Mark Roy's Blog

Cookies? Tasty or tart?

2011-03-07T08:13:00.000-08:00

With the April 11th deadline for EU members to enshrine The Citizens' Rights Directive (2009/136/EC) into their own legislation rapidly approaching, the UK Government is dragging its feet once again.

It is an accepted fact that each Euro member state interprets the central legislation in their own way however, the somewhat protectionist position being taken by both UK Parliament and the ICO is in my view counter productive to relationships with consumers. Only slightly regulated compared to the telecom or postal sector, digital is hurtling at light speed into an abyss of consumer resentment that could ultimately contribute to its undoing.

The alternative would be for the government to embrace this legislative change so that consumer’s browsers and computers are not intruded upon without their consent. While I understand and appreciate the business need for cookies and that the consumer has a better web journey because of cookies, it doesn’t negate the need or importance of consumer choice in the whole equation.

Of course, there were (and still are) many arguments for carpet bombing households with needless door drops, but ultimately good direct marketing whether it be terrestrial or digital is still about giving consumers a choice and then delivering what they want - when they want it - how they want it.

Unless we accept that a digital free-for-all is no good for anyone in the long run, then the future looks bleak for those investing in digital marketing communications and I for one dread the day that OUR choices are made for us.

Plunging into the Festive Season

2010-12-24T03:51:00.000-08:00

It is clearly true that the older one becomes the faster the years go!! Where on earth did 2010 go to? Looking back over the past 12-months, we have good reason to be proud, and not just because we have continued to grow and prosper in a complicated market.

As we had no idea what 2010 would bring, I urged everyone to proceed with caution during my speech at last year’s Christmas party. The fact that we are well ahead of our forecast at the end of the year is testament to our robust business strategy and our group of loyal, talented and remarkably likeable people that represent the very best interests of The REaD Group PLC.

Some of you may be surprised that I do actually care whether a member of staff is likeable or not. Honesty, integrity, intelligence, tenacity and generosity are just some of the elements that come together to create likeability in a person and at TRG we aim to treasure and nurture these special qualities.

We spend around a third of our lives working and there are far too may people doing jobs that they hate. I have always endeavoured to create a working environment that allows people to be challenged, to grow, to be respected and to make a real contribution to the company and in so doing, feel a part of the success. This ownership in my experience creates loyalty and commitment as well an individual that is contented and successful.

As we plunge into the festive season (when is it again?!) I urge you all to find time for the people that enable you to do what you do. Without the support of your partner, relatives, or the patience of your children, you might be stuck in a job that you hate. Before you return for whatever 2011 has to throw at you, spare a moment for those that are less fortunate than you are and remind yourself of how lucky you really are.

Have a terrific break, it is well deserved I am sure.

See you on the other side.

No, no, no, Yes!

2010-11-15T03:30:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I admit it! I am a convert! One would have thought that someone of my (ever advancing) age would have grown out of the moist handed, dry mouthed, heart fluttering stage. Unfortunately, nothing could be further the truth as I have been pining for this new, sexy, sleek and quite frankly gorgeous gizmo like a school boy for months.

In this specific case, the object of my desire is already paying dividends in that I am writing this very blog upon my newest accoutrement. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you MY iPad! Metaphorically speaking of course.

Since purchasing my new toy, I have become accustomed to the cacophony of 'ooooo's and 'Aarrhh's that follow when I place it in view of colleagues and friends. Everyone wants to look at it, to touch it and to see how it works. Secretly I worry that the iPad is getting more attention than my Aston Martin ever did!

My wife cannot understand what all the fuss is about and has completely dismissed the iconic gadget as some kind of fad. She thinks my behaviour is unbecoming and the result of something that happened to me in my childhood! How very dare she! Worse still, she has accused me of buying a giant I-phone because my eyes are failing and I need a bigger screen to see. Regrettably, there might be something in that!

OK, OK my name is Mark, and I am addicted to gadgets!

My Goldfish reads Shakespeare ….!

2010-08-19T01:43:00.000-07:00

My return from the Atlantic coast of northern Portugal has not only heralded the arrival of an all encompassing malaise but finds me struggling to source material for this much overdue blog – sorry!

We all struggle to re-energise ourselves after a break – it’s a time where most of us take stock of not only our jobs but also our lives. For some reason this year seems harder than usual, perhaps it’s the sense of foreboding as we fly headlong into 2011 and a hefty hike in VAT.

Punctuating the air of uncertainly and gnawing away at the back of our collective consciousness are a host of uncomfortable questions: Will the fragile upturn maintain itself? What will the impact of inflation remaining above the 2% target be? With the coalition government scrapping an estimated 1 million public sector jobs, how do we prepare for the social and economic fall out?

While the cutbacks are going to hurt all of us, the steps that are being taken are a harsh necessity. Of course, this year’s cuts are beyond what anyone could have anticipated but this is the unfortunate price of 10 hedonistic years of fiscal lunacy.

To make matters worse, cyberspace seems unusually quiet. Normally August is “blog-heaven”, with even the most respected news providers publishing stories about cats playing the harp, prime ministerial pacts and unquantifiable surveys showing that you have the IQ of Einstein. It would appear that even the silly-season is subject to cutbacks – damn!

Oh my word 20 years

2010-06-03T08:12:00.000-07:00

My word how time flies. I can’t believe it has been 20 years since I set up the business. It seems like only yesterday that I was full of hope, youthful exuberance and believed I could change the world! It didn’t take me long to realise that changing the world costs a few bob and is a pretty gargantuan task for one man! However, looking back I realise that I have a lot to be thankful for, not least a thriving business, which might not have been so successful had it been built on more practical foundations with less ambitious values!

At the centre of these values is an old-fashioned word - decency. To me the word decency embraces honesty and integrity; it sweeps up fairness and enhances the desire to do the right thing.

Combine the sudden and premature loss of my first wife in 2001 and an inexorable desire to treat people with decency and you end up with The Bereavement Register® (TBR), which next to my children is one of my proudest achievements.

Around 1800 people die every day in this country and back in 2001 deceased individuals would have been sent approximately 110 pieces of Direct Mail in the 12 months following their death. Disregard the environmental impact and the potential brand damage just for a moment and try to imagine the pain experienced by the relatives of the deceased, already struggling to come to terms with their loss, when yet another reminder comes through the letterbox.

Only 12 months after launching TBR my wife died suddenly of brain cancer and I was the recipient of this unwanted mail. While it was a constant struggle to watch my 8-year-old son picking up mail addressed to his dead mother, my over riding sentiment was not anger but a desire to stop it, and in doing so to make one of the most difficult moments in a person’s lifetime a little bit easier.

From that point on, transforming TBR from a simple data service into a fully-fledged countrywide consumer service became my mission. Within a matter of months the UK registration service had agreed to place death certificates into TBR wallets, which were being distributed by a growing number of Funeral Directors around the country. Hospitals, libraries, coroners, charities and the police force all got behind the service, enabling the bereaved to make a choice. It may seem strange but during the TBR journey I learned that some people were actually comforted by the continued flow of direct mail to their deceased loved one (albeit it junk...or at least some of it). Having been through the grieving process, I think I can safely say that there is no RIGHT way to grieve and everyone must be allowed to get through it in their own way.

Today, The Bereavement Register is used by thousands of companies and the average number of mailings to the recently bereaved has been reduced to about 20 items in the year following a death, which equates to a reduction of over 80%. However, successful as the brand has become there is still work to be done in changing the attitudes and practices of the remaining 20% of organisations that think they’re exempt from adopting more ethical habits regarding their data practises. Often, the worst offenders are organisations that should know better such as government offices, quangos and some charities who have convinced themselves that their cause is more important than the individual.

Like most success stories, this one is down to the collective effort of so many people, far too many to mention. I am incredibly proud of the difference that we have made to the bereaved. Perhaps my naive desire to change the world has been realised, albeit in a very small way.

Here’s to the next 20 years.

Peppa Snubs Labour

2010-05-06T02:53:00.001-07:00

I was delighted to hear the news that the popular children’s cartoon character, Peppa Pig, had snubbed the Labour party by withdrawing from an election event at a children’s centre to promote Labour’s policies to support families. It certainly managed to ignite some playground style bickering between the incumbent government and the BBC; queue Mandy and some catty quips about the broadcaster twisting channel Five’s arm over the appearance and spoiling everyone’s fun. Ahhh diddums!

At first, my reaction was amusement but after further consideration, the idea of a hugely popular children’s character aimed at the under 5s being used for political gain was about as comical as the Hitler Youth movement. I suspect that Peppa, at only 5 years old herself, is pig ignorant of the ramifications her appearance might have had on her unsuspecting audience, but you’d think that her management would know better that to endorse a political event!

As a father, I have seen the effect that advertising has on kids first hand. Their minds are completely receptive to all kinds of subtle messaging, which makes Labour’s decision to invite Peppa to the event unfathomable and highly irresponsible. Whoever made the decision in the first place is either an idiot or a despot….neither of which is a great advertisement for the party.

So while I may have my reservations about some of the decisions the beeb makes, I am glad that they are willing to stick their oar in on matters regarding the impartiality of British programming. Long may they continue to do so!

Brave New World

2010-04-26T03:58:00.000-07:00

My favourite online election related diversions thus far have to be www.voteforpolicies.org.uk * and the infamous spoofing of David Cameron’s airbrushed poster campaign. I may not be a labour sympathiser but ‘www.mydavidcameron.com | Airbrushed for change’ is a perfect illustration of the power of social media. So popular was the spoofing that it gave Labour’s ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi the idea to launch a competition inviting supporters to devise creative for the next poster campaign. The winning idea featured David Cameron sitting on the bonnet of an Audi Quattro above the headline 'Don't let him take Britain back to the 1980s’. Within 24hrs the Tory party’s ad agency hit back releasing the same image with the headline ‘Fire Up The Quattro. It’s time for change.”

Like Obama’s presidential campaign last year, our general election is part of the information superhighway, political news is open to commentary and criticism and social medial is blazing the campaign trail. Proceed with caution however, at this speed the stakes are high and it’s easy to see how quickly seemingly good ideas can back fire once they are in the public domain. On the campaign trail managing your online reputation is as important as hiring the best spin doctors and speech writers. Woe betide the hasty politician who sends out an ill conceived blog or tweet in the last few weeks before election day.

The good news is that if we are all involved in the debate, we can all be part of the solutions we so desperately need. This country needs a good shake and if this brave new digital era is equipped to do anything it’s to force the establishment to think and respond in ways they would never have imagined back in May 2005.

* my results will remain a mystery to everyone but me and my therapist so don’t bother asking!

Sex Sells

2010-04-15T08:20:00.000-07:00

It’s no secret that sex sells, we’ve been doing it for decades! The basic formula is simple, stick an attractive person, preferably a female celebrity, on the front of a magazine and the item flies off the shelf tens of times faster than one where Gordon Brown’s ugly mug is staring back at you. The formula can be applied to all manner of products and services and in today’s fast-paced world it can delivered across multiple platforms too.

As a man of unspecified age who has carved a career in the marketing services industry very few things surprise me…or so I thought until I watched Lady Gaga’s million-pound music video, (cough) 9-minute commercial, for her new song Telephone. It wasn’t the scantily clad females or broadly homoerotic theme, the sloppy lesbian prison kiss or even the scene in which Beyoncé and Lady Gaga appear to commit mass murder together but the gratuitous product endorsement that struck me.

I noticed four major brands including Virgin, HP, Coke and Polaroid and four further less obvious ones including a dating website, headphones and two US food brands. While some might wax on about the artistry of the video or how very clever Ms Germanotta, AKA Gaga, must be for harnessing the power of brands to create the most talked about music video of all time I just can’t get rid of the slightly metallic taste that it has left in my mouth. It makes Duran Duran’s Girls On Film seem sweet and the decadence of the eighties appear ever so slightly twee. So, while Gaga’s video might be one of the coolest I’ve seen in a long while, for me at least it was the point at which the whole notion of using sex and product placement in a piece of creative had gone a little too far into the realms of irresponsibility.

Slightly numbed by the wholly Gaga experience it came as much less of a surprise to me that the Liberal Democrats had selected a female pornographic film-maker as their parliamentary candidate for Gravesham in Kent. Perhaps Anna Arrowsmith, who has been selling sex for the last decade, can apply her winning formula to the Lib Dems election campaign and aid their flagging performance in the Gravesham vicinity. Afterall, if it’s good enough for Coke, Polaroid and Hewlett Packard…

All this talk of sex has made me beg the question “what is the world coming to”. Maybe, against all my youthful protestations to the contrary, I am finally turning into my father but perhaps that’s no bad thing.

Shagged Out After A Long Squawk With Online

2010-03-08T03:06:00.000-08:00

I think you all should know that I’m seriously considering running down the curtains to join the choir invisible. Before too many of you get excited I’m not looking for a one way ticket to Zurich…well not at the moment anyway, but I am considering signing up to suicidemachine.org, a website that deletes your social networking accounts with Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Linkedin in order to save you from online embarrassment or professional suicide. Lady Shelley Sawers, wife of MI6 Chief Sir John, would do well to take down the address.

There will no doubt be an influx of suicidal behavior in the lead up to the general election later this year with some social media PR gurus urging MPs to use caution while tweeting to their constituents and followers. After all, opening yourself up to the brave new world of online PR and social media can have its pitfalls as Cameron discovered when he announced that he thought all tweeters were twats...or something to that effect. The Labour Party on the other hand are encouraging their candidates to use Twitter and other social media sites in order to connect with their public but only if their posts are pre approved by their managers before posting, which if I’m not mistaken is missing the point somewhat. Poor Labour, give them any more red tape and they’re seriously in danger of hanging themselves.

And so I am brought back to thoughts of my own online demise and whether I should perhaps mark the occasion with sombre music, a wake or even a last request. There’s certainly no hurry as suicideweb.org can only process one suicide at a time and have a backlog of over 20,000 people waiting to top themselves.

I may be here for some time.

Sue Me, Sumo!?

2010-02-19T09:20:00.000-08:00

It seems that there’s a lot to look forward to already this year; a final farewell to the incumbent government, the world cup and who could forget the Stelios and O’Leary libel suit, which will see the budget airline heavyweights squaring up for a long sweaty slog over those ads depicting Stelios with a Pinocchio nose.

It would seem that Sir Stelios is pretty miffed at being called a liar, which in the circumstances is fair enough, and has instructed his lawyers to issue a writ which will be served next week! In a thinly disguised jibe at Stelios’s not so svelte physique, O’Leary suggested that he and Stelios settle matters out of court by staging a Sumo bout in Trafalgar Square. Now the idea of Stelios and Mike O’Leary naked, bar the traditional Sumo fighting mawashi, isn’t my favourite thought but it could provide some light hearted amusement - and for the first time ever my money would be on the fat bloke.

Joking aside the fact remains that if those two put half of the energy they waste on fighting each other into running their multi-million pound empires, then their customers might actually get something close to a decent service.

I have long opined about Mike O’Leary, the man who by his own admission only wants to invest in cheap fares and not customer service. Admirable? Only if you can deliver the goods. I know I’m not alone in my conviction that Ryanair and the likes are a false economy in the long run. All too often you end up paying the same price as BA and you still get treated like crap. I don’t mind paying cheap for cheap, but I object profusely for paying expensive for cheap.

Join the Electoral Roll Revolution

2010-01-22T06:36:00.000-08:00

Cast your mind back about 18 months – we would have all just completed reading Dr Mark Walport and Richard Thomas’s report on Data Sharing. Those of us who read the first 18 recommendations would no doubt have expected and most likely agreed with all that had been presented by the former Data Protection Tsar, but not perhaps the sting in the tail. The firm and unambiguous recommendation to remove the use of the Edited Electoral Roll (EER).

The recommendation was subsequently argued by Lord Norton, who hoped to move for complete abolition of the register after the publication of the 2011 edition. As is often the case with our legislators when in the throes of a debate, the full picture goes out of the window in favour of a narrower POV that supports their end. Therefore a great deal of the argument for the proposed abolition is based on a few Local Electoral Agents moaning that it’s “hard” to compile both the full and edited roll!! And inevitably the age old argument about junk mail discouraging electoral registrations is dusted off and brought out of the storeroom – it was drivel in 2002 and remains so today!

