Keep It On, Baby
Every marketing conference worth its salt has a buzzword. You know, something catchy, like relationships, e-commerce or-our personal favorite-disintermediation. Early into the Direct Marketing Association’s fall conference in San Francisco last month we realized what the secret word was to win $100: provocative.
It’s obvious. Even before the conference officially started, the city had given direct marketers something to think about, in the form of two would-be protesters attempting to crash a DMA board meeting in an effort to make DMers see the error of their paper-wasting wicked ways.
But that isn’t what sold us on the provocativeness of the DMA by the Bay. To be blunt, can’t anyone in that city keep their clothes on? We’re not even talking about what we’ve viewed in the parks or just looking out our hotel windows (that’s another story). We’re talking about in the dang conference.
By 11 a.m. on the second day of the weekend sessions, we’d been flashed by not one but two direct marketers: first by a woman who worked with Frederick’s of Hollywood marketing vice president Beth Rush (who wanted to show off the businesslike sheath dress under her long jacket to prove not all the company’s fashions are for the boudoir), and then by Lilliput Motor Co. Ltd. co-founder Steve Singer, who proudly unbuttoned his long-sleeve shirt to display the Lilliput logo on his T-shirt underneath (yeah, it was really cool).
It’s enough to give a nice girl the vapors. Luckily, we were soon back safe and sound in New York, where the only flashers are those interesting gentlemen wearing trench coats in the subway.
Now they elicit a direct-if not positive-response.
