What the delegates thought in SOUTH AFRICA
“Andy stormed into Cape Town – straight into a vacuum created by the demise of the DMA and their annual conference. Gloves at the ready, and in the tradition of the travelling DM guru, he launched his volleys against wasteful direct marketing and the consequent compromise of clients’ budgets, enchanting the audience with his witty demolition of the inept. As a former salesman, Andy earned his colours amid the blood and gore of the battlefield, not in virtual reality, and this added lustre and credibility to his performance. Not surprisingly, he stressed the need for basic training – research, reading the works of the masters - something that the older school of copywriters took for granted and a necessary apprenticeship that today’s copywriters disdain. Some people commented that some of his examples were ‘old-fashioned’ – and that proved to me, precisely, that they, again, had missed the point and that Andy has scored again. Good direct marketing is timeless. A great beginners’ overview but also solid affirmation for old hands. He didn’t miss a trick.”
Philip Bateman
Hi Andy,
Thanks so much for your seminar in Cape Town. It was great to listen to you and be reminded about all the basics, the disciplines and the testing that are essential to have a real chance of success in direct response.
I also felt a shiver of pleasure at the memory of being in Switzerland listening to Siegfried Vogele all those years ago. Yes, I was also there and learnt so much that I have applied over the years to first, my mail order business, and then my As Seen On TV business, Glomail, here in South Africa.
Just one comment on your presentation that you may find interesting: You said that Princess Diana's death was not a good time to expect a good response to advertising.
My personal experience tells me differently - if one happens to have the right product.
At 7.30am on the Sunday morning of Princess Diana's death it just so happened that the first of a series of hourly TV ads was flighted by Glomail. I had just completed production of the DR ad and received stock of our brand new product, the Royal Windsor dinnerware set, "fit for a Princess".
The phones went crazy with some complaints of our "insensitivity" ("how could you deliberately take advantage of Princess Diana's death by flighting this ad just hours after she had passed away?"), but also with orders in numbers we could not have anticipated.
Unfortunately, I had to quickly pull the ads - and wait a week before flighting again.
Last week we had a Glomail two days away to discuss "the next three years" and in my presentation to my partners I enjoyed quoting you on more than one occasion. Guys in finance and operations think that we are a load of mavericks and they don't realise that (in addition to being mavericks!) be are also very disciplined in our work.
We have just started our own 24 hour TV channel and will soon launch a long overdue loyalty programme (don't worry, we won't call it a "loyalty programme" - the name will instead more reflect the benefit to our customer rather than to us).
We will be communicating to our past customers much more so looks like I will be doing a lot more mailings again!
Once again, thank you!
Best Regards.
Neville
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