The real issue for us though is what do we do? The consultation ends on Feb 24th so the clock is well and truly ticking. Many groups have been formed to develop strategies and they in turn will make submissions, this includes the DMA Data Council and our various group companies.

Frankly, my guess is that it is a done deal. And while I have long opined that such a measure would be a good vote-winner, it will not stop me from doing my damndest to upset the civil servant’s applecart. Without a doubt our strength lies in numbers so pick up your pens and write to your MP’s; the more of us kicking off the better. Vive la Révolution!

More on the progress of this measure in the weeks to come.

F-Mobile

2009-11-20T08:02:00.001-08:00

A pox on T-Mobile for allegedly selling the personal details of thousands of customers to rival companies, in my opinion. Henceforth they should be known as F-Mobile, I reckon. ?F? as in fail - both the standards and responsibilities required under the Data Protection Act and its otherwise innocent, unsuspecting customers.

I hope Christopher Graham and his staff at the ICO act swiftly and diligently in preparing a prosecution. As I?ve mentioned repeatedly on this blog, the shoddy data practices of T-Mobile and their ilk really need to be stopped once and for all.

Now onto other, nicer, news?

Forgive me, but I?d like to indulge in a spot of company self-promotion. Don?t forget to visit www.rememberingyouthischristmas.com* to send a message to the stars in remembrance of someone you love. Messages will be beamed into outer space at precisely 1.00am (GMT) on Christmas Day by Deep Space Communications Network based in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

The Bereavement Register? can?t promise you?ll receive a reply, but if anyone does return your deep space call, we?ll let you know. More importantly, our hope is that the simple act of remembering and sharing our feelings might just make this Christmas a little happier for everyone this year.

* All messages must be received by 12 midnight on 20th December to give us time to prepare for transmission into space on Christmas Day.

Airbrushing, anyone?

2009-11-18T02:27:00.001-08:00

It's not often that I agree with anything the Lib Dems have to say, but lobbying the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to introduce notices on ads targeting under-16s which feature airbrushed and impossibly skinny models is an excellent idea. As any parent will attest, trying to lead your kids through the Tween/Teen marketing minefield is difficult enough at the best of times without having to deal with images which promote body dysmorphia (whether latently or overtly).

The use of airbrushing in other demographics is entirely another story, however. Looking at my haggard reflection this morning while feeling the affects of a rather nasty bout of Man Flu, I could probably do with some re-touching myself at present.

All of which set me to wondering: Why are Adland's battalions of airbrushers and Photoshoppers focussing on beauty products and the like when it comes to helping conjure up alluring yet unattainable realities? I can think of a whole heap of politicians and bureaucrats who, (a) seem to be in the same business; and (b) are themselves in desperate need of a make-over.

So ASA, just a suggestion, but? Maybe the disclaimers accompanying altered images of politicians in the lead-up to next May's election should read either 'May cause drowsiness' or 'Objects may appear closer than they actually are'.

Closer to what, exactly, I'll leave for you, dear readers, to decide.

Helping who, exactly?

2009-11-06T07:28:00.000-08:00

Another week, another round of bank bail-outs. The latest cost to UK taxpayers? £30.5 billion. That’s around £500 for every person in the country. Seems like rather a lot to pay for three new high street banking brands, which may or may not be viable sales propositions three or four years down the track, does it not?

It appears we’re set to end 2009 where we began it, namely with bankers’ grubby mitts deep in the public purse. Just out of interest, does anyone feel they’ve benefited directly from any of Darling Alistair’s largesse? I’m thinking in particular of his fleet of business assistance programmes from back in Q1 - the Working Capital Scheme, Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme and Capital for Enterprise Fund, among them – all of which were designed (supposedly) to increase lending to companies feeling the pinch.

Is it just me or have all of these schemes done b*gger all? It’s certainly hard to know who’s helping who sometimes.

Absurdity Rules?

2009-10-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

On the back of continuing postal disruption comes the threat of industrial action on British Airways. More will undoubtedly follow, undoubtedly. Commentators are right: Is this 2009 or 1979? Amidst all the economic doom and gloom, rising industrial action and political paralysis, everything certainly seems to be going back to the future at present - albeit without Michael J. Fox and a Delorean.

Many are hoping that the forthcoming Christmas season will see a return of consumer confidence and the beginnings of recovery. My bet’s still on Q3 of next year for the latter, but hey – I and others would be delighted to see a bit of premature recuperation!

That said, if we’re meant to be shopping our way out of recession, maybe Westminster is missing the ultimate sales pop. The United States owes China around US$772 billion, so maybe we should be upping the sovereignty-endangering ante and offering Beijing some sort of lease-back arrangement. A bit like Hong Kong, only in reverse: a 100-year lease over the entire UK, say, for £5 trillion. Cash.

That would work out to about £81,000 per person. Invested wisely, that could work out quite nicely for us Brits. Plus Boris could learn Chinese, the Queen could install a pagoda in front of Buckingham Palace and certain polies could give free reign to their Tiananmen-admiring tendencies and crush union dissent once and for all.

I mean, in a week that’s seen Nick Griffin spouting bollocks on Question Time and Sterling dipping ever-further in value, absurdity rules and anything seems possible.

And not a lot of it good, alas.

The Funniest B.S. Around

2009-10-23T07:23:00.000-07:00

With a postal strike on, rising unemployment and god knows what other bad news gushing down the existential pipe towards us (optimistic bugger, aren’t I? LOL), I’ve decided to buck the gloomy trend and offer an amusing respite in this week’s blog.

If you’re like me and hate all forms of marketing and management jargon, click here to visit a very amusing website called the Web Economy Bullsh*t Generator. This site has the capacity to ‘translate’ even the most clear and concise English into the type of high-fallutin’ bollocks favoured by some consultants (you know who you are!).

Thanks to the Bullsh*t Generator, ‘increase sales’ becomes ‘aggregate synergistic initiatives’ and ‘maximise return on investment’ is morphed into ‘innovate mission-critical infrastructures’.

Try it. It’ll make you smile (while making a mental note to self to never use any of the Generator’s phrases).

Back to the more serious marketing fray next week.

Modern life is rubbish

2009-10-16T08:09:00.001-07:00

Ironic, isn’t it? For all Royal Mail’s talk of ‘modernisation’, we’re in for a good, old-fashioned mail strike on October 22 and 23. Oh joy. As if the rolling regional industrial action that has severely affected deliveries in recent months hasn’t been disruptive enough.

I’ve earned the ire of some readers for previously sounding ‘unsympathetic’ towards postal workers. They I do feel for, believe me. Sudden shift changes, pay cuts and the like must be playing havoc with many people’s lives. But at least they still have a job. At last count there’s around 2.47 million Britons who’d give their eye teeth for the opportunity of working odd hours.

As for Royal Mail management and the CWU’s executive… Guys, you’ve collectively had over two years to resolve the grievances that precipitated the last general postal strike in 2007. Issues which, if memory serves, even then had to do with job cuts and modernisation. So WTF have you been doing?

Postal Affairs Minister Pat McFadden is right in saying that ‘a national strike would be completely self-defeating.’ And yet Westminster has been seemingly content to preside over this defeat – to common sense, to workers just wanting to earn a decent buck for a day’s work, to businesses trying to trade their way out of this god-awful recession.

Royal Mail management and the CWU, in my opinion, you both stand guilty of gross acts of inefficiency and ill faith against the British public.
We await their apology

Hooray for Michael Palin

2009-10-13T07:27:00.000-07:00

Notwithstanding that I’m a huge Monty Python fan, and that this week marks the 40th anniversary of the Flying Circus’ debut on the BBC (I suddenly feel old typing that!), Michael Palin’s comments last week that Britain should stop apologising for its colonial past had me applauding.

His ’10 achievements to be proud of’, which include not insignificant little gems like parliamentary democracy (#1), the English language (#4) entrepreneurs (#8), and yes, even cricket (#10), were a breath of fresh air after years of PC thuggery which have deliberately downplayed Britain’s cultural, social and political legacy across the Commonwealth and beyond.

So taking a page from Mr Palin’s book (his latest, Halfway to Hollywood, is a fun read, incidentally), below is my direct marketing ‘achievements to be proud of’ Top 10. These lest we forget the marketing savvy we accumulated in the days before digital started touting itself as marketing’s messiah (when, in fact, to paraphrase the Pythons, it’s largely just a naughty boy/girl – take your pick).

1. Suppression
Self-interest aside, allowing marketers to identify deceaseds and gone-aways has saved billions, both in terms of money and the environment.

2. Empowering consumer choice
Right customer, right offer, right time – direct marketing continues to allow consumers to make informed purchase decisions.

3. The DMA
That we have a credible, self-governing industry peak body is something we should all be proud of (while never taking for granted!).

4. UK Marketers
The DM sector employs over 250,000 people and we have some fantastic talent here. Kudos to all those who are maintaining or even increasing market share during this recession. You’re doing a fantastic job.

5. Be thankful we’re not the US
Shame on the 30 per cent or so of UK data base managers who don’t keep their records clean and up-to-date. But compared to the US’ unsuppressed mess, GB’s a paragon of virtue.

6. Electoral Roll Access
Still very important for address verification purposes. But we’d all do well to remember that access is a privilege - not a right – and shouldn’t be abused.

7. PAS 2020 and ISO 14001
PAS 2020 and ISO 14001 both have helpful checklists to run through when making important marketing decisions concerning targeting, suppression and the use of recycled materials in your campaigns. Sign up and you’ll not only be helping the environment but enhancing your brand image.

8. Giving data it’s due
Even in the days pre-CRM (remember those?), DM was driving data best practice. By cleaning data, avoiding waste, keeping information fit for purpose and obtaining the maximum transactional insight possible, countless DM-er’s have seen their campaign response rates and ROI enhanced.

9. We’re still here
Even though overall DM volumes are down by as much as 40 per cent this year due to the recession, the sector’s still proving its worth as the primary marcoms channel for many brands.

10. Cricket
If only because we won the Ashes! Michael P.’s right to list cricket at #10 on his list, so I’m doing the same.

To the Royal Mail Strike: ‘On yer bike…’

2009-09-25T02:27:00.000-07:00

Is the silly season still with us? I’m beginning to wonder, what with strike action at Royal Mail affecting deliveries around the country. After finally seeing a welcome uplift in DM activity in recent weeks, comes not only a spate of regional mail delivery disruptions but the threat of a national strike next month.

Perfect timing, huh? And all happening right when direct mail’s just starting to get its Mojo back after months of recession-bred doldrums.

As reported on Marketing Direct, big mailers like insurance giant BT and More Than are already feeling the effects of Royal Mail industrial action. As the second and fifteen biggest UK direct marketers, respectively, you can be certain that if the ‘big end’ of DM is seeing response rates dip, others are also suffering. The market’s already shaky enough without the entire mail channel’s reliability being called into question during the lead-up to Christmas campaign season.

So put October 9th in your diary and keep your worry beads handy, for that’s when the Communications Workers Union will announce whether there’s to be a national mail strike. We’ll all need Sherpa guides to help scale the mountains of undelivered mail accumulating over Swindon way, otherwise.

Happy Anniversary (Not!)

2009-09-18T06:48:00.000-07:00

This week has, of course, marked the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse. Which triggered the global economic meltdown etc etc. (By now we all know the drill, alas.) Should the US government bailed the failing investment bank out, as it did insurance giant AIG, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and their ilk and thus avoided the biggest bankruptcy in US history? The blogosphere and US bookshelves are chock full of debate on this topic at present. My theory is that the powers that be simply didn’t like the cut of Lehman Brother’s CEO, Richard Fuld. Every crisis needs a scapegoat, and Fuld – a self-proclaimed business ‘gorilla’ who amassed an enormous personal fortune while presiding over Lehman Brother’s inexorable descent into over-leveraged, toxic asset hell – was arguably the perfect candidate. A bit like RBS’s much maligned former Chief Executive Sir Fred Goodwin here in the UK – only without the obscene pension fund and Monte Carlo tax haven.

Twelve months after Wall Street’s unprecedented meltdown and the hundreds of billions in government handouts to banks, stunned disbelief has given way to hardship and bitterness for many. Thousands of people have lost jobs and homes, relationship breakdown is rife – it’s been hideous. And to think that if we’d had tighter banking regulation, none of this would have happened. (Don’t believe me? Look at how the likes of France, Australia and Canada have weathered the sub-prime storm comparatively unscathed. Something more than just luck’s been involved.)

So on this, the first anniversary of the recession we didn’t have to have, what have we learned? That maven of financial misfortune, former US Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, is apparently already predicting that another economic meltdown is inevitable because it's human nature to want more. Which is a bit rich coming from the man who arguably paved the way for the current recession in the first place, if you ask me.

Yes, it might be human nature to always want more. But when we’ve seen the all too abundant pain that unfettered greed can bring, surely enough can sometimes indeed be, well…enough?

Happy first anniversary, folks. Here’s hoping we’re all in better shape come September 15th, 2010.

R.I.P John Jay Daly

2009-09-07T07:00:00.001-07:00

John Jay Daly, the Godfather of Opt-Out, died in Washington D.C. on August 27th of a blood infection. The man credited with pioneering DM opt-out in 1970 was also a popular D.C. spin doctor and, in an earlier incarnation (while working at the US National Institute of Drycleaning), John claimed credit for expanding dry-cleaning facilities in the former Soviet Union. Good to know that the Cold War was also a clean war, is it not?

I’m not sure it was necessarily Mr Daly’s intent, but by giving rise to the Age of Opt-Out, he did transform campaign planning worldwide by forcing marketers to better target their offers towards those consumers demonstrating the greatest interest and propensity to purchase.

That’s a considerable legacy indeed – particularly as DM (or ‘advertising mail’ as our American cousins call it), still accounts for 21 per cent of total US advertising spend and generated US$702 billion in economic activity States-side in 2008.

Yet almost 40 years on from Mr Daly’s pioneering efforts, how disappointing that only 47 per cent of US mailers use any form of suppression file, according to the American DMA. As I noted on this blog back in March, perhaps it’s little wonder then that 19 State Legislatures across the United States currently have ‘Do Not Mail’ registries on their agenda – such is the volume of mis-addressed and unwanted mail swamping American households. Because with DM volume totaling 101.9 billion items and an estimated 40 million Americans changing address last year, that’s potentially one hell of a big offer mis-matched and ‘return to sender’ junk mail swamp.
My views on the UK’s own rather shoddy suppression rates and attitudes to consumers are well documented. But compared to our American cousins, we’re paragons of best practice virtue.
So keep up the good work, everyone. We Brits may yet do Mr Daly proud as responsible direct marketers.

Skank, anyone?

2009-09-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

It appears that calling someone a ‘skank’ in a blog can be costly. In a precedent-setting court case, a Manhattan judge recently forced Google to provide the identity of an anonymous blogger who had trashed former Canadian supermodel Liskula Cohen on the website ‘Skanks in NYC’ by calling her ‘a 40-something [who] may have been hot 10 years ago.’

A case of Fendi handbags at ten paces, methinks.

The moral of this story? Nothing but nothing’s private in cyberspace.

In other, less skanky news… The Institute of Chartered Accountants last week declared that recession in Britain is ‘at an end’. The ICA’s Index of Business Confidence posted the biggest rise for two years, peaking at 4.8 by the end of June – up from -28.2 in March. Additionally, the Institute predicts that the UK will grow by 0.5 per cent during the current quarter.

So are the squints right? Is the recession on its way out?

How engaged are you?

2009-08-26T03:17:00.000-07:00

Here’s a stat guaranteed to curdle your latte: According to Gallup Management Journal’s latest Employee Engagement Index, 29 per cent of US employees are actively motivated and engaged in their jobs, while 71 per cent are unmotivated and disengaged either through being not engaged at all (54 per cent) or actively disengaged (17 per cent). A troubling set of numbers, certainly, and as pertinent to the UK as they are Stateside - particularly at a time when maintaining productivity has arguably never been more acute.

But who’s to blame for this workplace malaise? Bad managers incapable of fostering a supportive, rewarding and goal-orientated office environment or disgruntled employees doing only the bare minimum and not giving a toss?

