I love The Smile Train. You’ve seen their ads; they’re irresistible.

Once you donate, they send you nice letters asking for more money. The most recent was an unfortunate attempt to make the letter look like a personal note from a friend. They used a stamp and that handwriting font for my address and their return address in New York City.

The whole thing kind of fell apart when the lettershop mailed gawdknowshowmany in San Antonio, 1500 miles from New York. Naturally, the Post Office had to cancel the stamp and … well, here it is:

I’ve never had much faith in the idea of trying to make a mailing look like a personal letter from a friend. People know that it’s not, anyway, because it never looks quite right, and, when they open it, they immediately sense that someone has been trying to fool them.

I‘ve always suspected that people who try this kind of thing are somewhat ashamed of direct mail. To hell with it; be proud of who you are and what you do. Put something on the OE that sells, a benefit, an image, something heartwarming – anything that makes the recipient want to tear the envelope open and get to what’s inside.

The stealth approach is just a waste of expensive selling space.

Why it’s important to make sure your lettershop
understands what you’re trying to do II.

This came in a mailing from Jos. A. Bank clothes store where I bought a suit and some shirts a few years ago:

Too many waste-of-time emails slipping through the spam filter. Let’s try to get rid of the first four and see what happens.

Hotels.com, Cherry Moon Farms and HSNWeekly obfuscate, tippy toe and generally make it a pain in the ass. Dell makes it simple. Yeah Dell! And a pox on the rest of them. Here’s the lingo they use.

Hotels.com

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We’ve all known for a couple of decades that Letterman gets his jollies pandering to the giddy trendoid-nitwit wing of the American experience. He seems to think he’s a “progressive” and maybe he is. But actual human beings find him an embarrassment, like a cousin who steals undies from a convent.

He doesn’t amaze us but CBS does. In theory, the company is a business and its business is selling time to advertisers, including direct marketers.

Imagine a direct marketer working with the premise that it’s a good idea to shame all Hoosiers, really irritate at least half the potential audience in the other 49 states and get half the remainder to cringe.

Surely CBS’s stockholders, if they exist, aren’t laughing.

This faux letter appeared in Sunday’s New York Post as a full page ad. GM probably didn’t want us to read it because the design people did everything they could to make it unreadable: wide type, justified, sans serif, gray. No direct marketer would ever have approved this.

The copy is astonishing, almost a parody. The ham-handed contributions of a committee are distressingly obvious. The client and agency must think we’re idiots. CAPS AND STRIKETHROUGHS ARE IDLE THOUGHTS.

To Our Customers: SINGULAR Customer WOULD BE BETTER. New Owner WOULD BE BETTER STILL.

While a lot is changing at our company today, one thing is not: our commitment to you, our customers.

We want to assure you that your GM warranty will continue, whether you already own a GM car or intend to buy a new one. Genuine GM parts will be supplied. WHY THE PASSIVE VOICE? IT CAN ONLY BE THAT GM HAS NO IDEA WHO WILL SUPPLY THE PARTS. GM-trained Goodwrench technicians will perform service. Simply bring your vehicle to your GM dealer and you will receive service. THIS IS CONVOLUTED TIPPY-TOEING. “perform service … receive service.” WHY NOT JUST SAY “Bring your vehicle to a GM dealer and GM-trained Goodwrench mechanics will look after it.” GM IS HEDGING ITS BETS. BY THE WAY, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE “Mr.” IN FRONT OF “Goodwrench”?

If the dealership you usually visit will be closing, TOO LATE. IT CLOSED MONTHS AGO AND IS NOW A USED CAR LOT we sincerely apologize and regret that it has affected you. OH STOP. THE GOVERNMENT FORCED THE CLOSINGS. YOU HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. OH, WAIT, YOU ARE THE GOVERNMENT NOW, RIGHT? We stand ready to serve (A “you” WOULD BE NICE HERE) with one of the largest dealer networks in America. Please visit GM.com/vehicles/dealer for information on dealers in your area. We pledge to make your next GM experience a remarkable one. NO KIDDING. THE EXPLOSION OF THE HINDENBERG WAS REMARKABLE, TOO.

