Reading is bad for the digestion

In your special report on direct marketing (MW May 23), Simon Plent of Reader’s Digest waxed lyrical about how an in-house facility delivers better results than an outside agency. His rationale for this statement was that the in-house agency is closer to the customer.

For reasons best known to Reader’s Digest, I am a frequent recipient of its direct marketing efforts and I have to say that I am pretty fed up with them. Not only would I have to take at least ten minutes reading them – if I did – but I suspect that I could also end up with repetitive strain injury by affixing all their stickers in the correct places and responding to their “early bird bonuses”.

So, despite the efforts of Mr Plent and the deliciously named Tom Champagne, I am with the team of Not the Nine O’clock News who famously declared that “the definition of brain death is when you enjoy the Reader’s Digest”.

Jim Addison

Managing director

Specialist Publications

Bristol, Avon