This recession is definitely testing everyone’s mettle – business owners and employees alike. You don’t need me to tell you times are tough. But even in a nil-increase wage environment (Have you received a raise this year? Probably not, methinks), maintaining value for employees is as essential as maintaining value for shareholders. After all, the former are at the front line when it comes to driving customer engagement. And god knows we need plenty of both.

We’ll see the HR proof when the recessional pudding’s finished being baked, I reckon – ie. staff either staying put or leaving en masse after enduring months of management fit hitting the employee relations shan.

As we prep for recovery, like The Clash once sang: Should I stay or should I go?

Summertime, and the living is semi-easy

2009-08-20T02:30:00.000-07:00

Hello from Spain, where Mrs Roy has graciously allowed me 10 minutes of quality BlackBerry time before confiscating the bloody thing again and hauling me off on yet another shopping expedition. I’d voted for a spot of golf but have been outvoted.

There is no god.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re still at the office. My commiserations – I’ll be back at the salt mine soon enough myself. Regardless of whether or not you have sangria in hand, however, let’s all give a thought to work-life balance this silly season, shall we?

Yes, the recession sucks and we’re all working harder and feeling stressed. But even a mini-break somewhere can recharge the batteries and aid productivity. Think of it as a kind of annual emo-MOT – a ‘must do’ item. I’m certainly feeling better for it (bad family outing decisions notwithstanding).
Keep your work-life equation balanced, is all I’m saying. You, your associates and your significant other(s) will all thank you for it.

PS. Can someone bring back Porgy & Bess? Gotta love the Gershwins. Great musical.

All Hail Neo-DM

2009-08-10T02:14:00.000-07:00

According to figures released recently by the Central Office of Information (COI – tres Orwellian, huh?), the Government has become the UK’s biggest advertiser, spending £540 on marcoms during 2008-09 – a rise of 43 per cent on the previous year.

DM expenditure grew by one-third (accounting for £45.6 million), which Marc Michaels, Director of Direct and Relationship Marketing at the COI, attributes in part to the Government’s ongoing Change4Life and tobacco control campaigns.

Being something of a digi-doubter, this is a promising sign. In fact I’m predicting that DM will make something of a comeback in the lead-up to Christmas and beyond. As badly targeted e-mail offers have spammed everyone senseless in recent months (the cheapest channel isn’t necessarily the best response driver), Neo-DM campaigns which are personalized, attractive and powered by well-segmented, suppressed and up-to-date transactional data stands to deliver excellent ROI as we try to claw our way out of this recession, I reckon.

Right offer, right person, right time, right channel. As a certain rather camp meerkat would say: ‘Simples!’

Deutschland, Deutschland über opt-in

2009-08-05T03:14:00.000-07:00

With the spectre of edited Roll access still looming over the heads of UK marketers, the ‘Age of Opt-in’ has dawned across in Germany. The country’s data protection regulations have been amended with the explicit aim of curbing the trade in personal information between companies. There’s a three-year transition period involved as well as some exemptions (non-profit organisations, for example), but it’s an ominous sign when a Ministry of the Interior puts out a statement which says, in part: ‘The targeting of advertising is increasingly felt to be a burden, and to work against the desire for greater self-determination.’

From Nietzche’s Übermensch to über opt-in. Dunno about Denmark, but there’s certainly something rotten lurking over in the direction of the Black Forrest.

In other developments… Another day, another data breach, it seems. Brickbats to three HSBC firms (HSBC Life UK, HSBC Actuaries and Consultants, and HSBC Insurance Brokers), who last week were fined £3 million by the Financial Services Authority for losing personal information belonging to over 180,000 policyholders in - you guessed it! - the post.

To all those affected, my commiserations. I can only hope that none of the ‘lost’ information, which included unencrypted name, address, date of birth and NI numbers, has fallen into the wrong hands. And to HSBC management: Kindly remind your staff about the importance of data security, will you? Having previously ‘lost’ 370,000 customer records in April 2008, is it just me or are data protection lessons not being learned in certain quarters?

Spell What??

2009-07-28T01:45:00.001-07:00

Give me an 'L'! Give me a 'U'! Give me a 'V'! Give me a 'W'! Give me a?

Actually, enough of the alphabet-obsession when it comes to describing the shape of this recession. Is it just me or is a lot of the media punditry of late beginning to collectively sound like some sort of deranged, dyslexic cheer squad? Only without the mini-skirts and pom-poms. All I know is: (i) we?re still in it up to our proverbials; (ii) a few isolated green shoots of recovery do not a sustained upswing make; and (iii) none of Westminster?s rather expensive recovery programmes seem to be doing UK SME?s much in the way of good.

Tis indeed a cruel business summer. But maybe, just maybe! bad times aren't around the corner and the outlook isn't necessarily vile. Branding consultancy Clear reported in a recent survey that 42 per cent of Britons are still spending money and feeling positive about their financial situation, so there's still market share to be gained. In a zero-budget environment, however, the burning question is, of course: How?

All things marketing have earned especially close attention from yours truly since January. Not in any pejorative sense, but as a means by which we can cut better deals with advertisers, gain the most insight from our current client data and generally try to determine which combination of channels delivers the best return. In my opinion, getting ahead during tough times is all about understanding trends. For if you can quantify what and when your sectors buying, you'll be able to cut your marketing cloth accordingly. N'est-ce pas?

Unlike some CEO's I've observed (and who shall remain nameless), one's first impulse during tough times shouldn't be to slash marketing and PR spends. I'm not advocating blithely carrying on as usual, please note, a recession is attention-worthy, after all, but it is possible to market in ways which increase response rates and ROI even during a downturn (DM and digital is an excellent channel combination, for example). Ditching ye olde volume-based, bigger is better approach to marketing in favour of a marcoms stance which is more targeted and that emphasises value is also a canny move. But before you direct your marketing people to press 'Send' on your next e-mail campaign in the mistaken belief that online will provide a cheap, accessible channel by which to spam your way to recession-busting sales glory, I suggest you think again. My observation is that online is all but maxed-out at present. Open- and click-through rates are in freefall as punters are being inundated with unsolicited offers. It's as if we've come full circle and are repeating the mistakes of old Eighties-styled direct mail, only digitally and not via letterboxes.

The companies and brands that will not only survive but even prosper during the rest of 2009 and beyond will be those whose marketing messages reassure consumers and whose products/services are perceived to add value. Now is definitely not the time for clever tricks or expensive marketing gimmicks, I believe. So let's accentuate the positives, better manage the negatives and continue to give clients the right encouragement to part with their hard earned, shall we?

Game, Set and Match

2009-07-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Roger Federer on winning the Wimbledon men’s singles crown on Sunday. That this is his 15th Grand Slam title is a remarkable achievement. I swear the man is a tennis machine. And he’s only 27! Quite astounding.

Of course conspicuously absent from Federer’s epic final against the über-cool Andy Roddick was that other Andy – as in Murray. Just prior to Andy M’s semi-final loss on Friday, the amusingly banal Andy Murray-o-Meter (tracking the burning issue ‘Is Andy Murray a Brit or a Scot?’), had peaked at a ‘yes’ vote of 86%. I checked this morning and see it’s down to 77%. My bet’s on a further slide south over coming days. We Brits are an unforgiving lot, no?

Yet again, after all the acres of press coverage and gargantuan hype, Mr Murray failed to deliver a Grand Slam victory for Team GB. Not his fault – the guy did his best but was beaten on the day by a better player (Roddick). So is Andy Murray the nation’s next planet-conquering sporting brand in the making? I think not. As the always insightful Mark Ritson observed in Marketing recently, ‘the harsh reality is that Murray is a fine tennis player, but a hopeless prospect as the next Beckham, no matter how advanced the brand strategy applied to his future career.’

So best of British – and Scottish! – to you, Andy Murray. But to paraphrase Monty Python in The Life of Brian, I suggest we all remember that you’re not a sports brand messiah, you’re just a very moody and petulant boy who does a fine job swinging a tennis racquet.

Oh, and the day after Michael Jackson’s three-ring circus send off (sorry, Memorial Service), in Los Angeles, this exclusive report just in: He’s still dead, folks. I just love our ‘sleb-obsessed culture, don’t you?

Deliver us from SPAM evil

2009-07-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

Dan Leahul’s article discussing Forrester Research’s Annual E-mail Marketing Forecast caught my eye the other day. The Forecast is predicting email spend to "balloon" to $2bn (£1.2bn) by 2014, a nearly 11% compound annual growth rate, and that the average UK in-box will be inundated by over 9,000 e-mails annually over the same period. The latter stat is actually rather conservative, I believe, given that our American cousins are already being inundated with over 12,000 e-missives per anum, according to US DMA figures.

I like digital and social media, but I’m also highly suspicious of them – at least in their current guise. We’ve seen various e-pundits bang on and on about the ‘magic bullet’ potential of the likes of Twitter and e-mail in recent months, only to see some marketing professionals SPAM-ing the crap out of the entire populus and/or boring followers senseless with banal tweets.

I’m big on data hygene and security, but with the rise in the use of the digital channel, surely validity and better channel integration is where the marketing rubber is really going to hit the response road over the months ahead. Add online lead generation (OLG) into the mix and the customer data- and transactional insight that’s going to be required of savvy marketers is going to be as enormous as it will need to be sophisticated. ‘One-offer-for-all’-type marketeers need to exit onto new career paths now, I’m afraid.

I’ve been discussing these issues with my colleague Dawn Orr a lot of late. As marketers transition from volume- to value-based campaign models, we believe the new ‘holy trinity’ of customer data is quality, price and validity. Specific to online, whether your data capture is via bespoke landing pages or the likes of online games, surveys, quizzes or social networking sites, the ‘stickier’ and more response-geared these are, the more detailed (and valuable), the leads – and sales - generated.

We’re certainly seeing some exciting new DM trends unfold. Let’s just hope we’re collectively smart enough to fully exploit their potential and not just perpetrate the ‘junk mail’ stigma of yore into online.

Bravo BS 10012!

2009-06-24T03:27:00.000-07:00

Almost one in five UK businesses have breached the Data Protection Act at least once – so found a BSI survey of 500 SME’s recently. That’s worrying news indeed, given that there’s around 5 million small-to-medium sized businesses in GB dealing in all manner of sensitive personal information, ranging from credit card numbers and addresses to ethnic origin and criminal records, on a daily basis.

So great to see BSI Group launching the first British Standard designed specifically to promote data management best practice – BS 10012. The Data Protection Act (DPA) is certainly very detailed and a rather intimidating document to the uninitiated, but given BSI’s finding that 65 per cent of SME’s provide nothing in the way of data protection training for their staff, this is a data management ‘best practice’ Everest we’d surely all do well to climb and conquer as quickly and effectively as possible.

If you’re interested (and I hope those of you who don’t have adequate data handling policies/strategies in place will be!), BSI is running a conference entitled Information Governance & Data Protection Standards, Guidance and Best Practice from June 30 – July 1. For details, visit www.bsigroup.com/conferences.

Watson’s No Longer On

2009-06-17T03:29:00.000-07:00

I’m no great Labour fan, but I have to admit I was disappointed to read about Tom Watson’s resignation from Cabinet on June 5th – on Twitter, no less.

I don’t think many Brits will be shedding tears over the departure of the likes of Jacqui Smith, Hazel Blears, Caroline Flint and James Purnell from Brown Gordon’s (now rather anaemic-looking) front bench, but Mr Watson’s a rare politician indeed – engaged, tech savvy and articulate on all things data and IT. Tom had been doing a great job championing the importance of information and all things digital within Westminster over the past 18 months – work which I only hope he can continue from the back bench.

So kudos, Tom. Hope you indeed can enjoy more quality time with your family while continuing to go the whole nine political yards.

Bank Swindles and Grateful Dead

2009-06-05T03:10:00.000-07:00

The weather’s too lovely to dwell on grim news, but I’m going to stick my neck out and foreshadow a gathering storm methinks we’re going to hear a lot more about in the autumn.

Was intrigued/disturbed to read Andy Kroll’s article Bank bailout: The greatest swindle ever sold about the six ways in which US taxpayers are being scammed by the American government’s US$12 trillion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). It seems the biggest bank bailout in history is rife with flaws – a lack of oversight, endemic overpayments, no coherent plan for returning failing institutions to profitability and perpetuating the Byzantine, overleveraged financial practices which sent the whole system down the crapper to begin with, among them. Given the big, blank cheque that Darling Alastair wrote the City, I have a sneaking suspicion similar shortcomings are going to bite us all in the proverbial on this side of the pond too. Am more than happy to be proven wrong on this one, but…The fat financial lady hasn’t sung the last sorry note on this ongoing saga, that’s for sure.

With the Ashes approaching, we Brits can be forgiven for indulging in a spot of light-hearted Aussie bashing (my PR guy’s from Oz and he’s already ducking for cover). So I was bemused to see reports last week that A$14 million of the Australian government’s recent A$900 per taxpayer cash handout designed to stimulate the economy was sent to people who had died. Seems Westminster isn’t alone when it comes to government data handling cock-ups. With all due apologies to the late, great stoner Jerry Garcia, it seems Australia’s the place to be if you want to join the ‘grateful dead’.

Have a good week, folks.

Rolling back the Faux-Green Tide

2009-05-27T09:35:00.000-07:00

Arun Sudhaman’s article How to fight a green backlash (PR Week, 1/5/09) made for interesting yet not entirely surprising reading, I must say. That 81 per cent of consumers indicated that they are paying more attention to cost over environmental credentials is entirely understandable as this god-awful recession bites ever-harder into household budgets.

We’d be doing Green ‘Team GB’ a disservice if we painted ourselves as frugal spendthrifts all too willing to trade off long-term ecological sustainability for short term savings at the supermarket, however. The market outlook isn’t necessarily that vile, after all. At the risk of countering one survey with another, Branding consultancy Clear recently reported that 42 per cent of Britons are still spending money and feeling positive about their financial situation. This is surely cause for celebration, and evidences that there’s still market share out there to be had.

Business rules of engagement have fundamentally changed these past months, obviously. The companies and brands which will not only survive but even prosper during the rest of 2009 and beyond will be those whose marcoms reassure consumers and whose products/services are perceived to add value – to their hip pockets, sense of wellbeing and the environment. Now is definitely not the time for clever eco-tricks or marketing gimmicks, in my opinion. Offer the punters something tangible and aspirational and believe me, as the CEO of a company who’s products stop over 1.3 billion items of unnecessary junk mail being sent each year, they can and will respond.

At the risk of sounding like a heretic, maybe this is the recession we had to have to roll back the faux-Green marcoms tide once and for all. The public, environment and marketing practices will be all the better for it in the long run, I reckon.

Customer Marcoms: A whole different kettle of Tweets?

2009-05-08T04:27:00.000-07:00

Discovering that Twitter – Britain’s favourite digital channel du jour – has a retention rate of only 40 per cent really doesn’t come as much surprise. Maybe I’m getting a little old in the tooth, but Nielsen Online’s confirmation that even the short term appeal of reading such scintillating Tweets as ‘back from gym, swore at cat, now making cuppa’ points to the limited appeal of 140-character messaging. Even for ADD types.

The marketing moral of this story? Gathering more and more followers on Twitter is one thing, but keeping them engaged and interested is a very different (and difficult) kettle of Tweets for brand managers. My company’s on Twitter and this week I’m setting up my own account as the new Chair of the DMA’s Data Council, so I’m not just barking from the sidelines here. You can be sure I’m giving my ‘sticky content’ fingers a very thorough licking. (Sorry – didn’t mean to gross you out.)

In this post-content age, do the Twitter stats point to the medium no longer being the message, perhaps? Sure, Twitter’s now adding applications like Tweetdeck and TwitterGadget in a bid, I assume, to enhance the service’s retention rates. But at the risk of sounding like a cyber-canary tweeting in the digital coal mine, maybe we’d all do well to heed this warning: Online’s no ‘magic bullet’ for recession-bred client communication strategies.

Must fly. Stephen Fry’s just Tweeted that he’s going to the loo. Can’t miss that now, can I?

