Not amused by direct mail story

It may be an old-fashioned concept, but aren’t Diary stories meant to be amusing?

Your Diary story criticising the Direct Mail Information Service, and direct mail per se “1995 – a year that’s bin junk”(MW May 24) fails to achieve this.

If the Diary editor is having such a problem filling the page perhaps we can help with some noteworthy information: 63 per cent of consumers open and read their direct mail; 85 per cent of consumers expect companies they deal with to mail them; four in ten consumers have responded to direct mail in the past 12 months; direct mail generates over 15bn worth of business each year; expenditure on direct mail has increased by 155 per cent in the past ten years.

Expenditure on direct mail rose to a record 1.1bn in 1995 – considerably more than the expenditure on radio, posters and cinema combined. If direct mail is all junk, why are so many more companies using it? Not funny? Well, should fit in well then.

Jo Howard-Brown

Partner

Direct Mail Information Service

London W1