Creative Travels

National Geographic Society’s rich heritage guides it through new territory

June 2007 By Linda Formichelli

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When you think of the National Geographic Society, you may envision the iconic yellow-bordered magazine that you sneaked peeks at as a kid in hopes of catching a glimpse of naked tribespeople. But while the photo-packed magazine is a big part of what the nonprofit organization does, there's so much more to it than that.

The National Geographic Society is a Washington, D.C.-based membership organization that offers not one, but five magazines, as well as books, DVDs, TV programs, educational courses, webcasts, museum exhibitions, concerts, lectures, film screenings and even the National Geographic Bee, a geographic version of the old-fashioned spelling bee. While its vision statement is "inspiring people to care about the planet," Bill McBee, senior copywriter in the marketing services division, says that another motto motivates much of what the Society does: "The world and all that's in it," which was inspired by inventor and former National Geographic President Alexander Graham Bell.

Just as the Society's offerings are an amalgamation of complementary products that help people explore "the world and all that's in it," its direct mail campaigns arise from the efforts of experts in many different divisions. You usually think of direct mail as the product of, say, a writer and a graphic designer, but at the Society, everyone is involved-from the map division to the research library (yes, you read that last word correctly; more to come later on how this division fits into the direct marketing picture). These divisions all contribute to creating direct mail campaigns for travel tours, membership and magazine subscriptions, and catalog items like atlases and DVDs, while staying true to the well-known National Geographic brand.

Old Brand, New Ways

National Geographic is a huge brand. Is there anyone who doesn't recognize instantly the yellow-border logo, or who hasn't seen its lushly photographed magazines or its science programs on TV? The acclaimed brand carries over naturally into every aspect of its direct mail campaigns. "The brand is so well-incorporated and internalized and organic here that we don't think too terribly much about it," says Karen Rice Gardiner, director of creative services in the marketing services division. "It's not something we apply at the end of our project-it's something that's there from the beginning."

Everyone involved in a direct mail project has access to a brand-guideline Web site that includes such data as an introduction to the National Geographic brand; a legal perspective on brand management; the graphic details of the logo, including size and color options; how to use the logo with brand extensions and sub-brands; and when and how to use its other icons, such as the seal and the flag. There's also a style guideline for copywriting. "So, there is an overarching scheme that we adhere to gladly, because it's part of what National Geographic is," says Truly Herbert, associate creative director in the marketing services division. "We don't have to reinvent the wheel every time."

The Society has a 119-year-old record of reliability, trustworthiness and accuracy that has to be reflected in the copy of every direct mail package. "We try to wash the text clean grammatically and stylistically, and we check facts and make sure a cohesive piece goes out," says Nancy Correll, the senior release editor in the marketing services division. "The face we show to the world will make or break us. With the brand being as golden as it is, this guides us in making each piece as perfect as possible." Adds McBee, "We're up there with The New Yorker in terms of checking our facts." The team relies on the Society's research librarians to help make sure the statements in the copy are correct. In the new millennium, the Society's librarians have gone from filers of books and documents to information seekers and researchers on topics ranging from branding to space exploration to Pu Yi (the last emperor of China, who recently was mentioned in catalog copy).

Working with such an old, venerable brand often means having to educate people who are "stuck in the past," which can make marketers' jobs more challenging. "I think our brand is so pervasive in our culture that we sometimes have to fight with that brand to establish ourselves anew when we go into new markets and new media," says Herbert. "People say, ‘Oh, I didn't know that National Geographic had five magazines,' or ‘I didn't know that National Geographic did webcasts.' We're constantly reassessing our brand while staying true to the original mission and ideas. That makes it fun."

It's a careful balancing act: When a brand has been around as long as National Geographic, marketers have to be creative and develop fresh approaches to introduce people to new products-but not so much that the target market used to the "old ways" is turned off. "We never want to alienate our current readership, so we're really careful about the way we do things around here," says Rice Gardiner. "In fact, we have a market research group that helps us gauge information and feedback from our readers. We have a lot of tools to make sure we're meeting our mark."