This little piggy goes to…

2009-05-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

Darling Alistair’s budget, swine flu and news that a stage musical based on the life of Jade Goody is possibly in the offing. What do these disparate events have in common? Nothing, actually – except that all are in no way welcome, if you ask me.

I won’t add to the acres of column centimetres which accompanied last week’s budget, except to say that we should probably warn our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren (should we have them), to get used to hearing the word ‘DEBT’ quite often for the next fifty years or so. And of course the less said about the late Primark Princess the better.

Unlike ‘debt’, a word we’re not hearing too often enough currently is ‘responsible’ – a concept which has particular resonance for DM. Great to see President Obama calling for US banks to clean up their mailing practices, for example. As reported in past days on Brand Republic, that 200 million Americans each receive 10 to 15 credit card offers per week verges on the obscene, in terms of damage to both brand image and the environment.

Times are obviously tough at present. Yet surely the brands which will not only survive but even prosper during this recession will be those who show a more respectful relationship with customers by not playing fast and loose with their information, mailing deceased persons and/or boring punters senseless with mismatched offers.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Welcome to DM’s Mission Imperative, as opposed to Mission Impossible.

Re-invention

2009-04-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

Madonna has a PhD in it; Meryl Streep’s won countless gongs for it; President Obama thankfully has no need of it; wily Nicolas Sarkozy does it en Français and poor old Brown Gordon is desperate for a dose for it.

No, I’m not talking about falling into suave, Cole Porter-styled l’amour, but the mercurial talent for re-invention.

Steeped as we all are in a culture that’s premised upon success-at-all-costs, the current recession is biting anyone who can’t or won’t adapt to tougher market conditions especially hard.

So what can we do? We can adapt offerings; tweak business plans; better manage cash flows; retain the most customers possible and/or generally do whatever’s necessary to maintain jobs in order to keep our collective heads above water.

But amidst the umpteen challenges facing us are also opportunities for re-invention. How can we do what we do better and more cost-effectively? How can we expand our income streams? How can we better market and PR ourselves? The answers to all these questions can be strategic catalysts for growth and re-invention – even during tough times.

I’m not talking about applying empty, Alastair Campbell-styled spin tactics, either. At the end of the day, there has to be some solid substance to what we all do. But ask yourself this: What can I be doing now to not only survive but prosper once markets improve?

There’s always new and smarter ways of doing the ‘same old’ and keeping one step ahead of the pack, after all. Just don’t publish a book entitled S.E.X. and/or marry a French pop star. Both are more of a handful than they’re worth.

Q1 down, only three to go…

2009-04-15T08:11:00.001-07:00

‘April is the cruellest month’ – well, at least T.S. Elliot thought so in The Waste Land. As Q1 of 2009 disappears into our collective rear view mirror, unlike Mr Elliot’s morose opus, I hope you aren’t spending this month burying dead projects, client files and/or business plans.

The first months of this year have seen many of us trying to make sense of a plethora of statistics, what with the RPI (Retail Prices Index) recently heading south to 0% for the first time in 49 years while its cousin, the CPI (Consumer Price Index), unexpectedly heading north to 3.2%. Meaning? We’re buying more baked beans while waiting for deflation to bring LCD screen costs down, if the econ-boffins are to be believed. (Bollocks, in other words.) All of which is cold comfort to the many talented people who are currently looking for work through no fault of their own.

‘It’s enough to make you want to drive your Mercedes over a cliff!’ I remember Dame Edna remarking rather colourfully about the 1987 crash. Well, this time around there’s no Mercedes. It’s been traded for a second-hand Vauxhall to help pay last month’s school fees or mortgage.

The rules of engagement for UK businesses have obviously changed; and not necessarily for the better – at least in the short-term. But before any of us reach for the Prozac, it’s worth remembering, even in our darkest moments, that: (i) the economy hasn’t entirely ground to a halt, it’s merely slowed; and (ii) there’s still business out there to be had. We just have to fight even harder for it.

Keep the faith folks, is all I’m saying. One quarter down, only four to go until better times return.

Hopefully…

It’s official – marketing rocks

2009-04-07T07:12:00.000-07:00

Good news: A recent KDB survey of one thousand UK finance directors has yielded a heartening stat, namely that four-out-of-five bean counters favour investing in consumer spending during the recession.

Listen closely. Hear that? It’s the sound of hell freezing over. Or an Eagles re-union concert – one of the two, anyhow.

Yep, 84 per cent of FD’s surveyed by the consumer insight firm believe that ‘increasing marketing spend during a recession does indeed help position companies to gain market share coming out of a downturn.’ As I’ve always been a big believer in the benefits of aligning well-targeted marketing campaigns and consumer insight with solid product/service delivery, I can only hope KDB’s sample wasn’t skewed.

Nice to see FD’s finally waking up to what we, as a sector, are all about.

Have a great Easter, Passover or whatever other High Holiday you may or may not be celebrating over coming days.

A Bite of the Big Apple

2009-04-06T01:06:00.001-07:00

Having just swung back from the Big Apple (he said, ever-so-gloatingly!), I have to say that, as a city, New York never ceases to amaze me – what with all the buzz, the arrogance, the sheer scale and 24 hour culture.

This wasn’t just a downtime jaunt, however. I was speaking to a bunch of senior US marketers at a conference – trying to enlighten them in typically insensitive manner about how backward and downright inept data hygiene is, States-side. For a nation that mails 100 billion pieces of DM a year (that’s 868 per household, folks), it seems utterly implausible that their suppression industry barely exists.

It’s bad enough that the deceased and home-movers are being bombarded unnecessarily, but must shocking of all is the fact that 40 billion pieces of DM are being poured into US landfills unopened. Long story short: Almost 50 per cent of US DM is discarded and never read. Appalling, no?

My views on the UK’s rather shoddy suppression rates and attitudes to consumers are well documented, but compared to our American cousins, we’re paragons of best practice virtue. Keep up the good work, everyone.

PS. Great news that Jack Straw’s much-cherished Clause 152 of his Coroners and Justice Bill has gone to whatever inner circle of hell is reserved for ill-conceived legislation. The unfettered exchange of personal information across Whitehall and beyond that this Clause would have permitted really was a step too far, in my opinion.

Oh, say can you see by DM’s early light…

2009-03-30T03:03:00.000-07:00

In New York this week to speak at the iDi Marketers Forum, so this blog is probably best read accompanied by Springsteen and a generous slice of Mom’s home-made apple pie.

DM (or ‘advertising mail’ as our American cousins call it), accounted for 21 per cent of total advertising spend and generated US$702 billion in economic activity States-side in 2008. Impressive stats, certainly, yet according to the American DMA, only 47 per cent of US mailers use any form of suppression file.

Perhaps it’s little wonder then that 19 State Legislatures across the United States currently have ‘Do Not Mail’ registries on their agenda – such is the volume of mis-addressed and unwanted mail swamping American households. Because with DM volume totalling 101.9 billion items and an estimated 40 million Americans changing address last year, that’s potentially one hell of a big offer mis-matched and ‘return to sender’ junk mail swamp.

Similar problems exist here, obviously, where the threat of opt-in regimes hovers ominously over not only the UK but the entire eurozone. With privacy regimes tightening in many countries in response to endemic data gaffs, as an industry we’ve certainly got to both lift our game - all the while remembering that government departments are still, collectively, #1 on the data breach hit parade.

Will report back from across the pond next week. In the meantime, have a good one…

Budget Smudget

2009-03-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

I’m a big believer in customer service excellence, but Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary’s recent announcement that he’s serious about making passengers pay for the right to relieve themselves on flights by installing credit card-operated loos really takes the cake.

Or should that read ‘toilet roll’?

O’Leary’s both king of the in-flight surcharge and full of bombast, in my opinion. Maybe he’s just taking the piss (or set to charge for it, at least), but Ryanair is apparently intent on making its passengers suffer wherever possible – particularly when it comes to their hip pockets.

There’s no debating that Ryanair offers incredibly low internet fares (£0.99 to Cork, anyone?). But by the time you’ve paid add-on costs for taxes and fees, airport check-in, baggage, priority boarding passes and credit card surcharges, you might as well fly a non-discount airline.

Hell, even B.A. starts to look attractive.

To my way of thinking, Ryanair’s propensity for treating customers like cattle and working down to a price rather than up to a standard is the antithesis of service excellence. Maximising profit is one thing, but let’s all try to look beyond the current quarter’s P&L if we truly want to retain customers and grow our businesses, shall we?

Needless to say, I for one won’t be flying Ryanair any time soon.

Blacklists and Perfect Storms

2009-03-13T07:54:00.000-07:00

Well, a pox on The Consulting Association, a Droitwich-based firm currently being prosecuted for a ‘serious breach’ of the Data Protection Act for secretly on-selling personal information to around 40 construction companies (among them Taylor Woodrow, Laing O’Rourke and Balfour Beatty), so that said firms could allegedly weed out potential trouble-makers from amongst job applicants.

I’m hardly a card-carrying unionist, but the whole notion of collecting and selling non-consented personal information really must be deplored. As reported by the BBC, The Information Commissioner’s Office believes that some 3,213 workers had details of their personal relationships, trade union activity and employment history traded by The Consulting Association for as low as £2.20 a pop.

I don’t know what’s more offensive from a data protection perspective: The fact that The Consulting Association’s ‘blacklist’ ran for over fifteen years or that the cost of violating workers’ privacy was deemed to be roughly equivalent to the price of eight cans of baked beans.

On another data front, I see Security Minister, Lord West, has announced that there’s no decision yet on the Government’s proposed giant database of phone calls, e-mails and internet use. Richard Thomas is calling for ‘a full democratic debate about where exactly the [data collecting] lines should be drawn’, so it will be interesting to see what happens over coming weeks. Because if you put Jack Straw’s controversial Clause 152 of his Coroners and Justice Bill alongside the Communications Data Bill, a near perfect data protection storm is certainly brewing over Westminster way – one which could impact on all our personal lives.

Goodbye Data Protection, Hello Data-Sharing Debacle

2009-03-06T01:50:00.000-08:00

Jack Straw’s controversial Coroners and Justice Bill is currently in Committee over at ye olde House of Commons. Whilst a lot of the Bill seems entirely worthy – figuring prominently is the creation of a new ‘Charter for the Bereaved’ to better guide the inquest process as well as additional support for victims and vulnerable witnesses of crime – Clause 152 concerning the sharing of personal data across the civil service and beyond is causing much gnashing of teeth.

In developments which echo the erosion of data protection rights across in Canada (see my ‘Crazy Canucks’ blog of 20 February), Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill stands to give the Government free reign to access and share with any person or organisation it deems fit any data which furthers ‘existing government policy’ and ‘serves the public interest.’

And at whose sole discretion will data sharing orders be issued? Government ministers – without any judicial review. So long as the data is ‘relevant’ to a stated Government policy, then it’s fair game in the new scheme of things. That’s assuming, of course, that there is a stated policy and/or that the Government doesn’t simply amend policy on the spot to suit particular circumstances.

David Howarth (LD), Tim Boswell (Con) and David Kidney (Lab) all raised concerns over Clause 152 in a Public Bill Committee meeting last Thursday, as has former home secretary, David Blunkett. Mark Walport and Richard Thomas have also added their voices to the growing chorus of disapproval – particularly as Clause 152 erodes not only the Data Protection Act, but contravenes the data-sharing principles outlined in their laudable 2008 report.

I think everyone shares the hope that Westminster is being ever-vigilant in protecting us against terrorism. But using a legislative sledgehammer to crack a walnut doesn’t exactly seem like a wise or proportionate response.

A case of Yes, Minister? Paraphrasing Nancy Reagan, to Jack Straw and Clause 152, I for one say a very big NO.

And the winner is… Staff Fraud!

2009-02-26T07:32:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness Kate Winslet kept it together and didn’t blubber too much at the Academy Awards. Also loved Sean Penn’s delightfully self-deprecating ‘I do know how hard I make it to appreciate me’ line in accepting his gong for Milk. I so know the feeling – especially after board meetings.

Having had my annual Oscar celeb fix and finding myself in need of something to put me to sleep on Sunday night, I opened the February edition of Spectrum, the monthly newsletter of CIFAS, the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service.

It appears there’s a new ‘star’ in the fraud firmament – internal staff fraud. Of those cases finding their way to court in the UK last year, KPMG reports that fraud committed by company managers now stands at £128 million (up from £54 million in 2007), while employee efforts totalled a rather disgraceful £100 million (way up on ‘07’s £27 million). Blessed be the dishonest consumer, however – their take in 2008 came to a comparatively modest £65 million – a mere £40 million increase on their 2007 haul.

Very alarming, no? I realise times are tough, but dishonesty is surely never the best policy for anyone.

So thanks for an interesting read, CIFAS. Not sure my missus would approve, but maybe I should take Peter Hurst and Co. to bed more often.

Crazy Canucks

2009-02-20T09:06:00.000-08:00

What’s not to love about Canada, eh? Amazing scenery, great food, Neil Young, its total ban on nude sunbathing – the list is nigh on endless.

So it came as a surprise last Friday to read about a Superior Court in Ontario ruling that Canadian police can now use Internet Protocol addresses to find the names of people online, without need of a search warrant.

Justice Lynne Leitch was ruling on a child pornography case in which Bell Canada released the IP address of a south-western Ontario man to police as part of a child sexual exploitation investigation without a warrant. Leitch apparently accepted the Crown’s argument that there is ‘no reasonable expectation of privacy’ in cyberspace and that an IP name and address are not ‘biographical information one expects would be kept private from the state.’

Whilst I support the need to prosecute suspected child sex perverts to the fullest extent of the law, Canadian civil libertarians are justified in being up-in-arms about the implications of Justice Leitch’s ruling. Everyone’s ten-digit IP address is the key to not only their online identity, but the entire history of where they’ve been on the web. Nature-lover that I am, you can be certain I’m never going to Google the words ‘Canada’ and ‘beaver’ ever again!

With a mass surveillance, ‘super database’ still apparently on the UK Government’s ‘To Do’ list this year, developments in Canada this past week unfortunately make me all the more pessimistic about privacy rights – both here and abroad.

Promises, Promises

2009-02-13T04:04:00.000-08:00

Meant to mention this last week, but congrats to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), on the new Data Protection Promise. Good to see the safeguarding of personal data getting a much-needed boost – particularly as 99 data breaches (no, not Luftballons!), were reported to the ICO in the final quarter of 2008 alone.

According to ICO research, 95 per cent of companies are apparently strong advocates of the Data Protection Act. Which is just as well, as an estimated 70 per cent of consumers are concerned about the amount of personal information companies hold about them, say Ofcom.

I have a couple of minor quibbles with the Promise, though: (i) it commits signatories to what I regard as being minimum ‘good practice’ standards; and (ii) as we’ve all seen more gaffs in recent months than the North Atlantic tuna fleet, shouldn’t we, as responsible data handlers, be trying to raise the bar and do more?

But I don’t want to throw the data baby out with the ICO bathwater. With an estimated 100 million items of misaddressed mail still providing too ample opportunity for fraudsters each year (address forwarding fraud constituted a disconcertingly high 36 per cent of total ID fraud cases in 2008), let’s hope advocacy translates into tangible data hygiene and security action in 2009.

Strike Me Pink

2009-02-02T03:53:00.000-08:00

Wildcat strikes at Lindsey, Grangemouth and Sellafield and over the use of foreign labour; The Good Childhood Inquiry announcing that ‘the aggressive pursuit of personal success by adults is now the greatest threat to British children’ and the Prime Minister railing against the rise of neo-protectionism in Davos… Was it just the bottle of Grenache I downed last night or are these disparate events symptomatic of something?

Namely: Fear.

Fear of losing one’s job; fear of not being able to pay the mortgage or put food on the table; fear of not being able to keep up with the Joneses – fear is plaguing the British psyche at every turn. Fuelled by a tabloid media diet of unadulterated gloom, more than just the temperature seems to have turned sub-Arctic here on our little island these past days.

I’m hoping that Total’s subcontractor agreements are indeed meeting minimum UK employment conditions and that the strikers’ response is a knee-jerk one. Either way, this situation needs to be resolved ASAP as the world is watching. GB’s standard ‘when the going gets tough, the tough go on strike’ predilection just won’t cut it in the new, post-credit crunch world, I’m afraid.

