Is this promotion a mistake or a brilliant piece of irony?
Monday, March 17th, 2008Normally I can smell a mistake at 100 paces - goodness knows I have made a few during my spell in direct mail. But the new Experian promotion has me stumped. Is it a disaster area, or a bit of post-modern irony or the cleverest campaign of all time?
If you’ve had a promotion from them - please do let me know. Here’s the details.
It is a big postcard. It reads…
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First impressions count.
Make a truly powerful impact every time.
As part of a successful agency, you understand the importance of checking the accuracy of your marketing data before committing valuable client budget….
Our FREE, no obligation Data Healthcheck will compare your marketing records with Experian’s expert business data sources… to give you a valuable view of your client’s data cleansing and enriching needs…
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All fine, except that we received 9 of these this morning. There were minor errors in the company name and address, but the most telling point was who these items were addressed to. Six of the nine people were no longer with us. One left in 1994, one in 1995, one in 1996, one in 1998 - the other two left in the early years of this century.
How could such a strategy make sense (given what is being sold)? And if it is a total utter mess, how come they kept on their database a person who left us 14 years ago? When someone leaves, surely they are deleted from the database? Because if not, well, then you could have a disaster.
But please do remember, I am not sniggering at Experian’s error, if so it is, and in a forthcoming mailing I’ll confess my greatest mistake. It is just the nature of the error that bemuses me.
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Tony
Hamilton House Mailings plc reg number 2444392 VAT 354907535GB. Phone 01536 399 000.