When enthusiasts first explained the Internet and all that jazz to
you, what did you expect? I certainly never knew my friends around the
world were so eager to shower me with bad jokes. It’s a nightmare.
Mind you, I was intrigued by the new Russian pornography service so
thoughtfully brought to my attention. How, I wondered, does Russian porn
differ from the good old US variety mostly offered? Do they do weird
things to each other with borscht? Does each model unscrew to unveil a
slightly smaller one? Nothing so ingenious. It is what they call in the
motor trade ’badge engineering’. Apart from the name ’Russian’, the
delights that unfold seem identical, right down to the tasteful
descriptions.
I appreciate there is a rich tradition in business whereby nobody ever
studies the past because that way we can all squander money repeating
the same mistakes every decade. However, this problem of having too much
stuff to plough through every day - direct mail, memos, e-mail - is not
new. In the late 1300s an agent of Signor Datini, an Italian merchant,
complained that ’we spend half our time reading letters or answering
them’.
No great surprise there, because Datini was clearly the partner from
hell.
Between 1364 and 1410 he exchanged 156,549 letters with his
associates.
For a number of years he had 10,000 letters zipping back and forth all
over Southern Europe annually. I learned that from Worldly Goods by
Professor Lisa Jardine, a very entertaining read based on the obvious
thesis that in the Renaissance rich people were just as vain, flashy and
grasping as they are now.
At the time, it was thought the new invention of printing would make
life easier, just as people expect great wonders from the Internet
now.
In some ways it did, and in others it didn’t. Every time a new medium
emerges - radio, the cinema, TV - the experts tell you it will render
one or more of its predecessors irrelevant. Yet usually nothing of the
sort happens. We seem to have an insatiable appetite for messages of all
kinds.
The big thing about the Internet to me is that it is a perfect direct
marketing medium - especially if you sell to the right sort of people;
ie those rich enough to have PCs. The Gap has enjoyed huge success. Its
Internet sales last Christmas were exceeded only by those of their most
successful store on 34th Street in New York, and now it is starting a
separate Internet business (see page 12).
I am a classic late adopter, but I have finally succumbed to the
Internet’s charms. My colleagues and I have just spent six months
putting together a Web site, www.draytonbird.com, which tells you
everything you ever wanted to know - and probably a lot you don’t -
about direct marketing and related subjects. It’s all free - and you can
even win a rather predictable prize, but watch out for the usual inept
onslaught on your budgets. We do take ’no’ for an answer, though - and
I’d appreciate your comments.
Drayton Bird runs the Drayton Bird Partnership.
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