As for our kids… At the risk of sounding like an old softy, it kills me to think we’re impairing the potential of the next generation by straight-jacketing them with a success-at-all-costs mentality which is utter nonsense. Where will it get them? Just ask Bernard Madoff.

I like the perks of success as much as the next CEO, but we all need to foster a greater sense of community if we’re to get through the current market mire. So good on you Gordon for trying to put the best spin on our prospects for the world’s financial elite in Davos over the weekend. But from the look on CNN reporter Christiane Amanpour’s face I saw in one news clip, methinks the economic dynamism you’re speaking of needs a hell of a lot of further nurturing.

UK Data: Fighting Fit or D.O.A?

2009-01-29T01:37:00.000-08:00

Time to beat the data protection drum again, I feel. Self-interest aside, this is an issue we all need to be acutely aware of, both as data handlers and consumers. Citizens, even, for that matter.

The Data Protection Act (DPA) and Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPUT) wield big legislative sticks against companies and government departments who inappropriately use or, worse still, lose sensitive personal information.

So imagine my surprise when I read last week that the NHS is trialling the roll-out of its new Summary Care Record scheme (SCR) across Stoke-on-Trent, Medway, Brighton-and-Hove and the Isle-of-Wight. In principle, the SCR sounds like a very good thing, as it enables ‘each person’s detailed records to be securely shared between different parts of the local NHS, such as the GP surgery and hospital’ (NHS website). Long story short: The SCR is designed to speed up the effectiveness and quality of care we receive.

But let’s pause here for a moment. Contained in each and every person’s SCR is their name, address, date of birth and NHS number as well as detailed information about past and present medical conditions. Highly confidential and sensitive stuff which most of us wouldn’t like to see fall into the hands of, say, insurance or drug companies. Yet this is precisely the information that is now being shared internally by the NHS in the aforementioned areas – the same NHS that was responsible for around 27 per cent of breaches of confidential information reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office last year.

While thankfully, to date, there is no evidence of any personal information falling into the wrong hands, neither have their been any prosecutions or even wrist-slapping against NHS trusts or employees for failing to fulfill their legal responsibilities under the Data Protection Act.
Doesn’t inspire confidence, does it. But the NHS isn’t alone in this ‘data malaise’, as only 42 per cent of UK organisations have any form of data quality strategy in place, according to a 2008 QAS survey.

Hmmm…I think it’s time some of us booked in for a data health check-up, don’t you?

Mind Your B’s and C’s This Week

2009-01-19T08:33:00.000-08:00

Talk of bank bail-outs and banks’ ‘toxic debt’ seems to be preoccupying Old Blighty this week (bah humbug); while across the pond in ‘Mercah, the highly-anticipated inauguration of President Obama has the public and pundits alike talking up an exciting new era of consensus and collaboration in redefining how the US engages with the world community. (Think I’m channelling Senator Edward Kennedy here. Sorry Teddy.)

Bravo, Team USA. After everyone’s gorged themselves on Brand Obama inauguration t-shirts, chocolate bars, bottled water and even comics (collectors’ tip: Fantom Comics’ version of Obama’s life story is already selling for five times its US$3.99 cover price), here’s hoping the new President proves to be a one-man boon to the economy in ways more than just merchandising.

Issues of crass commercialism aside (Obama paper dolls, anyone?), it’s great to see America’s innate, can-do enthusiasm again coming to the fore. Even in the midst of this god-awful recession, Obama’s vitality and vision are sparking a renewed sense of optimism from which we should all take heart.

Oh, and lest I appear rude: Bye-bye Dubya. Have fun back on the hobby ranch in Crawford, Texas. You won’t be missed, podna.

Just one note of caution, President Obama: Don’t follow Westminster’s lead and go losing your 13 million-strong supporter database in the lead-up to your (hopeful) re-election in 2012. May you have a blunder-free First 100 Days – and beyond.

Starmer’s Stinker

2009-01-14T07:26:00.000-08:00

How unfortunate that our newly minted Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Keir Starmer QC, has begun 2009 by voicing his support of Westminster’s proposed ‘super database’.

By contrast, the DPP’s predecessor, Sir Ken Macdonald QC, declared before Christmas that the Government’s plan to record and store all UK communications data (including e-mails, VOiP and mobile calls) to be a ‘hellhouse’ of private information.

Pandora’s Box is more like it, if you ask me.

As if the civil liberties and human rights issues the new database raises weren’t serious enough, what I find particularly alarming that the new database is apparently to be run by the private sector, ‘in a bid to increase access for law enforcement agencies’ (The Guardian, 9/01/09).

I can see the Government Tender Document now, can’t you? ‘The Home Office, the UK’s biggest data loser, seeks private contractor to store sensitive personal information for several months before breaching national security by misplacing a laptop containing millions of call and e-mail transcripts on the 4.50pm express bound for Charing Cross.’

For history will repeat, believe me.

It was one of the more sensible recommendations contained in last year’s Walport Report – better data handling protocols for government departments. The wider data handling community’s yet to hear how that hornets’ nest of issues is to be tackled when this super-stupid-whatever-the-hell-it’s-to-be-called-database is put back on the agenda.

Sorry Jacqui Smith, but you’re on a hiding to nothing, in my opinion.

2009 Luftballons

2009-01-07T01:31:00.000-08:00

La Toya Jackson on Celebrity Big Brother, the latest bloodshed in Gaza, Woolworth closing its shutters for the last time, Waterford Wedgwood going bust… We’re only days into the New Year and already 2009 seems to be taking on a decidedly scary and apocalyptic tone.

So imagine my surprise when, mulling over the precarious state of world affairs as I was last night, a welcome Laphroaig in hand (when the going gets tough, the tough down single malt, right?), it suddenly occurred to me that I’d heard all this talk of doom, gloom and military overreaction before, and in a bloody pop song, to boot: Nena’s 99 Luftballons, to be precise.

I’ve been banging on about this a lot lately, I realise, but seriously: I reckon it’s time we cut the crap, people. We urgently need a paradigm shift in just about all areas of daily life. The economy, politics, education – you name it. Surely we need new attitudes and new ways of thinking as never before.

Roll on Obama’s Inauguration Speech later this month. Maybe he can supply some inspiration-slash-clues to the best way forward.

Incidentally, whatever happened to Nena? Colour me a bad ‘80s pop aficionado, but I’m feeling right nostalgic now for 1984.

2009: The Year of the Ox

2008-12-22T01:28:00.000-08:00

At the risk of showing my age, I’m a survivor of both the ’87 stock market crash and the recession of the early-Nineties. On both these bleak occasions, there were copious amounts of hand-wringing and generous dollops of market gloom. But neither saw the end of capitalism or business life as we know it.

Far from it, in fact.

Call me perverse, but I’m quietly optimistic about 2009. Surely, contrary to what our illustrious Chancellor would have us believe, we are at best unlikely to see a return to positive GDP territory until Q4 in 2009 or Q1 of 2010. But better times are certainly ahead – shimmering on the horizon and most definitely within reach. How? Well, below are some suggested Do’s and Don’ts that I hope can hold us all in good stead into ‘09:

Do…

· Tend to the fabled four P’s - price, place, promotion and product – as surviving (nay, even flourishing) in a downturn is all about revisiting your business fundamentals;
· Run a tight, ‘green’ ship (your bottom line and the environment will both thank you);
· Focus on client retention (it costs between three- and ten-times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to retain an existing one);
· Put customers first (emphasising the additional value your goods or services create will provide a winning edge);
· Give rewards (be they small or large) to yourself, staff and clients for their loyalty. Your gratitude will be remembered long after this recession is but a distant memory.

Don’t…

· Shy away from DM and marcoms (why slash budgets when finding the right combination of channels can maximise both your response rates and ROI?);
· Spend what you don’t have (cash is always your best friend);
· Retreat from investing;
· Be afraid of change (it’s the management thereof that’s key);
· Forget that we’re all – each and every UK company – in this together.

According to Chinese Astrology, 2009 is the Year of the Ox, so being strong, patient and tireless will indeed be virtues over the next twelve months. But if your business planning and product/service delivery are sound, then in spite of the current market meltdown, opportunities still abound.

This blog will return the week of January 5th, so here’s to wishing you and yours a safe and happy Festive Season.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

2008-12-15T09:10:00.000-08:00

Kids being taught how to live happy and healthy lives – that’s surely enough to make even the most hardened cynic smile. So congrats to Sir Jim Rose and his government-commissioned report into what is taught in primary schools for suggesting that children should be taught about emotional well-being and social skills alongside traditional subject areas. Great to see a holistic, forward-looking education plan for a change, no?

I was happy too to read that the US Supreme Court has rejected an application by retired New Jersey lawyer Leo Donofrio contesting Barack Obama’s recent election win on the grounds that he is ‘too British’. Long story short: Even though Obama was born in Hawaii, Donofrio’s assertion was that, as Barack’s father was a Kenyan citizen, he was subject to the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom – thus making Barack not the ‘natural born’ US citizen as required by the US constitution to be president.

A case of ‘Only in America’, huh? Mind you, if they do want to deport the President-Elect across the pond to Old Blighty, Obama’s talent and dynamism would be most welcome. We need an injection of new vision just as much as our American cousins.

All I want for Christmas is Obama’s ‘Big Bang’

2008-12-10T02:04:00.000-08:00

After his welcome victory in last month’s US Presidential election, the burden of expectation now lies heavily on the shoulders of one man – Barack Hussein Obama. With his January 20th inauguration in Washington DC fast looming, I along with millions (billions?) of others hope that the President-Elect will be able to deliver on his many important election promises.

There have been promising signs to date, though. Obama’s appointment of Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff augurs well, as do the inclusion of such Clinton-era luminaries as Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers on his transitional economic advisory board. Hillary Clinton as the Administration’s Secretary of State is both a very apt and canny move, also.

I particularly like Obama’s proposed ‘Big Bang’ approach to reviving the flagging US economy, whereby he’s combining short-term economic stimuli (billions for Detroit’s collapsing car industry and tax cuts for middle-income earners, as examples) alongside wide-ranging, long-term investments in important public infrastructure areas such as alternative energy, health care and education. Westminster should be taking notes, methinks.

After the cronyism and sheer idiocy of the Bush/Cheney era (you won’t be missed, Dubya), it’s a tantalising prospect, isn’t it? – A new president imbued with many attributes of some great men who have gone before him (the sincerity of JFK, the passion of Martin Luther-King, and the intelligence of Bill Clinton), whose heartfelt desire to ‘do the right thing’ aligns tremendous social vision with a careful eye to restoring fiscal discipline.

I love a good investment as much as the next entrepreneur, so thank you, Barack Obama. Your positive, ‘YES WE CAN’ message is just the tonic the world needed to hear this Christmas – politically, socially and economically.

Bravo, Boy George!

2008-12-01T02:42:00.000-08:00

Coke ‘em, blow ‘em, chain ‘em up and leave ‘em to scurry home in their jocks... I think BG deserves a standing ovation for his treatment of a suspected computer hacker. God knows he’s certainly dishing out harsher punishment than the MoJ when it comes to dealing with data thieves.

And while we’re on the subject…

With personal data the ‘new’ black for the entire DM industry (and beyond), I’d like to extend my little fashionista analogy to observe thus: With communism dead, socialism on life support and even our own beloved capitalism looking decidedly recession-wracked at present, welcome, dear readers, to the brave new world of…

Miserablism*.

My thanks to the always finger-on-the-pulse Tom Watson MP for pointing me, via his highly topical website, to recent comments by Tory Deputy Chairman Andrew Lansley. Whilst Mr Lansley’s remark that the current recession ‘is good for us’ smacks of a certain deranged economic Darwinism ( the Tory’s ‘let the recession take its course’ line isn’t going to be a vote-winner any time soon, methinks), the Member for South Cambridgeshire did make one prescient statement, namely that the UK will likely see a 26 per cent increase in the number of people suffering depression and other mental health disorders by 2010 – much of it unemployment and credit crunch-related.

Misery is indeed the real story of this recession. Unhappiness abounds, with too much of it market-inflicted.

Back in the data trenches, however, there has been a tentative glimmer of hope this last week. As part of the Government’s response to the Walport Report, Justice Secretary Jack Straw and the Ministry of Justice have stated their intent to further strengthen the powers available to the Information Commissioner’s Office – specifically, bringing fully into force Section 55A of the Data Protection Act (introduced as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 but not yet commenced), which will allow the ICO to impose monetary penalties on data controllers who contravene the DPA.

Let’s hope this helps put a stop to the many egregious incidents of personal information loss/theft/left-my-laptop-on-the-train (take your pick) by both government apparatchiks and, in a final ironic twist, some of the newly part-nationalised banks. Here’s to driving all the data cowboys and cowgirls out of Dodge once and for all.

* Defined by the Pet Shop Boys as being ‘the fine art of wallowing in the miserable’.

Peace, Not Pieces

2008-11-24T19:16:00.000-08:00

Less than a month after the FBI and the Serious Office of Organised Crime (Soca) shut down Darkmarket - a website used by criminals to buy and sell credit card details and bank log-in information – came news this past week of more criminal websites selling ‘pieces’ of personal information (names, addresses, passport and credit card numbers) starting at just £5 a pop and rising to £80 for an ‘entire package’.

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘life is cheap’, but this latest twist in the ongoing online identity theft saga borders on the out-and-out evil – particularly as identity fraud cost the British economy £1.5 billion in 2005. Add to this the estimated US$53 billion that ID theft costs American consumers and businesses each year (US Federal Trade Commission, 2005); the CAN$5 billion annual cost to the Canadian economy (Brown and Kourakos, 2003); and the AU$1.1 billion afflicting our antipodean cousins (Australian Bureau of Statistics), and the enormity of this international scourge becomes abundantly clear.

If you’ve fallen victim to any form of e-crime, then you have my commiserations. CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service, estimates that a total identity ‘hijack’ will take a typical victim over 200 hours to resolve; involve contacting between 20 and 30 different organisations; and cost up to £8,000 - a situation no doubt adding insult to injury for the 14,567 people who fell prey to identity theft here in the UK during the first quarter of this year alone.

Speaking of the ‘V’-word… The definition of ‘victim’ apropos ID theft is indeed curious in this country. Here only financial institutions/lending organisations are considered to be the ‘victims’ under current law. For individuals seeking compensation for the considerable distress, out-of-pocket expenses, damage to credit status and long hours spent clearing their names, the only legal recourse is to fight their way through the civil courts.

Kinda sucks the big one, does it not?

Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice

2008-11-18T01:44:00.000-08:00

I’m coming down from my Obama victory-fuelled high with a thud this week. (Sigh). As if any further evidence was needed to indicate that all is indeed not well in Data Land, join me in casting a sorry eye over these damning stats:

277 (total breaches of confidential information reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office during the past year)
29% (the proportion of breaches committed by the private sector);
27% (the NHS and other healthcare providers’ dubious share);
19% (local and central government’s slice of the data loss pie);
17% (the rest of the public sector, come on down!);
8% (charities…bah humbug);
30 (the number of serious cases the ICO is currently investigating).

These Holidays, I beg you: Can every UK data owner please do as Santa does and, when making your DM lists, please check them at least twice? Not to mention make sure each and every name and address record is accurate, secure, up-to-date and DPA/CPUT compliant?

To my mind, the best gift the DM industry can give the UK public in the lead-up to Christmas this year is peace of mind when it comes to how we’re handling their personal data.

HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

2008-11-10T01:45:00.000-08:00

There are times in one’s life that you know, instantly, you’ll remember ‘til your dying day. For me, the election of Barack Hussein Obama to the post of leader of the Free World this past week was one such moment.

It is not just the colour of his skin that makes Obama’s election exceptional, although it is critical to remember (and continue doing so) that only 40 years ago, complete segregation ruled in America’s southern states. Neither is it that the President-Elect is arguably the best orator that the world has seen in decades. Obama’s ability to communicate his heartfelt sincerity and desire to ‘do the right thing’ is second to none. He is imbued with many attributes that have been the hallmarks of some great men before him, possessing, as Barack does, the sincerity of JFK; the passion of Martin Luther-King; and the intelligence of Bill Clinton.

