It's the Design, Stupid!

It's OK to break rules if you know the rules you're breaking

Vol. 4, Issue No. 65 | November 25, 2008 By Denny Hatch

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I used to troll for clients by running a little ad in the back of Target Marketing magazine that offered a free critique of readers' direct mail packages. In fact, I still run the thing, even though anyone that responds is probably not a client I want.

Direct mail professionals don't need my critique. They know to test and let the marketplace critique their efforts in a very real way.

But I'm fascinated to see what folks out there are doing.

When someone asks for a critique, I never say whether the piece is good or bad, or whether I like it or not. Long ago, I realized I can't judge good direct mail. It judges me.

If the mailing works—brings in orders, inquiries or donations at an acceptable cost per order—it's good direct mail. As a direct marketing journalist, my job is to find those efforts that are working and try to figure out why.

What I do in the free critique is point out where the mailing breaks accepted rules.

The Sam's Club free-standing insert (FSI) I received in my Inquirer last Thursday broke a ton of rules.

It's OK to break rules, but only if you know the rules you are breaking—and why.

The Sam's Club people obviously didn't.

Thanksgiving
My wife, Peggy, and I live in a 16-foot wide 1817 row house in Center City, Philadelphia. We don't have a lot of space, so we don't buy a lot of stuff or large quantities of food.

A number of our friends swear by Sam's Club and Costco. For example, whenever the church puts on a dinner or reception, committee members head to Costco and load up on very good food at low prices. Other friends go on joint food buying expeditions and then split up the hoard.

However, this Thanksgiving our little house will be bulging as 10 of us sit down to a turkey dinner. The chrome and glass table with two extension leaves will literally fill the entire parlor. We have done this several times before. Seating is tight, but it works OK.

So when I received an FSI in my Philadelphia Inquirer inviting me to a "Holiday Taste of Sam's Club," I thought that a quick drive to Sam's Club for a single shopping destination might be more convenient than running all over town to myriad stores while fighting traffic and dealing with parking.

The longer I studied the four-page piece, the more I realized the marketing folks at Sam's Club aren't only utterly incompetent, but also not very nice.

The Cover Panel
It's an odd-sized brochure—10 x 10-1/2 that opens up to 10-1/2 x 20—four-color throughout. The cover panel is a stopper, with five life-sized bites of delicious-looking food on silver spikes, including a shrimp and a hunk of chocolate cake that generated saliva in the mouth of this chocoholic.

Although much of the gold headline type disappeared into the rich red and maroon background, this designer obeyed one of the cardinal rules I learned from running the Better Homes and Gardens book clubs: Never show small pictures of food.

The Inside Spread
That said, inside you'll find more than 100 little pictures of food. What's more, the rest of the piece is simply unreadable—an ill-designed blizzard of sans serif mousetype either surprinted over busy backgrounds or reversed out of dark red and brown backgrounds.

Here are the broken rules: 

• No headline. 

In the middle of the inside left page is a modest 18-point copy block:
Get a taste of how
EASY, ELEGANT AND AFFORDABLE
Holiday entertaining can be

Beneath that is an offer—in 10-point gold mousetype overpowered by the maroon background:

You're invited to the Holiday Taste of Sam' s Club, ® a three-day celebration of festive food samples, party-planning solutions and demonstrations taking place November 21-23. Whether it's the annual family affair or office get-together, we'll help you plan the perfect event that goes perfectly with any budget.

This discreet, buried little copy block should be a screaming headline splayed out in big type across the top of this giant, two-page spread.

"The headline is the ticket on the meat," said the legendary David Ogilvy. "The wickedest of all sins is to run an advertisement without a headline," he wrote in "Confessions of an Advertising Man."

Other Ogilvy design rules the Sam's Club artist disregarded:

• "Type smaller than nine-point is difficult for most people to read."
• "Never set your copy in reverse (white type on a black background) and never set it over a gray or colored tint. The old school of art directors believed that these devices forced people to read the copy; we now know that they make reading physically impossible." The entire piece—front, back and inside spread—breaks this rule.
• "Serif type is easier to read than sans serif type." The piece is loaded with sans serif mousetype.

The copy blocks in the Sam's Club piece are seven-point. Two are in five-point type. In addition, it's not clearly explained how Sam's Club works. In a panel on the back is this second offer:

Invitation to Join
Where: Your Local Sam's Club®
When: Good Through November 23, 2008
How: Bring This Invitation to Your Local Club

If you join the same day, you'll receive a $10 Gift Card for use beginning at our Members-only Day After Thanksgiving Event.

Below that invitation is this copy block of disclaimers, caveats and other qualifiers, no doubt dreamed up by Sam's Club lawyers. It's unreadable, set in light gray, five-point sans serif type against a tan background:

This invitation is good for one day. Only original certificates will be accepted. Information necessary to assign a one-day Membership number will be collected at time of use. A 10% service fee applies on all purchases made with one-day memberships (not applicable in CA, SC or Elmsford, NY). You must pay for your purchases with cash, debit card (see Club for qualifying networks). Wal-Mart Credit, MasterCard or Discover cards only (no checks). You may apply for Membership, subject to qualifications, while visiting any Sam's Club locations or online at samsclub.com. To view our privacy policy, visit samsclub.com. Use by November 23, 2008.

Nowhere does it say that I'm invited to enjoy a one-day membership. Nowhere am I told my cost for this one-day membership. Nowhere am I told how much a regular membership costs. In addition, if I accept this invitation and go to Sam's Club, I will be hit with a couple of unpleasant surprises—a 10% service fee and the inability to pay by check. If I question either of these two qualifiers, the clerk at the checkout will pull out the invitation and smugly show me the CYA qualifier in unreadable five-point type.

And Nowhere Am I Told Where Sam's Club Is
In 73 years on this planet, I've never received an invitation to an event without being told where the event would take place. Instead, here I'm told to bring this invitation to my "local club." I don't have a local club. Nowhere on this invitation is there a phone number to call to find out where the nearest Sam's Club is.

The Sam's Club Web site is mentioned twice in the five-point disclaimer box above. I went on the Web site, typed my ZIP code into the store directory and found six Sam's Clubs within 25 miles from where I live. None is in Center City Philadelphia. In order to find the nearest Sam's Club, I must search MapQuest. To find the nearest one and get the directions, I have to MapQuest all six. This is work.

In short, Sam's Club has spent a ton of money to make an unpleasant, unclear offer that requires a great deal of effort. And in the end, I'd pay extra to take advantage of it.

Further, a vast percentage of city dwellers don't have cars. Others are turkey-and-mashed potatoes people who wouldn't dream of lobster bisque, New Zealand Frenched lamb rack or the "Black Tie Gourmet Appetizer Collection" (12 each: Seafood Crab Cakes; Mushroom Turnovers; Spinach & Cheese Stars, Mini Cheese Puffs, 48 count).

In terms of money, if the cost per thousand to run this FSI in newspapers was X, the actual cost per thousand to reach valid Sam's Club prospects—those with gourmet palates, money, cars and are unhappy with their current supermarkets—was more like 5X to 10X.

Given these horrific economic times, wasted advertising is a crime against stockholders.