If you attended Advertising Week Europe 2015, you will have heard Les Binet, Head of Effectiveness, adam&eveDDB, and Peter Field, renowned author on media effectiveness, critique the results of The Private Life of Mail; 18 months of unprecedented research into mail in the home, heart and head. Insights into how the digital age impacts on mail integrating effectiveness, measurement and planning. Everything you thought about mail, may not be true. Learn what they think this means for the way mail is planned and measured in the digital age.

1. THE PRIVATE
LIFE
OF MAIL

2. JUST BECAUSE IT
FOLDS DOESN’T MEAN
IT’S SHIT

4. The Private Life of Mail
Direct mail in a digital world
Les Binet & Peter Field

5. Surely direct mail is dying?

6. 18 Months of Research
• 12 Ethnography households
• 14 focus groups
• 99 depth interviews
• 213 Neuroscience / biometric participants
• 401 BrandScience’s ‘Results Vault’ cases
• 416 IPA Effectiveness Databank cases
• 1,000+ academic articles reviewed
• 9,504 respondents across our telephone and online quantitative surveys
7

7. Summary of the Report
• When used in integrated campaigns, it can provide a measurable media
multiplier effect
• Mail delivers top-ranking sales and acquisition growth and efficient
market share growth
• Mail drives successful return on investment
• Mail brings a brand into the home where it is kept, displayed,
and/or shared
• Its tactile qualities have powerful emotional and rational impact
that can be identified and proven
• Mail makes your message more memorable

8. Why are these findings so interesting?

9. Salesupliftoverbase
Time
Marketing can work in two ways
Sales activation
Targeted, rational
Short term sales uplifts
Brand building
Broad reach, emotional
Long term sales growth
Source: Binet & Field 2013

10. Rational communications work hardest in the
short term
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
Emotional campaigns Fame campaigns Rational campaigns
Short-termactivationeffects
Direct mail
is often
rational

11. But emotional campaigns work
harder in the long term
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
Emotional Rational
ESOV Efficiency

12. Fame campaigns are the most efficient
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
Fame campaigns Other campaigns
ESOV Efficiency
4:1

13. The two effects work in synergy
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
Brand buiding Both Sales activation
Profiteffect
Campaign objectives
Can mail
play here?

14. Direct mail is mostly used as an activation
channel

15. Impact on short-term response
41%
31%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail
%reportingverylarge
activationeffects

16. Impact on sales over the short and long terms
60% 57%
35%
48%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
Short-term 1-6m Long-term >6m
%reportingverylargesales
growth
Campaign duration
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail

17. Direct Mail is best as part of a multi-channel brand-
building campaign
2.8%
6.4%
2.4%
2.0%
0.0%
1.0%
2.0%
3.0%
4.0%
5.0%
6.0%
7.0%
7 or less total media more than 7 total media
AnnualisedSOMgrowth
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail

18. So far this model has worked well
Direct mail has boosted
effectiveness considerably

19. Average market share increase
4.9%
2.4%
0.0%
1.0%
2.0%
3.0%
4.0%
5.0%
6.0%
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail
AnnualisedSOMgrowth

20. Direct Mail boosts efficiency
0.96
0.33
0.00
0.20
0.40
0.60
0.80
1.00
1.20
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail
AnnualisedESOVefficiency

21. Direct mail boosts ROMI
1158%
320%
0%
200%
400%
600%
800%
1000%
1200%
1400%
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail
Returnonmarketing
investment

22. So what’s the problem?
The growing challenge faced by direct mail

23. Digital activation channels are closing the
performance gap
1366%
960%
203%
374%
0%
200%
400%
600%
800%
1000%
1200%
1400%
1600%
1998-2004 2005-2014
ReportedROMI
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail

24. Digital activation channels have closed the
activation gap
44% 41%
21%
41%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
1998-2004 2005-2014
%reportingactivationeffects
Campaign duration
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail

25. Direct mail needs to strengthen its
long-term effects
1.6 1.5
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
Used Direct Mail No Direct Mail
Numberofbrandeffects
reported

26. What does the report reveal about the long-
term effects of mail?
• Mail is kept longer and shared more widely than we
knew:
– 17 days
– 23% shared
• Mail’s tactile qualities imbue it with emotional ‘system 1’
potential
• Mail therefore encodes long-term memory more
powerfully than we knew
• Not just an activation medium: long-term effects too