Much more important, to my mind, however, is Obama’s innate ability to identify what is damaging the troubled world we live in today. He embodies the desires of not only his own nation but, I believe, the entire globe. We certainly live in troubled times, and our collective desire for hope and change has been answered with Obama’s victory.

The US$780 million campaign ‘war chest’ the Obama campaign assembled is, on one hand, absurdly high (if not a trifle obscene), but that the bulk of these funds comprised innumerable small donations from ever-hopeful Americans serves as a reminder that, unlike George W. Bush, Obama’s ‘base’ is as genuinely popular as it is inclusive. And his victory address - which I for one found profoundly moving - clearly laid out his desire for his nation and the wider world in the most inspired and most hopeful terms possible. Hope begins with belief, and thus it follows that a positive attitude when dealing with even the most challenging of situations will in most cases allow us all to prevail.

The burden of expectation now lies on the shoulders of just one man. Only time will tell whether Barack Obama can deliver on even half of his election promises, but I, together with millions like me, remain positive, upbeat and ever hopeful.

So thank you, Barack Obama. Your positive, ‘YES WE CAN’ message is just the tonic the world needed to hear. Hope does indeed spring eternal.

McPolitics

2008-11-03T03:35:00.000-08:00

‘Gimme a double-beef Obama burger with a large McCain fries and a supersized Joe Biden shake to go, please. Oh – but hold the Sarah Palin, will ya?’

Across the pond, the long race to the Whitehouse concludes tomorrow (Tuesday). That’s assuming there isn’t massive voter fraud in Florida again, of course. This is without doubt the most closely watched and contested Presidential contest in many years. For good reason, as – to paraphrase our very own Winston Churchill – during such troubled financial times, never have so many in the UK and beyond had a vested interest in the outcome of the deliberations of the (comparatively) American few.

Forget six degrees of separation. We’ve all got a vested interest in which road America decides to head down for the next four years. Financially, culturally and (perhaps most problematically of all) militarily, the implications for the planet are enormous.

So can I just vent for a moment at the tawdry X-Factor-ness of the whole Democrats v Republicans shebang? My PR guy often reminds me that we live in a ‘post-content’ media environment, but the Yanks seem to have upped the ante by entering what is surely some sort of ‘post-policy’ political environment. Detailed policy-making and robust debate have seemingly gone totally AWOL in favour of Oprah-styled personality sound-bites designed to promote brands ‘Obama’ and ‘McCain’ to the widest possible consumer-base. Whilst it’s heartening to see that the projected voter turn-out for election day tomorrow is likely to be the highest in years, I have to ask: When the choice between the candidates is, fundamentally, only one of centrist degree, wherein truly lies the choice?

After voters have bought the t-shirt, lipsticked a pig and/or slapped a bumper sticker on their SUV, what flavour of McPolitics will they order at the U.S. of A’s great democratic drive-through?

For good or ill, we’ll soon see.

Enough of the ‘R’ word already…

2008-10-27T03:03:00.000-07:00

Some of us, regrettably, are old enough to vividly remember the recession of the early 90’s. Huge unemployment, massive wage disputes and interest rates upwards of 15 per cent - believe me, it wasn’t a pleasant time. Particularly if, like me, you were in the process of launching a new start-up.

In an unsettling case of de ja vous, I’m sure I wasn’t alone in heaving a weary sigh this past week when perusing the latest quarterly survey of 5,000 businesses conducted by the British Chamber of Commerce. In what’s become a rather grim chorus, the Chamber, along with PM Gordon Brown and Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, have all officially pronounced the UK economy as being ‘in recession’.

Whilst recognising many individuals and companies are indeed experiencing profound difficulties, it isn’t all doom and gloom. The prevailing mass psychosis is unnecessarily bleak, in my opinion – particularly as Governments and central banks around the world are easing the liquidity crisis; hopefully the World Bank and IMF will be able to give international monetary policy a long-overdue overhaul over coming months; and interest rates will, in all probability, soon be cut. Even tax breaks for SME’s are being mooted.

Without meaning to sound like some sort of Prozac-addled CEO, can we all please cheer up a little? Opportunities still abound even in the midst of this unwelcome market downturn, so if I could be so bold… For God’s sake, let’s stop using the ‘R’ word. No more talk of recession as of right now. Downturn, slowdown, negative market shift – call it what you will – but take my advice and never again let the ‘R’ word again pass your lips.

Irresponsible and bonus-addicted banking execs aside, we’ve talked ourselves into this mess, so I suggest we talk ourselves out of it also. Because if we all keep agile and positive, before we know it we’ll surely be using the ‘B’ word again – as in Boom. Guaranteed. Or return it to the place of purchase and receive twice your pessimism back.

PS. Also on a brighter note… Congrats to David Metcalfe on his appointment as the new chair of the DMA’s board and advisory council.

Things to make you go ‘Euuwww…’

2008-10-20T01:22:00.000-07:00

Rather icky to hear that one in four commuters has bacteria from faeces on their hands, according to a survey by the London School Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. A rather distasteful fact which, curiously enough, makes me wonder if Home Secretary Jacqui Smith catches the Tube into Westminster, given that the Government’s controversial Communications Data Bill is destined to be included in the Queen’s Speech next month.

No, I’m not questioning the Home Secretary’s personal hygiene. But with sensitive personal information leaking from several government departments like a bloody sieve in recent months, the Government’s plan to establish a single, giant database to store details of every phone call and e-mail in the UK reeks of you-know-what.

This expansion plan for government surveillance is a massive infringement on our civil liberties and seems entirely inappropriate for a bureaucracy who can’t guarantee the security of the existing data it holds, let alone the billions of records the intercepting of all UK communications would create.

But on a more positive note… In a week when the MoD lost another unencrypted computer containing 1.7 million people’s data (weary sigh), kudos to Sharon Lemon and her team at the Serious Office of Organised Crime (Soca) for shutting down Darkmarket, a website used by criminals to buy and sell credit card details and bank log-in information. That one individual reportedly had spent £250,000 on obtaining personal data on Darkmarket in just six weeks from which he could have reaped as much £10 million speaks to the magnitude and sophistication of international cyber-criminals – particularly as access to the site was by ‘invitation only’ (!) and even featured ID-theft tutorials for beginners.

It’s a scary world out there, alright.

Nice Guys (and Gals) don’t always finish last…

2008-10-14T01:20:00.000-07:00

Ethics. Amidst all these blank-cheque bank bail-outs of late, it’s a word I’m yet to hear mentioned amidst all the media pundits’ white noise surrounding the current financial quagmire we find ourselves in.

So how heartening it was to read on FT.com last Sunday an article entitled Unethical companies suffer in the long run. A clever Swiss masters student named Julian Kölbel has studied the correlation between negative publicity on environmental and social issues and a company's share price to pose a very timely question, namely: ‘Is dirty business more efficient than ethically sound business?’

The outcome is a heartening shot in the arm for honest business people everywhere. Herr Kölbel, it appears, has found that companies with high levels of critical press coverage outperformed in the short term but underperformed over a longer period.

A case of what goes around, comes around, if ever there was one.

Note to the upper echelons of the international banking community who were all too happy to swap long-term, socially and financially responsible investment practices for quick-fix, what’s-in-it-for-me, bonus-boosting speculation, if I could be so bold: Your Thatcherite, deregulated bubble has well and truly burst.

So, dear readers, if you’d like to raise your glasses/mouses/laptops – whatever! - I’d like to propose this e-toast: Here’s to the return of sound business ethics and making an honest buck.

Because god knows, the community needs these now more than ever if we’re to survive this monetary merde-fest.

Does Size Really Matter?

2008-10-03T08:28:00.000-07:00

Recent press coverage shows that Mortascreen (the Ol’ enemy) is up to its usual tricks. If a recent release is to be believed, then the Morta-minions have formed a partnership with Experian to provide data. My sources tell me that, far from being a partnership, Mortascreen is, in fact, buying data from Experian for around £3 - £4 per record. What’s more, Mortascreen apparently has a number of similar pay-as-you-go ‘partnerships’ - not least of all with a certain pre-paid funeral service provider.

Forgive me if this rant sounds entirely agendarised (it is – and is that even a word?), but I have to ask Mortascreen: Why? Whilst I understand Mortascreen’s desire to raise its game and compete with The Bereavement Register, Karen Webster – intrepid captain of the product development Morta-Orks - seems somewhat size obsessed! Her own release claims that 600,000 deaths will are recorded in the UK a year, when only 577,000 actually died in 2007.

‘Significant inaccuracy?’ I hear you say. Well, I guess it’s proof of Mortascreen’s own admission that many of its records are based on confidence indicators – subjective indicators on which they’re asking you to rely on when cleaning your data of deceaseds.

Size is one thing, but a bigger issue that Mortascreen still fails to grapple with is speed when it comes to stopping post being sent to the deceased. While Ms. Webster dances around her PR handbag, the fact remains that Mortascreen’s core file is still comprised of probate data which has an average process time of 6-9 months. That’s a long lag time during which your brand can suffer considerable brand damage. The Bereavement Register, by contrast, adds hundreds of deceased records daily in real-time – augmenting a consumer opt-in rate which sees upwards of 40 per cent of the bereaved registering a deceased love one within five days of a death.

Sorry to be banging our own drum, but unlike Mortascreen, The Bereavement Register is a genuinely consumer-focused service. It was set up with one heartfelt goal - to stopping mail reaching grieving relatives and friends after I lost my own wife to cancer back in 2001. Mortascreen is, by contrast, a money-making machine masquerading as a bereavement service and one which has no soul, in my opinion.

The current scourge of the suppression world is over-suppression. Whereas we have always erred on the side of caution, Mortascreen’s approach to processing deceaseds’ personal details appears to be ‘sounds like they’re dead - stick it in anyway’.

When will they learn that size really doesn’t matter? It’s what you do with it that counts.

2008-09-25T01:41:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile, across the pond…

Self-proclaimed ‘Hockey Mom’ and US Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s also been in the wars of late (none of it lipstick or bovine related, however, which must be a relief to Republicans everywhere).

Last week, hackers accessed Ms Palin’s Yahoo e-mail account using information obtained from Wikipedia and other online databases. In a salient reminder of just how treacherous cyberspace can be, her date of birth, zip code and other personal information freely available in the public domain were all used to defeat security questions prior to her in-box, messages, pictures and address book being posted on the whistle-blowing website, Wikileaks.

While Yahoo, the FBI and the US Secret Service have all commenced formal investigations, this is a prime (albeit high-profile) example of just how easily personal information can be ‘hijacked’ online.

DM’s under growing scrutiny for the role mail items play in scams like Forwarding Address Fraud (FAF) and Impersonation of the Dead (IOD) Fraud, but with ‘cyber-crime supermarkets’ selling personal information online for as little as 50p, according to a recent Symantec Internet Security Report, malicious web-based activity could indeed be the bigger of the two evils.

At least Ms Palin’s hackers will probably serve jail time when caught. Which is more than can be said for the UK, where our government seems to have indefinitely shelved plans to imprison data thieves.

Shame on Westminster, shame.

Opting In or Out of Politics?

2008-09-19T02:41:00.000-07:00

Commiserations to Gordon Brown, who’s certainly taking a battering of late, both in the media and the polls. The poor PM can’t seem to put a foot right. With Labour’s Party Conference commencing tomorrow (Saturday) in Manchester, I have a hunch the accompanying soundtrack will be more Joy Division than Happy Mondays, alas.

I see the Conservatives’ annual ‘love-in’ starts on the 28th in Birmingham and features Spandau Ballet’s Tony Hadley, no less (see August 29th blog below - that band’s haunting me, I swear!). It will be interesting to see if David Cameron lays delegates in the aisles again with his keynote address – delivered ‘without notes’ as the Tory’s website noted in breathless awe of his 2007 performance.

To paraphrase Frank ‘n Furter in Rocky Horror, I for one am shivering in antici…..pation.

With debate in DM circles raging over the Walport Report and Electoral Roll (ER) access, I wonder what our political masters would think about us applying the same ‘opt out’ rules to their marketing activities? I ask you: In the run-up to the next election, will our political masters be direct mailing every name on the ER repeatedly for political propaganda purposes? You bet.

(Sigh). I guess punters don’t call it ‘junk mail’ for nothing.

Imitation is the greatest form of flattery?

2008-09-12T04:44:00.000-07:00

When one strives for two years to launch a site like itsmypost.com so that consumers can genuinely communicate their preferences to the UK’s leading brands, it’s somewhat galling to have someone else jump on the bandwagon.

Imagine my surprise the other night whilst Googling (I was home alone and it was raining, right!), to find a copycat service being promoted on Sky TV. Imitation might be the greatest form of flattery, but this was pretty lame (the rival service, that is, not Sky - although the latter certainly has its moments). It is just the sort of thing that brings the integrity and credibility of our industry into question by hooking punters with the promise of stopping direct mail whilst in reality creating positive data to be sold to all and sundry.

We have seen this sort of thing before in the guise of the Postal Preference Service – which thankfully never got to deliver ‘don’t want’ data to market before its (unlamented) demise.
The site purports to safeguard consumer data and ‘takes every reasonable precaution to safeguard the personal information you supply to it.’ Call it data intuition or a sixth sense, but imagine my surprise to find that the site’s Data Controller Registration with the ICO has lapsed!
‘Oh boy,’ me thought. ‘This goes from bad to worse.’

At a time when the DM industry is grappling with the implications of the Walport Report and trying to be more secure and transparent in our use of personal information, this site is unnecessarily muddying the waters. Hence if you’re shopping around for a junk mail control service, take my advice and remember two little Latin words when it comes to myletterbox.com: Caveat Emptor.

To appear on afternoon television professing to be an ‘online privacy expert’ only to be shown not to have even the most fundamental understanding of what one needs to do to be compliant beggars belief, in my opinion. It’s a shame that Information Commissioner Richard Thomas was not given the power to jail people earlier this year. By all means play fast and loose with you own reputation, myletterbox.com folk, but to do so with the DM industry’s should be a criminal offence, I reckon.

Great Britain: The Mappiest Place Around

2008-09-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

‘Llongyfarchiadau!’* to all Welsh readers in Powys, who last week topped the British Household Survey Panel’s ‘happiest place’ research table. Based on a combination of their sense of wellbeing, employment, health and educational qualifications, a team from the Universities of Sheffield and Manchester have determined that the area around Brecknock, Montgomery and Radnor in Powys is the cheeriest place in the UK.

And commiserations (as well as a mass dose of Prozac?) to the good burghers of Edinburgh, who are apparently the most miserable. C’mon now people – surely the Fringe wasn’t that bad this year, was it?

I admire the Household Survey Panel as it’s the one longitudinal dataset that looks at both people and places to measure social cohesion – our sense of community, if you will – and gives a human face to statistical analyses which can otherwise seem impenetrably dull.

Not to mention expensive. A report from the New Local Government Network (NLGN) released last week estimates that the forthcoming 2011 national census, for example, will cost taxpayers upwards of £500 million and that the information gathered could be out-of-date by the time it is published. As an alternative, the NLGN is proposing a ‘rolling’ census whereby data and information on citizens would be collected from a number of streams by local councils. Electoral Roll access – the marketing bete noir of the recent Walport Report – would figure prominently in this new scheme alongside GP address records and geo-referencing systems.

For as much as I’ve been calling on the DM industry and Westminster to affect a paradigm shift in how it manages personal data in recent months, in an era of high population mobility and security issues for many when it comes to filling out official forms, I wonder if private enterprise could assist with the census?

Call me crazy, but in helping the UK government ‘join-up’ its data management on an ongoing basis, the private sector might be able to save money and resources, enhance security and better empower local communities to allocate resources.

Food for thought, anyhow…

* ‘Congratulations’ (I hope – my Welsh is more than a little rusty).

Gold!

2008-08-29T02:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve typed that and suddenly I’ve got a head full of Spandau Ballet for some reason. Hope you all had a relaxing Bank Holiday weekend. Wonderful to watch Team GB arriving home swathed in medals after the Beijing Olympics’ spectacular closing ceremony. Note To Whom It May Concern, however: Can someone please buy Boris Johnson a decent suit before 2012? Standing next to the rather impeccably turned-out IOC President Jacques Rogge and Chinese President Hu Jintau, he looked to me more like an unmade London bed than a stylish London Lord Mayor.

