Metamorphosis

Two recent promotions, two very different approaches ALL INDUSTRIES have their deep, dark secrets, direct marketing no less than any other.

No, we’re not talking about database enhancements that invade privacy or telemarketing and sweepstakes that con senior citizens. Or even inflated response rates.

No, we’re talking about the “little people” – all those trades and vendors that make the creative concepts real, whether those concepts are hot or not. You know, the guys whose names you can’t be bothered to remember until you need them.

Little wonder Structural Graphics has begun a self-promotion campaign to drive clients to its upgraded Web site (www.structuralgraphics.com).

Self-described as the “nation’s leading designer/producer of three-dimensional print communications,” the Essex, CT-based company used a cube design for its site promo. The cube includes a CD-ROM that links users to the site. The 22,000 pieces were mailed to both in-house and rented lists.

The dimensional is a blue-and-white box with a pop-up blue and blue-green butterfly. One side of the cube makes a neat pocket for a CD – one that’s much easier to remove a disc from, as compared with, say, the typical CD jewel box.

The cube, of course, is a sample of what Structural Graphics can do, and the CD makes logging onto the site easy for prospects. So it’s no surprise that the company claims a threefold jump in Web traffic and a 7.4% response rate to a reply card.

(Structural Graphics is not one to toss out the old to make room for something new.)

Despite our skepticism about the effectiveness of dimensionals, we’ve been fans of Structural Graphics’ ingenuity for quite a while. It’s high time the company did something for itself for a change.

At the other end of the paper product scale is SoftPro’s low-key campaign to promote its ProForm software. ProForm helps real estate lawyers and paralegals with closing procedures.

Developed by West & Vaughan, a local agency to the Raleigh, NC-based software company, ProForm uses as its medium an oversized postcard with somewhat lurid pictures. One features a collegiate computer geek sitting next to a closed door and below a sign saying, “Sperm Donors.” The guy is clutching a magazine titled “Real Estate.” The tag is: “Closings. Maybe we like them a little too much.”

Another picture features a woman in an obvious blonde wig. The headline reads: “Hot Closing Programmers Are Waiting to Talk to You!” and goes on to say in the deck: “Live 24 Hrs! Talk 1 on 1! Hot! Exciting! Steamy! Wild! Uncensored!”

The flip side continues the tropes – “Closings get us pretty excited. Let’s just leave it at that,” goes one, for example – and finishes with a toll-free number prospects can call for a free demonstration.

Almost needless to say, the campaign is called “Passion for Boilerplate.”

Space ads with the same copy and images are another component of the campaign. Media include such law and real estate trade publications as Title News and Settlement Services Today.

What makes this work is the postmodern ironic stance. It assumes the recipient is in on the joke and would react the same way SoftPro and West & Vaughan do. Even we got a cheap chuckle out of it.

But that’s also what is disturbing about the campaign: We question the wisdom of advertising that makes fun of advertising. Drawing attention to the use of sex and false hype does raise the question of how much real false hype is part of this campaign.

Still, we applaud the effective use of a presumably limited budget to cut through the DM clutter.

In Brief The Chicago Association of Direct Marketing is trying to cut through a different sort of clutter: the proliferation of expos, contests and conferences dedicated to this aspect or that of DM.

In 2001, CADM will combine its two major events into one called Chicago DM Days & Expo 2001 (Feb. 6 and 7), which will include the Tempo Awards.

The combination gives DM Days a centerpiece event and lends the Tempos support and a wider, if not national, audience.

Mercedes-Benz has started a series of television spots to promote buying its used – make that “pre-owned” – cars. Both the 30-minute and 30-second versions follow the company’s current advertising themes, using real and ersatz documentary footage of more than a century of Mercedes automotive history.

The problem? The theme implies that you can buy a pre-owned Mercedes because you know the history of the car and the company.

Let’s see now: How about the 260K? You know, the vehicle of favor for ranking officers of the Schutzstaffel (SS)?

Fortunately for the campaign, people apparently don’t care much about history, and the product is strong enough to withstand the objections of those who do.

Nevertheless, this cuts through the clutter of TV ads in very much the wrong way.