Chris Hunter: Let’s bring on the shock of the new

More than half the direct mail that lands in my letterbox goes straight into the bin. And if I didn't earn my living from marketing, it would be closer to 90 per cent.

It's not that I'm picky but hardly any companies get my attention, let alone close a sale with me.

Like most of us, I'm drowning in a morass of bland marketing, besieged by offers, not only from direct mail, but from TV commercials, print ads, billboards, email spam and internet banners. Very little of it gets my motor running and, for marketers who live or die on response, that's bad news.

It's going to get worse. Sky TV is preparing a PVR (personal video recorder) to work with its digital service and this will allow Kiwis to effortlessly skip past boring television commercials.

The click-through rate of the average internet banner ad is down to about 0.3 per cent these days. The slide in print circulations seems to be irreversible. And even personalised mail shots to squeaky-clean lists no longer guarantees a good response.

For marketers in acquisition mode, it's a growing problem. Attention spans are fried and it's getting harder to capture the attention of potential customers.

Today, the first job is to get noticed and that means interrupting people. If you want a good response, you need to confound your customers expectations, shock them out of their lethargy or make them laugh. You might have a glossy communication piece that fits the brand architecture like a glove, but if the envelope is chucked in the bin, the page is turned or the channel zapped, the budget is wasted.

Creating disruption is not a new concept but, in the past, it has largely been the domain of brand agencies.

Direct marketing agencies now need to apply the same principles by studying the conventions and then breaking them.

This doesn't necessarily mean shouting at the top of your voice, although ads such as Woosh's raucous Escape Dial-Up Hell TV commercial can have tremendous cut-through.

A mailer we created recently for Vodafone had a huge response, because we used a stealth approach and disguised the piece as an invoice.

Company accountants and managing directors received a basic manila envelope containing an awkwardly-folded letter, printed with a smudgy dot matrix typeface on perforated line-feed paper.

The letter complained that rates had been cut so much, there was no money left for Vodafone's marketing department. No phone number was printed anywhere, but Vodafone was inundated with calls and even offers of free coffee.

People loved it, because it was unexpected.

It's human nature to play safe, so it's a brave client that agrees to swim against the tide. Especially if we're talking large corporations.

But most clients will be in good hands, because New Zealand's direct marketing agencies are indisputably world-class. Last month, they racked up 10 gongs at the John Caples Awards, the international competition for direct response and interactive advertising. Only the UK and US won more awards.

So let's see a little more of the unexpected and put faith in agencies to deliver a shock of the new. If marketers want their 15 minutes of fame, they need to get that customer inside 15 milli-seconds.

* Chris Hunter is creative director of Draft New Zealand.