Mayoral sartorial quibbles aside (try saying that five times fast), it was great to see the Beijing Olympics pass without major disruption or incident. But I wonder if any Olympic visitors fell victim to data theft whilst in the People’s Republic? There was some internet hysteria pre-Games about Chinese government and industry intending to use electronic espionage to steal secrets from visiting government and business types, but no confirmed reports have as yet surfaced. No such problem at London 2012, I expect. Even if the UK Government does spy on visiting officials, after yet another sorry round of data gaffs last week, I expect they’d lose the information anyway.

Am also intrigued by recent internet chatter about the diminishing value of online social networking sites. The irony appears to be this: The more people interact on sites like Facebook, the more likely they are to encounter people they’d rather avoid. Concern about identity theft is also leaving consumers wary of posting personal details online. So I wonder what the new ‘gold standard’ for delivering secure, personalised content on the web will be? No doubt we’ll soon be able to log on somewhere in cyberspace and see.

2008-08-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

Back from holidays,having had a wonderful time with the family in Portugal. Thought I’d drop you all a line to say hello before I tackle my in-tray. Gulp.

Could Tom Watson be the coolest, most tech-savvy MP in Westminster? His blog is essential reading for everyone with an interest in data and the web. Tom’s August 7th entry made me laugh as it unveiled a curious new trend – that of data-driven parenting. Check out (or run screaming from), a new service called Trixie Tracker, which allows new parents to count their baby’s every move. From the number of diapers used to total naps taken as well as medicine dosed, milk expressed and solids dumped (I kid you not), this new software package will reduce your bouncing little bundle of joy into a bunch of meaningless statistics in no time (said entirely without prejudice, please note).

Mind boggling, doesn’t it? As if parents don’t have enough on their plates without obsessing over some digitised milk inventory on their iPhones.

I see the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) has joined the DMA (UK) in circling its wagons over the Government’s proposal to abolish the sale of the edited Electoral Role (ER) while I was away. Perhaps we could enlist the help of Michael Cross and The Guardian’s Free Our Data campaign with this issue. After all, why sell the ER when, as a community service assisting data verification and protection compliance for UK organisations, the list could be made available gratis? Debate on this issue is bound to be quite lively over coming weeks.

Anyhoo… Back to the fray. More from the trenches next week.

2008-07-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

Arrggghhh! Firstly, my apologies for being a ‘no show’, posting-wise, in recent days. Much as I love my ‘virtual life’ on the web, things have been insane of late. Plus I’m on holidays as of tomorrow, and given the fact that my missus will probably perform an act of terrible cruelty on me if I so much as even glance at my laptop whilst famile Roy enjoys some much-needed R&R in Spain, the following will have to tide us over until I return on August 18th.

So without further ado…

Congratulations and commiserations to The REaD Group’s sponsored golf pro and great mate, Peter Appleyard, on his sterling effort at last weekend’s British Open at Royal Birkdale. Having briefly shared the lead on Day One (two pars and a birdie put him level with world number four Adam Scott at one point), Peter finished Day Two with a 74, which included two double-bogey sixes. And how hearts sank around the office when he missed the cut by a mere one stroke.

Never mind, Pete – I reckon other wins will be yours for the taking over coming months.

Last week – or was it the week before? (I’ve lost count) - saw much fang-bearing and teeth gnashing in some quarters as Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and Wellcome Trust director, Dr Mark Walport, released their highly anticipated Data Sharing Report. Tabloid hysteria aside – this document is not the anti-DM tirade claimed by some media pundits – I for one support many of their recommendations. Whilst removal of Electoral Roll access for marketing purposes could potentially lessen the DM industry’s ability to validate data, Mr Thomas and Dr Walport’s calls for increased accuracy, transparency and security as regards personal data usage are to be applauded. With a recent European Commission Eurobarometer survey revealing that 64% of EU citizens are concerned about whether their data is being handled appropriately, the UK public needs reassurance about where, when and how their information is being used by organisations (only 42% of which have any form of data quality strategy in place, according to June ‘08 QAS findings). There is considerable room for improvement, obviously, and together with industry colleagues, I look forward to engaging in what’s certain to be a robust and wide-ranging discussion about improving the UK’s ‘data culture’ over coming months.
That said, I have sunscreen and golf clubs to pack (and not necessarily in that order). Whether you’re going away or working through the next three weeks, have a great summer.
More when I return on the 18th…

R.E.S.P.E.C.T. (Find out what it means to me)

2008-07-10T15:15:00.000-07:00

The private sector seems to be taking an ominous cue from government, with the release of a survey indicating that 61 per cent of marketing staff admitted to having lost, or having stolen, confidential customer data over the past 24 months. Of the 900 data security and marketing professionals surveyed, 7 per cent of marketers said they would willingly disclose customers’ sexual orientation, 14 per cent their involvement in political activism and 19 per cent their credit card details in an attempt to increase sales.

Adding further insult to injury, last Friday a US court ordered Google to hand over the personal details of everyone who as ever watched a video on YouTube – all because Viacom, the parent company of MTV, doesn’t want such high cultural fare as Jackass and Beavis and Butt-Head shown on the Google-owned video-sharing website. An example of international copyright infringement? Possibly. A disproportionate response threatening to erode privacy rights? Absolutely, in my opinion.

We’re all entering chilly and increasingly litigious economic waters, but I ask you: Where has respect and care for consumers gone? [Note to self: Am probably sounding like an old grump. Promise I’ll lighten up next week.]

No Richard Envy Here

2008-07-08T09:09:00.001-07:00

Could Information Commissioner (IC) Richard Thomas be about to take formal action against HMRC and MoD for their recent data loss gaffs? Could the Data Protection Act have teeth after all? Will the UK support the EU’s draft ePrivacy Directive requiring electronic service providers to inform users of data protection breaches? Could hell be about to freeze over?

Pardon my cynicism, but whilst I applaud these actions (hell freezing excluded), I’m a tad disappointed by Sir Gus O’Donnell’s June 2008 report Data Handling Procedures in Government. This document is big on ‘motherhood’ statements like ‘reform’ and ‘building public confidence’ in the implementation of minimum rules for data handling by the Civil Service in the absence of any legal framework for imposing maximum penalties for those responsible for the egregious breaches of security which have grabbed headlines in recent months.

Richard, my heart goes out to you, mate. Swathed in red tape, I don’t envy your job in the slightest.

Is the All Party Group on Junk Mail a good idea? I certainly think so!

2008-07-03T06:50:00.000-07:00

I have to ask: Has Karen Webster from Mortascreen finally lost it? I thought having the category ‘Almost Dead’ in Mortascreen was about as mad as one could get. But now? In her Precision Marketing News comment piece Is the All Party Group such a good idea? (click here to read), it appears that Ms Webster is intent on sticking up for the industry her company has been lambasting for a decade or so. And quite rightly, in my view.

[As background: The All Party Group on Junk Mail (APG), is chaired by Paddy Tipping, MP and was formed in December 2007 with a remit ‘to increase awareness in Parliament of responsible direct marketing; to highlight ways of reducing junk mail, and to educate on and promote best practice in waste resolution and database management to all users of direct marketing services, including industry, public services, government departments and agencies, and the third sector.’ My company, The REaD Group, provides the Secretariat for the APG through Mandate Communications. Mortascreen, on the other hand, is a rival to our The Bereavement Register.]

Now back to the fray…
Despite the fact that there has been a significant increase in the use of data suppression (the means by which deceased persons’ data as well as consumers’ change of address details are monitored and updated by marketers), over 20 per cent of all consumer direct mail still goes nowhere near any form of suppression product. That equates to about one billion wasted items of mail each year – all of it, sadly, unscreened. How that can be condoned by anyone is quite beyond me.

The APG is about three things: Education, education, and – yes, you guessed it! - education. What Ms Webster seems not to appreciate is that MP’s have a responsibility to you, their constituents. Much as my Mortascreen colleague would like to keep her head stuck in the sand, the truth in the “real world” is that there are innumerable occurrences of constituents quizzing their local MP’s about mailing to both Gone Aways and Deceaseds.

Further, it is pretty much a dead-cert that, at some point in the near future, the direct marketing industry will finally give up the ghost of self-regulation and be subject to Government legislation. The industry has two choices, as I see it: Sit back and wait for a draconian measure such as ER removal (which in fact made the situation worse); or educate and engage with the very audience (ie. politicians) who will be deciding our futures - thus ensuring an informed, balanced and proportionate response.

It is no good ignoring the ‘direct mail killed my Granny’ stories, or dismissing them as tabloid fillers during silly season. This is simply what consumers feel about our medium – principally because some sectors of the industry persist in ignoring their wishes by operating on under two per cent response rates and continuing to send out over 1 billion items of mail without a second thought to suppression.

By engaging with MP’s as well as boldly naming and shaming those brands that do not use products like those provided by The REaD Group and Millennium, consumers will applaud the efforts of the APG – contrary to Ms Webster’s assertion - precisely because they’ll perceive that finally something is being done to set rogue companies’ wasteful and excessive DM practices in order. This has the potential to create a profound attitudinal shift – one which can only improve the quality and perception of the direct marketing industry.

2008-06-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Short and sweet this week as I’m heading off to a conference in Spain: I was intrigued to read a news report this morning stating that e-mail marketing poses the biggest threat to UK data protection – ahead of the Internet, telemarketing and direct mail. With identity fraud already up by a whopping 66 per cent this year, according to the ICO, I certainly think it’s time for some businesses to start taking their data protection responsibilities far more seriously – particularly the estimated 58 per cent of UK organisations that don’t have any data quality strategies in place. Contact data is gold, people!

No sight of any unsolicited Argos items in our letterbox as yet, you’ll be pleased to know. My better half remains vigilant, however.

Enjoy the fine weather. More next week…

Want to be inundated with direct mail? Don’t just shop for it…. Argos it!

2008-06-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

Clearly the word about consumer disquiet has not reached the heady ears of the Argos senior management, or indeed has it?
My wife, on phoning Argos (which she does quite a lot), to order a gift for her nephew noticed that the call handling procedure had changed. Within a few moments of the new enthusiastic automated script starting she was told that if she did NOT wish her details to be passed on to third parties, she should inform her account handler. Click, and she is through to a human who politely takes her order and her money. Then, as the call closes, my wife says: ‘Oh, and I DO NOT wish my details to be passed on to third parties. In fact, I don’t even want mailings from you.’
The reply?
‘Sorry madam, you needed to tell me that at the beginning of the call. I am afraid your details are already in the system now.’
Well, you can imagine that my wife was apoplectic at this downright dishonest data gathering. It is clear that Argos, apparently, is now using any way possible to gather customer information. Which, in my opinion, places them in breach of the Data Protection Act as any individual has the opportunity to opt out of any activity at any time. The DPA does not say that you need to do so before a call or communication starts!!
We all know that the market is tough out there and that gathering data for any purpose is harder than ever. However, I believe if Argos decides to pursue this ‘damn the consumer’ approach the only effect will be to further discredit the entire industry through ambiguous data gathering techniques.
You will understand that I don’t care if Argos wants to play fast and loose with its own brand, but I do if they do so with the reputation and future of brand DM.
Should my wife, who is on both MPS and TPS, receive just one piece of DM or telemarketing call from Argos then you can take it from me that the company had better watch out!

Deaf, dumb and data

2008-06-13T09:02:00.001-07:00

Apologies for blogging late this week, but things have been rather busy here at the REaD Ranch. This week we welcomed Graham Arrowsmith, our new Senior Business Manager, to the Group and announced our new Charity Data Bursary – a pro bono initiative worth £25,000 that we’re undertaking in association with our friends at UK Fundraising.

I also turned another year older yesterday, but the less said about that the better.

Down to business: Government security – or the lack thereof – is, of course, again making headlines. How ironic that The House of Commons’ Home Affairs Committee published its report A Surveillance Society? in the same week that a certain highly classified dossier went AWOL on a London-bound train. I for one didn’t realise that calls on Government to ‘adopt a principle of data minimisation’ in the information it collects equated to losing same. This doesn’t augur well for Westminster’s plans for either ID cards or a centralised UK telephone and e-mail database. If implemented, what’s the bet some hapless bureaucrat one day mistakenly posts all of our personal details on a social networking website? Anything’s possible, sadly.

As for the 42-day detention debate… Important though the questioning of suspected terror suspect is, with the Ministry of Justice recently ignoring Information Commissioner Richard Thomas’ calls for tougher sentencing laws for perpetrators of data fraud and identity theft in favour of unenforceable two-year jail terms, I for one am left questioning Government priorities. Growing scourges such as ID theft and Impersonation of the Dead (IOD) fraud will affect upwards of 70,000 families this year, but where’s their legal protection? Under a first class seat somewhere on the 5.50pm service to Charing Cross, I suspect.

Data equals people, who equal voters. Mismanage the former and you’ve lost the latter. Much as I enjoy working with MPs and Government departments, some people in Westminster would do well to remind themselves of this equation.

Have a great weekend.

Best and Unfairest

2008-06-02T02:45:00.000-07:00

Forgot to mention: I loved the story about the lucky punter who pocketed £180,000 from John Terry’s penalty miss when betting on Manchester United’s win over Chelsea.

Luck-challenged is how my fellow company directors may feel, in comparison, after reading a BBC News report which lists London-based business owners aged between 26 and 45 and earning over £50,000 as the most likely victims of mail-related identity theft.

Welcome to the scary new world of forwarding address fraud – a growing scam, according to our colleagues at Experian, whereby mail can be redirected without consent and intercepted by fraudsters.

This unwelcome news coincides with the release of The REaD Group’s inaugural UK Junk Mail League Table. In our nationwide survey we found that the Top Five most junk mailed regions over the past twelve months are: (1) South East (527 million items); (2) London (485 million items); (3) North West (441 million items); (4) East (357 million items); and (5) West Midlands (344 million items).

So keep your personal details secure, folks. I’ve mentioned this before, but suggested tips better controlling junk mail include:

Registering with a junk mail control service such as www.itsmypost.com.
Registering a deceased loved one or friend with www.thebereavementregister.org.uk to prevent junk mail being sent after their death.
Tearing off and destroying the name and address label on any junk mail before shredding, recycling or (if possible) composting the rest – this to prevent personal information from falling into the wrong hands.

The Home Office is Where the Heartbreak Is

2008-05-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Could personal data be the new black? I’m hardly a fashionista, but the issue does appear to be everywhere. Two contrasting snippets from last week: (1) According to Ofcom, 70 per cent of consumers are concerned about the amount of personal data being held by companies. As I’m in the data business, this was disconcerting news indeed. But, hot Horlicks in hand, I’d hardly had a chance to mull this over when (2) the Home Office chimed in with its mad plan to create a single, giant database of all UK citizens’ phone and internet records to use in its fight against crime and terrorism.

‘How long ‘til they lose that laptop?’ I thought sardonically as an interesting article by the BBC’s security correspondent Gordon Correra caught my eye. In it, Correra cites recent Human Security Brief findings which suggest that support for terrorist organisations like al-Queda could, in fact, be in decline.

The upshot of all these disparate developments? It appears that personal data over which we have little or no control has the potential to be used against all of us in countering a terror threat that could, in fact, be waning. Meanwhile, Ofcom reports that consumer concerns over identity fraud have risen by 15 per cent over the past two years. The Government’s response? Unenforceable two-year sentences for people who steal personal data.

Who’s the bigger threat - Mr Bin Laden or the thief who wants to illegally intercept my mail and steal my personal details? I’m beginning to wonder…

Buy Now While Stocks Last..? Not any more.

2008-05-19T01:49:00.000-07:00

Be sure to mark May 26 in your diaries, as next week the new Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPUT) come into effect. CPUT covers, in part, misleading or exaggerated content in advertising and marketing campaigns and may spell bad news for viral and buzz marketers as well as any company that tries to misrepresent itself as a bogus advocate or ‘Astroturfer’ (someone who posts positive online comments disguised as a consumer).

