royal Mail starts advertising the fact that householders can opt out of receiving unaddressed mail items distributed by the company? The Door-to-Door Opt-Out stops more junk mail than your Mailing Preference Service, yet only 0.7% of households is registered. Compare that with the five million households registered with the Mailing Preference Service! Clearly, there's an issue here.
People (please stop calling us 'consumers') understand quite well that they don't have to put up with unwanted advertisements just to subsidise Royal Mail. Remember your "sophisticated data collection methods and data cleaning tools"? The reason you use them is because poorly targeted advertisements are an environmental hazard and waste advertisers money, correct? So why, then, would people have to sing and dance about all those leaflets pushed through the door by the postman? Perhaps we should blame the messenger here; for its failure to make sure that people not interested in unsolicited leaflets are constantly bombarded with them.