An introducion to JICMAIL
“Our intention is to move mail from being a ‘special child’ that is dealt with on its own by clients, and to put it on desk tops of media planners and buyers.”
So I’m delighted that JICMAIL is launching because for the first time we are normalising mail as a media channel. We have created the readership, coverage and frequency, and exposure data that brings it in line with every other major UK media channel. Mail Media Metrics give us exactly the same data as we have for television, as we have for press, as we have for radio, as we have for out of home. Our intention is to move mail from being a “special child” that is dealt with on its own by clients, and to put it on desk tops of media planners and buyers. Our intention is to bring it in line with the other £20 billion of media money that is planned every year by the media agencies, giving them access to a channel that commands attention, dwell time, respect, and drives commercial actions from consumers of all ages, classes and genders. This is a gold standard currency that gives the ability to all planners to plan mail using the same tools and metrics they use for all other communications channels. This is truly a landmark moment for mail in a digital age.
For my sins I have been a media man for more than thirty years. My first ten years were spent planning and buying “above the line media” – television, radio, newspapers and the like. I grew up using their planning and buying currencies as everyday tools to help me understand how best to deploy my clients’ investments. In the early nineties I discovered the world of direct marketing, and direct mail. Whilst the commercial value of this channel was obvious to its inner circle of talented practitioners, I was never able to explain its role as a media channel to my fellow media directors. Fast forward twenty-five years and as Chair of the DMA Advertising Mail Council I was able to revisit this conundrum with members of the Council. As a team we started a conversation about why mail wasn’t measured, reported on and governed as all other media channels are. We all knew on the Council, as practitioners of mail, that the medium was woefully under- represented by the metrics of pure direct response. Essentially we were counting each letter as a single impact – an item that is viewed once and once only. Logic and plain common sense said that this couldn’t be right. So we embarked on a journey to bring the industry together and to establish how mail is read and used each day in homes across the land. And to do so under the auspices of proper industry governance – within a JIC representing both buy and sell sides of the industry.
Mike Colling Founder & CEO, MC&C and IPA Board Member of JICMAIL
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