At this critical point in our history, we cannot afford to lose your business. Or your trust. You have our word. WE HAVE THEIR WORD ON WHAT? THAT THEY CAN’T AFFORD TO LOSE OUR BUSINESS OR OUR TRUST? THAT’S WHAT IT SAYS IN GRAY AND WHITE.

If you are in the market for a new car, I urge you to shop GM. We are open for business with some of SOME OF? COULD THIS BE WEASELIER? the best vehicles, values and financing rates available. When you come in, I encourage you to be a critical judge of everything – from your experience in our dealership, IT’S A GM DEALERSHIP BUT IT IS NOT GM’S DEALERSHIP. IT’S OWNED BY SOMEONE ELSE. to the quality of our cars. We owe you nothing but the best. THIS IS AN UNFORTUNATE SENTENCE. PEOPLE WILL READ IT AS “We owe you nothing.” WHY NOT JUST “We owe you the best.” And we will deliver.

General Motors may look (HOW ABOUT “will be”?) different down the road, but we are here to stay. LIKE NIGHT FOLLOWS DAY? THE’RE TRYING TO AVOID CAUSATION WITH THAT SNEAKY LITTLE “but.” THEY REALLY MEAN “GM already looks different and we’re going to look like KIA soon and we hope like hell it works.” By accelerating work that is already underway and making fundamental changes from top to bottom, HANG ON COWBOY! YOU’RE ACCELERATING OLD STUFF AND AT THE SAME TIME YOU’RE CHANGING EVERYTHING? DOES ANYONE HAVE THE FOGGIEST IDEA WHAT’S HAPPENING THERE? GM will be leaner, greener, GREENER? ARE THEY INSANE? WHY NOT JUST SAY THAT THEY’RE GOING TO STOP MAKING CARS PEOPLE WANT. faster and stronger. We’re not just rebuilding our company. We’re reinventing it. YADA, YADA.

Over the coming days, months and years, NO WEEKS? we will prove ourselves by being more transparent, more accountable and, above all, more focused on you,our customer. NONE OF WHICH WE CARE ABOUT. GREAT CARS, GREAT SERVICE.

I invite you to track our progress at GMreinvention.com. And on behalf of all the men and women doing the hard work of changing or company for the better, we look forward to showing you the New GM. THANKS BUT THIS LETTER GIVES US A PRETTY GOOD IDEA. CAN WE HAVE OUR MONEY BACK NOW?

Sincerely,

Frederick A. Henderson

President & Chief Executive Officer, General Motors REALLY? GENERAL MOTORS, HUH? WHO’D A THUNK IT?

I think maybe corporate idea killing committees and ham-handed copy critics don’t pay much attention to what gets painted on the sides of their trucks – because a lot of it’s pretty good. McDonald’s full truck color photos of food look great while their TV commercials have been going downhill slowly from “You Deserve a Break Today” … to “I’M Lovin’ It.”

Driving to work today, I saw a truck from Smith’s Office & Computer Supply pulled up at a red light. The company name was on the side along with the URL and a smallish slogan that read “where service still matters”. Without still, the line would be snooze inducing. But still lifts it up. I thought immediately of places like OfficeMax whose slogan should be “where service is still sporadic”.

As soon as I got to the office, I logged onto www.smithofficesupply.com to see what other cool things the company had to say. Turns out, the service line on the truck must have been a fortuitous accident because the line on the website reads:

Zzzzz.

Selling magazine subscriptions by mail used to be an artistic science.

We’d test offers, prices, premiums, creative look, creative voice, color vs. b&w, brochure vs. no brochure, buck slips, lift letters, long letter, short letter, who should sign the letter, terms.

Once we tried to find out if it made any difference whether a subscription cost $19.99, $19.98, $19.97, $19.96, or 19.95. I once discovered, accidentally, that if we put the long term (52 issues) ahead of the short term (27 issues) we got a lot more long term orders with no reduction in overall response.

Now I’m seeing plain envelopes with one short-copy inserts offering a year of Time for $10, 3 years of Fortune for$20, a year of National Geographic for $20. And Fortune sends me emails with sanctimonious gobbledygook about saving the environment.

This used to be a fun business.