When DirectResponse began contacting senior creatives at direct marketing agencies, to advise them that this issue’s special report would focus on their end of the business, the reaction was pretty much consistent across the board: ‘It’s about damn time.’

The direct marketing industry presents something of a contrast to the world of general advertising, in which creatives tend to be regarded (and sometimes regard themselves) as godlike beings. In direct, where list and offer are paramount considerations, creative has often been treated as an afterthought at best.

While no sensible person would argue that creative considerations should take precedence, there are those who contend that direct marketers have failed to take full advantage of creative’s ability to enhance the effectiveness of their efforts.

‘We’ve seen major advances in database marketing from a technology standpoint and from a strategic standpoint,’ says Dean Maruna, senior vice-president, creative director with Toronto’s Mosaic Direct. ‘Yet creative hasn’t kept pace. To a large extent, direct mail pieces look the same as they did 15 years ago.’

Still, as the interviews with direct marketing creatives on the following pages make clear, a number of factors have combined in recent years to raise overall standards. With more large clients investing heavily in direct, and more general agency creatives moving into the field, the quality of the work has improved dramatically.

And improve it must. As Michael McGovern, vice-president, executive creative director with FCB Direct in Toronto points out, consumers are increasingly inundated with direct communications; a strong creative execution is needed to break through that clutter.

‘Sure, you get the right offer to the right people,’ says McGovern. ‘But you’re competing with hundreds of other messages. Creative is what gets your particular offer noticed by the right people.

Michael Griffiths

Vice-President, Creative Director

Wunderman Cato Johnson, Toronto

Throughout the whole history of direct marketing, the driving force has been the list. Until the last 10 years, creative just wasn’t a big factor.

So you had a lot of really tacky stuff. Stuff that was promotional where it shouldn’t be. And it was as if no thought was given to design – it was all about messaging. The prevailing view was: ‘We already know that this message is going to be relevant to this audience, so we can present it any way we want. If we want to throw a big starburst in there, let’s do it, no matter how ugly it looks. Because we know that starbursts work.’

You’d see little tricks of the trade that really went out of style in the 1960s still being used, right up to the ’80s: little notes in the margin, yellow highlighting, things circled or underlined.

All of this has really changed, however. The list is still vitally important, of course. But direct marketers have begun to understand that no matter who you’re mailing to, no matter how well-chosen they are, if you can’t get their attention by entertaining or amusing or enticing them with your creative, they’re not going to bother even reading your message. You have to hit them with emotion, with the brand sensibility.

Consumers are very savvy about marketing today. They know they’re getting the application for the gold card because they’re on a list. So you have to respect that audience. You cannot throw schlock at them. Because they’ll look at it and say, ‘This is crap. I got a much better piece from cibc last week. I’m not even going to open this.’

The result is that the bar for creative in direct has been raised tremendously. You have better copywriting, better art direction, better production values. Even areas that are considered among the most boring, such as financial services and pharmaceutical, are fiercely competitive on creative terms. The stuff really kicks some butt.

Something you see now that didn’t happen previously in direct is actual testing of creative, to find out what effect different approaches have on results. You’ll test a plain package against one that’s very promotional-looking. Or test two mailings that use different tones of voice. What that tells you is that creative has really come to be seen as an important factor in the equation, right alongside segmentation.

I think we were really fortunate that there was this influx of talented creatives from general advertising into direct at the beginning of the 1990s, as a result of the recession. You had a lot of people suddenly bringing a brand sensibility into direct marketing. And you had a real competitiveness there, too. A lot of them felt the need to prove to their former colleagues on the general side that they were every bit as good, if not better – that they could do exciting things with the challenges they faced in direct.

Initially, as these people came into the business, there was kind of a rash of pretty pictures for their own sake – expensive outer envelopes splashed with gorgeous photographs that had nothing to do with the brief or the strategy. It was just an art director from general advertising saying, ‘Hey, if I can’t do outdoor, then this envelope can be my little billboard.’

What’s happened since is that, as these people have become immersed in the discipline of direct marketing, the creative has grown much stronger. It’s more relevant now – it talks back to the strategy. They have seen what brings results and what doesn’t, and they have become much more fine-tuned in their approach, without losing that creative zeal.

One of the biggest challenges we face right now is finding fresh talent. What sometimes happens is that creative people get into the advertising business through direct – that’s where they get their first break. But they put their focus on getting out of direct as soon as possible, and into the ‘legitimate’ side of marketing. To them, we’re the bastard cousin.

But then you have other people who come into the business and just get hooked. Because it can be very exciting, for example, to put a drtv spot on the air – one night, one station – and get 200 calls. It’s a bit like gambling, in a way. It becomes very addictive.

Also in this report:

– ‘You can do good work in this field’: Weinstein p.D18

– Compaq rolls out the red carpet p.D20

– ‘There isn’t a commitment to creative’: Maruna p.D21

– ‘It has to look like it came from a human being’: McGovern p.D21

– ‘Good page layout is essential’: Greene p.D22

– Hospital raises a good fortune p.D22

– ‘We cannot afford to look below the line’: McLeod p.D23