Make Marketing History

The views of a marketing deviant.

Sunday, June 11, 2006

I'm Sorry

"Dear Friend,

First of all an apology.

I know you didn't ask me to write to you. Yet, here I am - writing to you anyway - expecting you to give up a few moments of your time. You're probably just thinking. "oh dear, not another charity asking me for money."

If that's the case then I'm sorry."


That makes two of us. I'm sorry that in 2006 marketing communications can be so bad. Sorry that you think a four page letter (yes four pages) will take up "a few moments" of my time. Sorry that, having got to the middle of the first page, I'm being told

"But, to be honest, I'm never sure how I'm supposed to do this. I mean, what works for some people doesn't work for others. And the subject is so utterly appalling that for me to do it justice in a mere letter is unthinkable."

I'm sorry that you didn't contemplate some kind of segmentation of approaches. Sorry that you didn't take your own advice and ditch the idea of a visually unappealing letter. Sorry that the NSPCC which helps abused children is not going to receive the kind of funds they might because of the ineptitude of this execution.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Obviously not "unthinkable" enough ... did somebody get paid to put that together? If so, then it's cost the charity twice, and they should ask for a refund. Can you find out whether the approach worked for ANYONE?

7:44 AM, June 11, 2006  
Blogger kaylen said...

survey says? worst bloody copy writing ever. please tell me, they didn't begin that many sentences with conjunctions.. that hurts me in my soul.

well if the one benefit of direct mailing is very traceable results... i'm hoping they'll pick up pretty quickly. mend their ways.

10:47 AM, June 11, 2006  
Blogger john dodds said...

They're direct quotes (the use of sorry is my bad writing though) and in fact just a few lines from the first of four pages!

And - (sorry echolalias I couldn't resist) - to answer your question Ric, this is a major charity so somebody may have been paid to write it or perhaps it was pro bono work from an agency. Either way, the client accepted it.

1:02 PM, June 11, 2006  
Blogger kaylen said...

aren't you just the agitator...

anyhow. usually the agencies that pick up charity work and go pb, are big names and are all for strong-arming the charity into letting them run with their artsy, punchy campaigns. with the promise of winning awards. etc.

it sounds pretty green, to me. like someone in-house raised an arm at a meeting, pitched it, went home and banged it out using merlot and hallmark cards for inspiration.

4:04 PM, June 11, 2006  

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