David Knowles - Weblogs

David Knowles
If the government's waste strategy comes to fruition, it potentially sounds the death knell for DM.

Under new regulations, people would have to 'opt-in' to receive any unaddressed direct mail. The government's argument here is that it needs to reduce waste and "prevent it in the first place".

DM printers and practitioners are predictably extremely unhappy and see the government initiative as a knee-jerk reaction to waste control, that could be disastrous for the industry and spell the end for direct mail as a viable means of business generation.

The new legislation would mean changes to the Mail Preference Service (MPS) which currently allows people to opt-out of receiving all forms of DM. The general DM industry view is that the MPS works perfectly well and that proposed changes to it are ultimately damaging, the logic being that getting the general public to opt-in to receiving DM would very difficult.

The flipside is that you will receive less "junk" mail, instead receiving only personalised, relevant materials on your doormat each morning.

However, if the initiative goes through, it means the end for inserts and doordrops. This is very bad news for direct marketing as a whole, as 'acquisitive' mailing campaigns allow the creation of meaningful databases. It may also have a negative impact on charities that use the medium to raise money or gain donors.

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) is responding cautiously as government plans are still 'being explored' and details are sketchy.

The plans however also hit other sectors - they include initiatives to reduce excess packaging by setting standards for a product class. The Packaging Federation sees the drive to reduce excess packaging as muddled and as a red herring in the fight against environmental pollution, arguing that it represents only 3% of landfill in the UK.

While all agree that new recycling measures and the principle of waste reduction is beneficial, the consensus view is that the strategies are poorly thought out and that the government is dabbling in areas best left to self-regulation.

---