Advertisers Putting Their Stamp of Approval on Post Cards

Having a great time. Wish you were here.

Sound like the last post card your sister-in-law sent from some sun-infested island in the South Pacific?

Perhaps. But more than post card chatter, this is also a new twist in advertising by mail. The next time you get a post card--especially a scenic one that appears to be handwritten--it may well be from someone you’ve never even met. Or more precisely, from some company you’ve never heard of.

“The first question people ask themselves when they see a scenic post card is, ‘I wonder what friend of mine is traveling in Europe?’ ” said Andrew Joseph Byrne, an El Monte advertising consultant who specializes in direct mail marketing. That post card, however, may not be from some relative out scouting distant lands but from some merchant out scouting local business.

Why scenic post cards? Quite simply, marketing experts say, they’re attention-grabbers. And they can be sent by the shop down the street or the multibillion-dollar company thousands of miles away. Both are mailing scenic post cards in droves.

And this trend is already making its mark on direct mail advertising--where U.S. companies last year spent $19.1 billion trying to get their messages inside people’s mailboxes, according to Robert J. Coen, senior vice president at the New York advertising agency, McCann-Erickson Worldwide. In fact, Coen said, direct mail advertising--which was up 11.5% last year compared to 1986--is the fast-growing segment in the ad industry.

“But only recently,” said Kenneth P. Forbes, executive vice president at MWM Dexter Inc., a post card manufacturing company based in Aurora, Mo., “have advertisers really begun to experiment with post cards.”

Take DHL Worldwide Express, for example. Although the overnight delivery firm has a 50% share of the international delivery market, over the past few years it has lost some business to competitors such as Federal Express. So to keep in contact with nearly 200,000 customers, the Redwood City, Calif., company last year began monthly mailings of scenic post cards.

“When you get a scenic post card, you read it,” said Paul Losch, director of marketing at DHL. “Or at least you look to see who it’s from.” These post card mailings get three times the response rate of previous mailings, Losch said.

The DHL post cards featured photos from the international markets its serves. And on the back of each card--in a short “handwritten” note--the company ties in its special services to the city featured on the front. For example, one post card shows Chinese bicycling by the Great Hall in Beijing. The note on the back brags that DHL understands Chinese culture like no other delivery company.

But it isn’t just post cards of foreign cities that get noticed. Scenic post cards of local spots can attract attention just as well. Just ask the company that is spending more than $6 million to redevelop the Santa Monica Outdoor Mall.

A few weeks ago, shortly before its ground-breaking ceremony, Bayside District Corp. decided that conventional invitations would probably get ignored. Instead, the company paid a popular illustrator a four-figure sum to paint a panoramic rendering of the newly designed mall--all within the setting of the Santa Monica skyline. The company then spent several thousand dollars more to print 5,000 oversized post cards of that painting, and then mail them out as invitations.

“People not only looked at the invitations,” said Michele Bourgeois, marketing director, “but they kept them.” Indeed, more than 600 people showed up at the ground breaking ceremony, an unusually high number for such an occasion.

This is not to say that scenic post card advertisements guarantee success.

For one thing, when people take mail out of their mailboxes, they usually look at the back side of the post card first, points out Freeman Gosden Jr., president of Smith/Hemmings/Gosden, an El Monte ad agency that ranks as one of the largest direct marketing firms on the West Coast. “You really can’t even count on the customer looking at the other side,” he said.

What’s more, some people can feel “tricked” by receiving a scenic post card that, in fact, turns out to be nothing more than an ad. “There’s always the chance of reaching that guy who thinks, ‘Oh my God, someone finally wrote me,’ only to discover that it’s just another commercial message,” said Byrne, the consultant.

But these risks are hardly stopping more companies from testing scenic post cards as marketing tools. The idea worked last year for Edmund Silkaitis, when he wanted to advertise his restaurant and art gallery, Cafe Montana, in Santa Monica. He mailed 10,000 post cards to area residents. The cards were reproductions of art work sold in the restaurant. “Some customers,” he said, “still tell us that the cards are the reason they’re here.”

Agency Knows Where to Look for Write Stuff

Sometimes the best work comes from the most unlikely places.

Just ask the secretaries and numbers crunchers at the Los Angeles office of Grey Advertising. After all, it was them--and not staff artists--who provided the bulk of the “art” work for Grey’s latest ad campaign for U.S. West.

The campaign, with the slogan “Judge a good book by its cover,” focuses on how the U.S. West yellow page directories get used and abused. The print and television ads all show phone books with covers that look more like personal memo pads. But how to add a touch of realism to the 200-odd phone books used in the ads? Well, Grey held a contest among employees. And those who created the most “realistic” looking phone book covers--doodles, smudges, and all--saw theirs used in the ads.

“The creative people were too guarded,” said Robert Giaimo, executive art director at Grey Advertising’s Los Angeles office. “They’re not used to treating a client’s product in a totally irreverent way.” Even Western division Chairman Miles Turpin had an entry, but it was disqualified, too. “I wrote some real phone numbers down on the cover,” Turpin said. “I guess that did me in.”

Sitcoms a Hit With Latinos, Survey Says

For big time advertisers who want to reach the Latino market--but who don’t want to stray from the major TV networks--one large New York ad agency has a suggestion: prime time sitcoms.

Indeed, 15 of the top 20 shows viewed nationally by Latino viewers are prime time situation comedies, according to a new study by BBDO Worldwide.

What makes sitcoms so popular among Latinos? Well, Doug Alligood, vice president of special markets at BBDO, said the close family relations of many Latinos is also expressed “through the strong interpersonal relations of the main characters” in many of the sitcoms.

Here is what BBDO said are the top 10 prime time shows viewed by Latinos:

1. The Cosby Show NBC

2. Who’s the Boss ABC

3. A Different World NBC

4. Growing Pains ABC

5. Cheers NBC

6. Golden Girls NBC

7. Moonlighting ABC

8. Alf NBC

9. Night Court NBC

10. Family Ties NBC

Firm Tries to Get More Mileage Out of Ads

If the air pollution doesn’t get to you first in Los Angeles, maybe the advertising pollution will. The Advans are here.

The what? Advan is an 18-month-old San Francisco company that purchases space on delivery trucks and then, in turn, rents the space out to advertisers.

Last month, a series of Advan delivery trucks started rolling down Los Angeles area streets, complete with 16-foot-long and 7-foot-tall ads hanging from their sides. In fact, this month, some 95 delivery trucks are now puttering around town with billboard-sized ads for Huggies diapers. And some 75 more are driving around with ads for Asics running shoes. Advertisers pay about $400 per month to see their names hoisted on a truck, company spokeswoman Pam Hamilton said.

Things, however, don’t always go quite so smoothly for the company. Recently, the cellular phone company, Cellular One, bought space for its ads on some San Francisco Bay Area trucks. But the phone company’s advertising slogan--”Say Hello on Wheels”--was radically changed on one delivery truck advertisement. “Someone,” said Hamilton “blacked out the ‘o’ in hello.”