27. Direct mail needs to strengthen its
long-term effects
• Long-term effects enhanced by stimulating formats and
production
• Mail that only communicates information (‘activation’ mail)
does not maximise long-term effects
To thrive mail needs to exploit its
emotional & fame potential

28. A broader approach to direct mail
Designing-in long-term effects

29. Optus – business roaming charges
us business travellers to use Optus
nal roaming.
iness travellers with Optus. Some
aming, some don’t.
gh-impact DM piece delivering the
u can roam with Optus worry-free”.
standard letter vs. (control) Bill
MS.
PACKING.
es a mystery, just not when it comes
lls. We sent an unmarked box to
ss customers. It opened to reveal a
ptor and wallet-sized roaming guide.
er roaming rates and Optus Travel
travellers will need to charge their
LITTLEPLUGMADEABIGIMPACT-
L P G
M G

30. Comparethemarket.com – acquisition incentive

31. EE – mobile data allowance

32. Evaluating mail in the digital age

33. Evaluating mail used to be easy

34. But the internet changed all that
Source: Dunham & Company 2014

35. Exposure to
activity
Direct
responses
Indirect
responses
Direct sales
Indirect
sales
Incremental
sales
Non-
incremental
Non-
incremental
1,000 extra direct salesBut 1,000 were going
to buy anyway
40,000 of those
bought something
2,000 of those
bought direct
20,000 responded to it
1,000,000
got a mailing
400,000 went
to shop or website later
But 20,000 were going
to buy anyway20,000 extra indirect sales
Direct response analysis overestimates direct effects and totally neglects indirect effects.
The direct response paradigm was always flawed

36. 8% 11%
92% 89%
Brand A Brand B
%totalsaleseffect
Direct response effect Other sales effects
Source: DDB Matrix econometrics
Direct responses can underestimate
effectiveness by a factor of 10

37. Direct responses can be strategically misleading
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Rational Combined Emotional
Very large profits
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
Rational Combined Emotional
Very large direct effects

38. “The more you tell, the more you sell”
• “Give actual figures, state
definite facts”
• “Brilliant writing has no
place in advertising”
• “Never seek to amuse”
• “Ads are not written to
entertain”
• “Don’t try to show off”
• “Include a coupon”

39. Claude Hopkins was (partly) wrong
• Creative ads are more effective.
• Creative ads are 11 times more efficient.
• Emotional engagement is the key
Source: “The link between creativity and effectiveness” Peter Field, 2010

40. Salesupliftoverbase
Time
Direct responses
Indirect responses
Econometrics
Test & Control
Source: Binet & Field 2013
Long and short term measurement

41. 5%
10%
14%
38%
No support TV ads only Direct mail only TV and Direct Mail
AveragesalesupliftinAsdaduringtestperiod
Source: Cravendale case study, cited in "Marketing in the Era of Accountability" (Binet & Field, 2007)
The value of controlled tests: Cravendale

42. Econometrics can measure both effects
0%
20%
40%
60%
80%
100%
120%
1
8
15
22
29
36
43
50
57
64
71
78
85
92
99
106
113
120
127
134
141
148
155
162
169
176
183
190
197
204
211
218
225
232
239
246
253
260
267
274
281
288
295
302
309
316
323
330
337
344
351
358
365
%ofinitialresponse
Days after exposure
Typical Brand-Response Effect
Indirectresponses throughotherchannels
Direct
responses
Small, but
easyto
measure
Large,but
hardto
measure

43. The ultimate long term metric: price elasticity
0%
2%
4%
6%
8%
10%
12%
0 1 2 3 4+
%Reportingverylarge
pricesensitivityreduction
Number of very large brand effects recorded

44. The future for mail
• Like other “legacy media”, mail is not dying, but changing.
• Mail still plays an important activation role.
• But contrast with digital is revealing strengths that we took for granted.
• May lead to a bigger brand role for mail, and less emphasis on direct
response.
• Regardless of role, evaluation must change.
• Go beyond linear response
• Look at indirect effects and longer time periods
• Use test and control, econometrics
• More research into long term, brand effects?
Thank you