I agree with Melody Bartlett’s editorial in this month’s edition of The Marketer when she states that ‘this is another milestone on a journey away from old-fashioned consumer persuasion and towards consumer support.’ Truth in advertising will always be a much-vexed issue, but any legislation that protects consumers from unfair, misleading and/or aggressive promotions has to be a step in the right direction.

Kudos to the UK Government for bringing us into line with our European cousins. Now if Westminster could only come up with a similarly comprehensive, across-government legislative response to pressing problems like ID fraud and impersonation of the dead, I for one would be a happier camper.

Enjoy the forthcoming Bank Holiday weekend, folks.

Quelle Surprise…

2008-05-12T02:55:00.000-07:00

Here’s some news I for one am certainly filing under ‘Quelle Surprise’: The Fundraising Standards Board (FRSB) confirmed on Friday that around one-third of the 8,434 complaints it had received during the past year related to direct mail dispatched by charities.

I ask you: What is it with charities and their ill-targeted direct mail campaigns? Their repeated wastefulness is almost Pavlovian, in my opinion.

Phil Hope, MP for Corby and East Northamptonshire and the Minister responsible for overseeing the voluntary sector, was quoted by BBC News on Friday as saying ‘Public trust and confidence in charity fundraising is vital.’ I couldn’t agree more, Mr Hope. But unlike your surname, I don’t believe that charities’ propensity for self-regulation springs in any way eternal.

Regular readers of this blog will know that charities have been a major bete noir for yours truly in recent months. For good reason. The REaD Group has investigated charities and estimates that a staggering 88.5% of their mailings are still being sent out unscreened and unsuppressed every year, accounting for more than £11.5m of waste.

At the risk of channelling Donna Summer, enough is enough. The REaD Group has decided to offer an olive branch to charities. Watch this space over coming weeks for further details…

Of Polls, Politicians and a Breathtaking Lack of Precision…

2008-05-08T02:47:00.000-07:00

You’ve got to love democratic process. Short of watching Pop Idol, awaiting the results of last week’s local elections across England and Wales provided a timely double espresso shot of anticipation in the lead-up to an equally welcome Bank Holiday weekend.

My congratulations to all the winners – particularly to Boris Johnson. Finishing first amongst a field of ten in what was perhaps the toughest and most vicious London mayoral contest in living memory is testament to considerable political savvy.

But amongst all the euphoria and political back-slapping, I invite you to spare a thought for the veritable tsunami of political junk mail that has flooded the electorate in recent weeks. Never has the unsuspecting, unsolicited many been junk mailed, door-dropped, handbilled and/or spammed by so few.

This orgy of print media excess has generated tonnes of unwarranted waste as well as a carbon footprint of an enormity probably not seen since an AWOL hoodie named Jack journeyed up the proverbial beanstalk. A case in point: London Elect’s 32-page, A5 Candidates’ Booklet. 5.7 million of these were produced and distributed in mid-April at a total cost of £1.5 million (Source: London Elects Press Release, 15/4/08). Valuable an information source this may well have been to the good burghers of London, but as this item alone, I estimate, had the potential to use around 200 tonnes of paper and emit some 70 tonnes of carbon dioxide, I wonder if this was really an exercise in political sound and fury signifying…?

You be the judge.
Add to this the millions of partisan political manifestos, flyers, letters and inserts produced during the course of the pre-election period and the ecological cost of our democratic process is becomes staggering.
Calculation based on an estimated booklet weight of 40 grams and 0.347826 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per tonne of paper used.

Outdated? Out of Time, more like…

2008-04-24T06:58:00.000-07:00

Last week London residents were bemoaning the ‘Eurostink’ which had enveloped the capital. But Richard Thomas’ latest huffing over the EU’s outdated data laws (‘Thomas Blasts Outdated Data Laws’, PM 23/4/08), smells like a rather nasty case of bureaucratic ‘blow back’ from our side of the Channel.

64% of EU citizens should indeed be concerned about the integrity and security of their data (‘Two-Thirds fear for personal data safety’, PM 23/4/08) - particularly when the UK Government is arguably the biggest ‘loser’ of personal information.

Without a co-ordinated, across-government approach from the ICO, MoJ and Home Office to data protection, we’ll be in no better position than we are today – unprotected and vulnerable to scammers of all persuasions.

Are Mr Thomas’ comments just another case of the UK pot calling the Euro kettle black?

The public don't believe you...

2008-04-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

New research shows that we are losing confidence in charities - Apparently a drop of 9% according to nfpSynergy. Now only 4 out of 10 of us actually trust what charities tell us. Did we really need research to tell us that?

The sector also dropped another clanger when recent suppression research showed that they have reduced the amounts of suppression they use, down from a measly 10.8% to a paltry 9%.

Anyone else other than me think that if you continually mail people who have died, moved home or simply do not want your mail that this may cause the public to lose confidence in your brand, and question your ability to deliver what you claim to deliver. These two things are clearly inter-connected.

Charity doesn’t begin at home for the charities!

2008-02-27T02:24:00.000-08:00

So our annual research into use of suppression has been published. Fundamentally good news abounds. Use is up by an impressive 42% year on year, a truly significant growth and a huge fillip to the industry's environmental credentials.

Yet once again the charity sector bucks the trend of embracing best practice, creating long-term relationships and taking responsibility for their actions and rather than growing their use of suppression and data accuracy has in fact taken a retrograde step and used less suppression in the last 12 months than it did in the previous! So what the hell is going on?

Firstly, it is important to say we work with many charities – by definition those that have recognised the benefits of brand protection, significant costs savings and environmental awareness. They do tend to be the larger charities. In the commercial world the model pursued by the larger companies would be the one which everyone else strived to achieve, but not with the charities – no they seem to argue that they cannot afford suppression; that the ROI doesn’t stack up if you use suppression; that people want to receive their mailings; that it’s not JUNK MAIL they are charitable offers; - Please someone help me!

The hardest thing to overcome is that they can hide behind the statement that they are doing all in the name of good. Don’t get me wrong I absolutely support the charitable sector in their aims and ambitions. This country, nay world, would be a far worse place without the incredible work that they do for so many less fortunate than ourselves. However, it is not despite of this that I am so wound up, it is because of it! The bottom line is charities will continue to do good work whether they continue to send out junk mail to dead people or people who have moved, or not. The real issue is here is how much MORE they could do if they didn’t. £11.5 million wasted in the last 12 months over £100 million in the last 10 years!

And it’s not just about money wasted - It also significantly about perception. In my experience of talking to people about junk mail, the charity sector is the one that consumers always seem to have at the top of their “most annoying” list. Go to the ICO site and visit the charity section, even they acknowledge that consumers seem to be most irritated by charity mailers. Add to this that so many mailers are being sent to dead people or previous occupiers the perception is that charities both send out unwanted mail and then they waste money sending it to people who have died or moved years ago. Not a good approach for a sector that constantly leverages the angle that they need more money!

If suppression doesn’t work then why does every other industry sector screen on average 60% of its mailings? Because it works, that’s why. It saves money, it protects a brand, it enhances relationships, and it increasingly helps to protect our industry from legislative threat. All things that one would expect charities to embrace. Charities may think that they can do no wrong, in the name or good, but the reality is that they have been for decades. The time has come for the rest of the industry to ensure that every sector puts it weight behind the current industry challenges, the alternative being politicians that enforce legislative change that put charities at the top of their “most annoying” list.

Oh this winter of disk content!

2008-01-17T04:38:00.000-08:00

Unless you’ve been living in a hole this past 3 months you cannot have missed the chaos ensuing over the this governments inability to ensure that our private information is kept rightfully private.

Most in real positions of authority have been doing everything they can to adopt the Teflon coated shoulder position in order to ensure that anything vaguely resembling collateral damage slipped down to more lowly representatives. The one exception being the CEO of HMRC who rightly and with considerable dignity resigned on the spot.

The media onset of this local authority and that government department losing yet more data was inevitable as every newspaper and media channel in the land was looking for further cock-ups. Yet much like the disaster zones of the world when the TV crews and journalists have gone I suspect that we will return back to the way that it was before.

Whilst the flurry of legislative activity over the last few months is largely welcomed, the very parties who committed the error in the first place are exempt from the proposed legislation!! Is this somewhat hypocritical or what?!

The truth is that any commercial organisation taking an equivalent laissez faire attitude would be out of business within the blink of an eye. Data represents the very lifeblood of many businesses therefore procedurally and security-wise protection measures are at the core of these corporate strategies. Whereas Government departments only use the data to facilitate a function not initiate an income.

So perhaps rather than looking to legislate against an already pretty securitised commercial world, it may be better to invest the time and energy in getting your own house in order first!

Westminster, we have a problem!

2007-12-14T01:35:00.000-08:00

I was always brought up to believe that when someone like a doctor, lawyer or politician offers advice one should heed it closely. Yet these days it seems harder and harder to do. Of course one embraces the fact that medicine is not an exact science, and that the law is subject to much interpretation. However when a government on one hand issues edicts and targets to an industry and then on the other hand issues advice to the public that disables that industry’s ability to reach the target, one has to ask “what the hell is going on?”

A well known and accepted fact is that consumer concern about ID fraud will act as a barrier to consumers recycling junk mail. The fact is that most consumers when faced with a choice over being good to the planet or protecting their identity would choose the latter. Hence, those that are still heeding the advice of government are now shredding any pieces of information that appear on letters and Junk Mail. So much has been written about ID Fraud over the last few years that any half sensible person would be a fool to ignore the growing tide of fear that pervades the data world.

Yet now, after research that we carried out over the last few week, we find that around 1/3rd of all local authorities are UNABLE to recycle shredded material. If for instance you happen to live in Manchester, Newcastle or Oxford you will not be able to protect your identity and be good to the planet at the same time. The postcode lottery that has affected so much of how we live our lives today is now impacting on both our short and long term security.

It doesn’t seem too much to ask that if a government department is going to impose draconian measures on an industry, that it first ensures that it can actually fulfill its half of the bargain and facilitate the desire to recycle. Furthermore, is this government so disjointed that the treasury, when issuing countrywide advice to consumers to shred anything with your address on, it didn’t actually think to ask DEFRA whether is was able to accept such material.

The upshot being if you live in an area where your local authority cannot recycle shredded material then it is it heading for your local landfill site. Rather than shredding why not tear off the address details (checking pre-filled application forms for further information) recycle the remainder and shred the tiny part of the letter that has any information on.

Recycle my identity, why don't you?

2007-11-22T11:12:00.000-08:00

Whilst having your identity stolen as a result of the Governments mishandling of the Child Benefit database would be pretty galling, there is another, much more worrying, effect of Darling Alistair’s’ calamitous cock-up.

Government has been lambasting us all to increase our green consciousness. Turn lights off! Insulate your home! Recycle! Recycle more!... and if you don’t we’ll tax you! Hey what the hell, we’ll tax you anyway!

One of the core discussions within my Junk Mail world is how to recycle more. We can use recyclable materials, use fewer toxins in print and paper manufacturer, simply send less junk would be a good start. But……… if consumers don’t recycle no matter how hard we try as an industry it won’t make the slightest difference to the amount of junk mail that ends up clogging up what little landfill we still have available.

A well known and accepted fact is that one of the major barriers to consumers embracing the recycling of junk mail is the fear of having their identities stolen from the details included in a credit card offer or catalogue mailing. A few months ago data showed that consumers where actively starting to recycle more junk mail, local authorities confirmed as much. I would happily put more than a few quid on those numbers falling in the coming months as we see consumer confidence in a secure recycling process wane as quickly as the public confidence in HMRC!

Ironic really when Darling Alistair’s department will be the main beneficiaries of any green tax that is introduced.

Roll over Darling!

2007-11-21T00:34:00.000-08:00

If ever an example was needed as to the dangers of handling data records was needed Alistair Darling has just obliged with the most almighty cock-up!

For many years the argument, discussion (call it what you will) has raged about should government departments share data about us, purportedly under the guise of the “greater good!”. I have argued long and hard with many parliamentarians about the dangers of such an approach. The problem is fundamentally that data only needs to get into the wrong hands ONCE and a disaster will likely ensue.

It does seem unbelievable that in this day of encryption and high security that HMRC saw fit to simply burn a CD with this information and stick in the post! Yet this is exactly the point. Even knowing that burning CD’s was a no-no (it is banned by HMRC rules) HMRC broke the rules and lost this data. Whilst all concerned have put up their hands and admitted the howler, it is left to consumers to sleep less well in their beds at night as it is their identities that are likely to be reinvented by those intent on theft and deception.

Once and for all let’s have an end to discussion surrounding sharing data, the release of registers and so forth. The potential costs far outweigh any relatively minor benefits.

Bah Humbugger!!

2007-11-06T00:44:00.000-08:00

If you, like I, despise the wave of political correctness that has pervaded our lives over the last decade or so, I am afraid that you are likely to be as apoplectic about the latest move as I am.

One would have thought that our children would be spared the correctness inflicted on us by the social police, but no. The latest hair-brained scheme is to ensure that our children are not exposed to bad example. No - not footballers misbehaving on the pitch or film star icons drug taking, but Father Christmas. Apparently he is too fat!!! Several councils are only employing the most sylphlike and willowy of Santa impersonators in order that our children should not see his traditionally portly stature as a role model.

God save us from the politically correct bureaucrats!!

Election Landfill

2007-10-04T09:28:00.000-07:00

If Gordon Brown, as many think he will, calls a snap election next week, the political parties will have real problems maintaining their green credentials.

Cast you mind back a mere two and a half years and recall Tony Blair once again being returned to number 10, with another albeit diminished, stonking majority. Now recall the 6 weeks beforehand as the parties wound themselves up into a hustings frenzy.

What struck me most was the utterly appalling stream of material that literally poured through my letterbox. Ranging from the turgid to the down right diabolical what stood out above everything else for me was the sheer volume. Door drops, leaflets, dear occupier letters, personalised letters (and a lot of those for people who had either died or Goneaway) and then finally the door to door approach.

I wonder if the same approach will ensue this time? Bearing in mind that political parties have the full electoral roll available and are purportedly not bound by the restrictions imposed on commercial organisations I suspect that little will change.

But remember in a few months time when whoever was victorious is spouting off about the right and wrongs of the environment what you did with that ghastly door drop or that letter to your recently deceased Mother – straight in the bin like all the others. I wonder what contribution to landfill political leaflets and flyers will make over the coming weeks?

2007-09-28T03:00:00.000-07:00

So the credit crunch is coming… or is it??

The fiasco at Northern Rock has irrevocably damaged the reputation the financial services industry and thus lost the trust of millions of borrowers.

The Northern Rock business model gambled with its customers futures. Offering a staggering array of schemes to entice even the most unable borrowers. In some cases even up to 110% of purchase value. How many Northern Rock customers knew that their lender in fact was borrowing money from elsewhere?

Better people than I have already lambasted criticism upon Northern Rock so let me leave it there. However, the issue of “responsible lending” must be discussed. The key principle of lending is to get your money back with interest, not to speculate on the capital growth to cover your backside.

If someone has not been able to get a mortgage historically, there will be a reason for that. Equally a consumer who has not been able get a mortgage but now can (for no obvious reason) should smell a rat. However the responsibility lies firmly with the institution that has “tweaked” its modelling to tap into an over–needy consumer marketplace.

Let Northern Rock be a warning to all who have ever considered sacrificing security for a bit more market share.

2007-09-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

What planet is Redwood from??

Has John Redwood just finally proven that he is from Vulcan, completely out of touch with the human race or in fact does he have a salient point that the DPA is crippling British Business?

For sure, the Data Protection Act puts a huge burden on British Business, often without any rhyme or reason. How often have you phoned a company to find out something only to be told “can’t tell you that because……” It is absurd, infuriating and mostly unnecessary.

Yet, the reality is that it also serves to protect from the unscrupulous, those that would do us harm, impersonate us for ill-gotten gain or simply find out what they should not know. Imagine a marketing industry without the DPA and you might find a fair impression of hell.

I can’t imagine Redwood really meant “do away with it” surely he meant improve the workability, make it balanced and proportionate. If not he should set the dial to Warp factor 9 as soon as possible.