direct-mag

A recent issue of Direct ran an editorial about Bob Wientzen retiring (Direct Hit, February), which included the following:

“But [Wientzen] served during a tumultuous period, and what we ended up with in Washington is better than we had any right to expect. Go out there and talk to the consumerists, and to crazies like Bob Bulmash.…You will find that we have dodged some bullets on the regulatory front.”

Cute!

When the God of Money is supplanted by a simple respect for human rights, those who promote those rights are labeled as crazy by a standard-bearer of the direct marketing industry.

Perhaps the privacist's mantra should be, “We don't want to sue those who don't want to be sued.”
But what about the industry's dismissive view of those who act to protect their fundamental right of privacy? Mahatma Gandhi reportedly said, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

The direct marketing industry can change. It must, in the end, truly respect an individual's privacy. We have seen what happened in the telemarketing arena. Direct marketing blinders will not prevent similar pro-privacy legislative initiatives (which will inevitably succeed). Lawmakers smell blood. The national do-not-call list's popularity invites them to seriously examine the privacy implications of database marketing and unremitting direct mail.

Indeed, the office of a state attorney general, seeking a legal “hook” to limit advertising mail, recently contacted Private Citizen. The AG's query was incited by the rash of toxins sent via the USPS as well as the public's general aversion to the increased flood of (what they view as) junk mail. Note that interstate commerce does not preclude states from enacting laws that ultimately can limit junk mail.

The DMA's two recent Pyrrhic victories will inevitably elevate consumer privacy at the cost of the direct marketing industry's current business model.

One such “victory” was the DMA's strong support of the Can Spam Act. The act was promoted as a means to assuage abusive direct marketing e-mail practices, but was actually intended to derail California's more effective anti-spam law. The act's spectacular failure in reducing spam is now a pro-privacy legislative beacon in Congress.

The other was the DMA's court challenge of the Federal Trade Commission's authority to establish the national do-not-call list. The DMA's success enabled Congress to nullify the court's decision with lightning speed and a vote so nearly unanimous as to be comparable to Congress' vote declaring war on Japan.

Thanks to the DMA, federal courts will likely view future conflicts between direct marketing and privacy with more sensitivity toward consumer rights. With friends like the DMA, who needs crazy privacists?

To deflect crushing legislation, direct marketers should stop pretending to believe their own ersatz pro-privacy publicity. Privacy is a political hot button and rearranging DM deck chairs will no longer prevent the industry's hull from being legislatively breached.

My suggestion to direct marketers: Implement real pro-privacy policies as a marketing tool to attract and hold customers. Most DMers will dismiss this new business model initially, but ultimately it will result in increased sales through consumer confidence. It may also save the industry from being further hobbled.

Either way, this privacist is here to help.
Bob Bulmash
Private Citizen Inc.