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.

Pete McLeod

Creative Director

OgilvyOne Worldwide

Back in the old days, it was relatively simple. The consumer’s mailbox wasn’t filled with 15 pieces of mail every day. As long as you clearly defined your offer, you had a good chance of getting a decent response rate – even if the creative was, well, ugly.

Nowadays, there’s such an increase in the volume of direct mail – not to mention direct response tv and print, and the Internet – that you have to do more than just communicate and inform. You really have to intrigue the consumer in order to stand out. So there is much more emphasis put on good creative.

Plus, money isn’t being plowed into general advertising the way it was 10 years ago. It’s being taken away and put into things like direct mail, drtv and the Internet. Which means that these have to be supporting the brand.

And I think we’ve all gotten better at it. In the old days, 10 or 15 years ago, you’d hear people saying, ‘Sure it’s ugly stuff – but it works.’ They were selling a product or service, period, and didn’t care about maintaining and nurturing the brand. ‘Let the tv advertising carry the brand. We just want to get response.’ Now I think it’s understood that we have to build the brand, just as our friends in general advertising do.

It helps that a lot of creatives in direct now have come from other disciplines. So we have some brand in our blood.

It’s something of a balancing act, obviously. Direct is measured in terms of the response, and whether it meets the cost-per-order objectives. But at the same time, we can’t risk damaging the image that the general advertising has built. Everything we do has to look consistent with it. We cannot afford to look ‘below the line.’

Often, we work in close concert with our general agency, Ogilvy & Mather, on the same client. A good example of that is our work with Robin Hood Multi-Foods. The general agency did the 30-second general awareness spot for their Best for Bread flour product. And we were charged with doing 60- and 120-second drtv spots, as well as the Web site. Everything looks like it came from the same source – the drtv has the same friendly, approachable feel, and the same high production values as the awareness spot.

The No. 1 principle in developing creative for this medium is to speak in quite a direct way to the target. We can’t waste a lot of time on puns and analogies – things that take a while for the consumers to work out in their heads. We don’t have the luxury of building a message over time; we need to elicit an immediate response.

You can’t be too bald in selling, or it’ll just look cheap, and it won’t further the brand. Every piece of creative must have a strong idea. But it can’t be an idea so powerful that it hijacks the message. We can’t forget that, at the end of the day, we’re selling something. So we’re always straddling the line.

We’re still only about five years beyond the bad old days of direct marketing creative. There’s still a lot of bad drtv out there, for example – schlocky stuff that shouts at you, that looks like drtv. But overall, I think we’ve reached a real high-water mark in terms of creative. We can always improve, of course, but we can also be quite proud of where we are now.

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

– ‘You have to hit them with the brand’: Griffiths p.D22

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

– Hospital raises a good fortune p.D22