Advertising Is Good For You

Ruinart Champagne postcards

These great postcard illustrations are from Eight Hour Day.

Click here to see a campaign for Dom Perignon featuring Eva Herzigova.

Sandhi Schimmel Gold creates portraits from junk mail

Click here to see more of Sandhi Schimmel Gold's work.

Junk Mail Queens

Artist Sandhi Schimmel Gold creates portraits from direct mail solicitations.

To see more of her works, visit Sandhi Schimmel Gold's website.

 

Art that Rocks! from Joe Petruccio

One man's trash is Joe Petruccio's canvas. The artist has recycled business reply cards from Rolling Stone magazine subscription solicitations and turned them into a collection of watercolor portraits he calls Art that Rocks! 

Click here to see more of Joe Petruccio's work.

Kurt Cobain:

Bruce Springsteen:

Also Bruce Springsteen:

Jimi Hendrix:

The Beatles:

I love a rhyming tag line

Click to enlarge. So you can read the tag line. What did you think I meant?

Found at Copyranter.

This is curious

Somehow my name got on a mailing list of morbidly obese people.

Advertising Arts & Crafts: junk mail lei

Instructions for making a junk mail lei are at Instructables.

What "LAST & FINAL CHANCE" really means

One of my favorite magazines wants me to renew my subscription.

Actually, the magazine started bugging me to renew almost as soon as my last subscription began.

Naturally, I've been ignoring the mail solicitations.

It's part stubbornness on my part. I simply refuse to renew a subscription when I still have practically a year's worth of magazines coming to me.

It's also about money. Direct marketers typically offer the best deals in their LAST effort to a subscriber before purging the person from their mailing list.

This is the junk mail I wait for:

"LAST & FINAL CHANCE" typically means "this is the best offer we're going to make you." 

In effect, the loyal readers who resubscribe early oftentimes pay more for the same subscription than those who wait until the last minute.

It may not seem fair but it makes sense. Look at it this way: every time you ignore a renewal request, many publishers will sweeten the pot to get you to reconsider.

Junk mail fail

Going through the mail the other day, I came across a simple white envelope from one of my utility companies.

On the outside of the envelope was printed this headline:

IMPORTANT SERVICE NOTICE ENCLOSED.
PLEASE RESPOND IMMEDIATELY.

My blood pressure spiked as I read it.

I was convinced this was a statement from the utility telling me it about to turn off my service. I tore into that envelope convinced I was in for a months-long battle trying to proof that I was up to date on my payments.

My blood pressure spiked again when I saw what was inside: a letter trying to sell me an upgrade.

Direct response advertising is my specialty. No one knows better than I the importance of getting a prospect to open the envelope. BUT YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO PISS PEOPLE OFF IN THE PROCESS.

Disgusted, I threw the letter away. Then went back to fish it out so I could write this post.

Now I get the satisfaction of throwing it away a second time.

Junk mail couture

According to Craftzine:

Colorful junk mail (catalogues, solicitations, newspaper ads) were folded into fans and sewn onto a skirt and dress made of scrap canvas and a mantilla for the hair. The vintage shoes are covered with old postage stamps. The inspiration for this outfit came from the origami peacock earrings- Nancy Judd made them in 1988 when she designed and sold origami jewelry for a summer job."

I've been invited to the Inauguration . . .

Or so I thought.

I received this mailing yesterday and for a few brief moments I thought my modest donations to the Obama campaign had won me tickets to the Inauguration ceremony.

First, I took out this letter. Printed on heavy cream-colored stock with a gold foil-embossed Inaugural seal, this letter makes quite an impression.

My enthusiasm started to wane when I got to the second page. This was printed on a lighter-weight stock. The seal was also printed; the ink is not even metallic.

I was downright crestfallen when I got to the last piece of the mailing: this black and cream brochure.

 

Alas, this invitation was to "attend and participate in the Inauguration" with the crowds of people freezing their butts off in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Obamas and Bidens. And, of course, it invites me to buy stuff "56th Presidential Inaugural Collectibles."

No thanks. I've got a ton of Obama campaign buttons left over from the election. And on Inauguration day I plan to stay toasty warm while watching the ceremony on TV.

My favorite holiday card from an advertising agency

This Instant New Year's Party Kit was developed by McCabe, Duval + Associates in Portland, Maine, and sent out as the advertising agency's holiday card. It includes a series of five 5" x 5" cards.

Card #1:

Card #2 is a cocktail recipe:

Card #3 lists New Year's Eve party music suggestions:

Card #4 illustrates how to dance the Salsa:

Card #5 provides hangover cures:

And the back of each card is a drink coaster:

Direct Marketing is doing its part for the U.S. economy

Direct Marketing:

• accounts for 52.1% of total ad expenditures in the U.S.
• generates about $2.057 trillion in total incremental sales
• accounts for 10% of the total U.S. gross domestic product
• directly employs 1.6 million people
• supports another 9.3 million other jobs

Image: Gary John Reynolds        Source: Direct Marketing Association