Archive Observations: Less Energy Equals Less Money
December 18, 2008 By Paul Bobnak, Archive Director, Who's Mailing What! Archive
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Grand Control Update & Profile
Bringing up the rear in the ranks of 2008's newest Grand Controls (controls in the mail for three or more years) are mailings by Highlights For Children (Archive codes #592-172082-0809A and #592-172082-0809B), the American Cancer Society (Archive code #604-171602-0809A), Air & Space Magazine (Archive code #710-354777-0809), Audubon Magazine (Archive code #710-174801-0809) and Hale Indian River Groves (Archive code #355-172485-0809).
The Hale Indian River Groves package, in the mail since at least January 2005, really grabs your attention. Start with the eye-catching orange #10 OSE, quite fitting for a citrus fruit purveyor. Its teaser counsels: "Open Carefully ... Your Hale Groves Gift Citrificate Is Enclosed!", and sure enough, a dollar amount from it is showing through a corner of the address window. The letter starts off with a key copy driver, flattery, in presuming the prospect's "discriminating taste." It continues interrupting the reader by laying out the benefits of membership in the continuity, the Season Supply Club. Because words like "mouthwatering," "fresh" and "healthy" are not enough to describe monthly fruit shipments, the four-panel brochure is ripe with tantalizing images of oranges and grapefruits of all kinds, both whole and halved. And, to sweeten the offer just a bit more, the letter and reply device highlight other premiums: sample treats with each order and a set of citrus spoons with the first shipment.
All of this mailer's components - the teaser, letter copy, gift certificate and brochure - seemed familiar somehow. And that's when it hit me - the style was nearly identical to the classic Omaha Steaks effort written by Herschell Gordon Lewis and designed by Jim Spangler in the early 1980s. Omaha still uses elements of that Grand Control in its mailings today. It's comforting to see that this approach still works well in direct mail.
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