The claim was removed from the Mailing Preference Service website after a complaint was made to the Advertising Standards Authority by Stop Junk Mail. The Direct Marketing Association, which runs the opt-out scheme for addressed junk mail sent by members of the association, did not dispute the complaint.

Unsubstantiated and misleading

In its complaint Stop Junk Mail challenged the Direct Marketing Association to show the calculation behind the figure of 95% and argued that the marketing claim was misleading because it hides the fact that only members of the Direct Marketing Association are required to check if people have registered with the opt-out scheme. It is unknown how much addressed junk mail is sent by members of the Direct Marketing Association but the figure is unlikely to be anywhere near 95%.

A second part of the complaint was that the Mailing Preference Service fails to explain clearly and unambiguously what types of addressed advertising mail the opt-out scheme can and cannot stop. A particular issue for Stop Junk Mail is that a great deal of junk mail is sent to people who have unwittingly 'opted in' to receiving advertisements, usually as a result of failing to tick often hidden opt-out boxes. Whereas recipients usually see such advertisements as 'unsolicited' marketeers regards them as 'solicited'. Stop Junk Mail argues that the Direct Marketing Association doesn't make it sufficiently clear that the Mailing Preference Service is not able to stop such mail-outs.

Stop Junk Mail also accused the Direct Marketing Association of giving people a false idea of how much unsolicited mail the Mailing Preference Service is likely to stop for the average person. On its website the Mailing Preference Service gave people a maximum 'removal rate' (that is, the figure of 95%) without giving a minimum and average removal rate. This, according to Stop Junk Mail, is misleading because it suggest the average rate can't be much less then the maximum rate: It is not at all made clear that there might in fact be no correlation whatsoever between the minimum, average, and maximum removal rates. Instead of giving the public the information they need to make an informed decision about registering with the MPS - that is, honest information about how effective the service is - the MPS gives people a maximum removal rate which is probably only a theoretical construct.

Taking steps

Stop Junk Mail first challenged the claim that the Mailing Preference Service can reduce addressed junk mail by up to 95% in April 2009. At the time the Direct Marketing Association's head of preference services refused to comment on the accusation. When, in March this year, the remit of the Advertising Standards Authority was extended to include online advertising, including marketing messages on websites, the issue was raised again.

The Direct Marketing Association has not commented on the issue but has rewritten the sentence in which the 95%-claim was made to read:

The MPS will prevent the receipt of unsolicited direct mailings sent from member companies of the Direct Marketing Association and we will take steps to prevent the receipt of unsolicited direct mailings from companies which are non-DMA members.

It is unclear what steps the Direct Marketing Association will take to prevent people get unsolicited mailings from companies that are not members of the association. Its options appear to be limited; the lobby group's code of practice, which requires companies to use the Mailing Preference Service 'suppression file', only applies to members of the association.

Links

• Advertising Standards Authority (asa.org.uk)
• CAP Code (cap.org.uk)