The Creative Process

The process of creating and sending a direct mail package again harks back to the Society's unofficial motto, "the world and all that's in it." Coming up with ideas to test is a collaborative process that involves input from different departments. "The creative staff comes to the meeting with some ideas they want to try, and the product managers have ideas they want to try, and the product managers' bosses have ideas they want to try," laughs Rice Gardiner. "So we end up with 30 to 40 ideas, but they get winnowed down." The participants build on one another's ideas: For example, one party will mention that the mailing doesn't fulfill a certain role it wants it to, and another party will think up a way to tweak the mailing so it will work. Says Rice Gardiner, "It's layer after layer of expertise and creativity applied until we get to a package that we think is worth the money to mail."

Because the creative team works with such diverse groups in the business, it's able to borrow ideas from one area and apply them to another. For example, says Rice Gardiner, it might take copy from a promotion for its All Roads Film Project and rework it to apply to a direct mail piece for a magazine. This lets the team make creative leaps it might not have were it stuck working on campaigns for just one division.

The collaboration doesn't end with borrowing between different departments and different campaigns-the team also sometimes borrows from the past, meaning it takes a fresh look at ideas that didn't succeed originally. "Maybe five years ago it didn't go over, and five years later it's time for it and we run with it," says Herbert. "There's turnover and there's changing of minds, and sometimes great ideas just need time." Case in point, the Society has been wanting to come out with a magazine for the 2-to-5-year-old age group. After two unsuccessful attempts to sell such a product through direct mail, National Geographic Little Kids finally took off after a third attempt in January 2007. "I don't know if it took consumers time to get used to the idea, or it needed to reach some tipping point where people knew enough about it to respond, but it has grown phenomenally and does very well with grandparents who get National Geographic magazine," says Herbert.

Gifted Members

Memberships, which include magazine subscriptions, that people buy as gifts are a big part of the Society's business. "It's maybe 30 percent of our membership," says McBee. The "donors" come in two types: those who already are members, and those who are not. Those who are not members-"nonsubscribing donors"-are good targets for membership solicitations because they're already "pre-sold" through feedback from the recipients of their gifts, and they're also much less expensive to target than new donors in terms of name acquisition and direct mail packages.

The Society doesn't offer premiums to nonsubscribing donors. "We tested out of them," says McBee. "We had a decal that said ‘Supporter of the National Geographic Society' that was effective, but as these things tend to do, they fatigued." Instead, the Society now offers donors membership prices that are less than the usual membership price. "There was a time when we resisted this perhaps more than other magazines," McBee says. "For a long time, one price was the rule of the land, but now we have tiered pricing." It's difficult to convert nonsubscribing donors into members, but McBee says the Society plans to keep trying since it's so much less expensive than acquiring new business.

Testing, Testing

Every mailing in every cycle is an opportunity to test prices, premiums and offer presentation. "We're trying to get orders, so we mail a control package, but we save some names to test," explains Rice Gardiner. "We normally allow only 20 percent of the universe of names to be used for testing, so the other 80 percent delivers the orders we need." That means for a large mailing, say of 20 million names, the team can conduct as many as 30 tests. The most challenging aspect for the marketing services team is making sure it has all the pieces for the many different packages; luckily, the kinds of variables it tests, such as changes to a premium insert or an order form, can be created and printed fairly easily and inexpensively. Also, the group has noticed that a mailing that tests well at 25,000 names typically doesn't do as well at a million, so it factors that knowledge in; a mailing has to be a strong winner at 25,000 to be rolled out to a larger audience.

Even the controls occasionally are back-tested. Says Rice Gardiner, "Sometimes controls fade ... they just get tired. That's just a fact of life."

And every so often test results surprise the group. "Every idea we go to the trouble to produce, we say, 'I'm so sure it's going to win,' and we're dumbfounded when it doesn't," says Rice Gardiner. "That's the nature of direct marketing." But surprise isn't necessarily a bad thing; occasionally, a package succeeds that the group thought had a slim chance. For instance, in 2004 it mailed out a poly-bagged, folded world map (which was created in-house by the Society's map division) as a front-end premium along with a membership acceptance voucher, a return envelope and a buckslip that touted National Geographic as the perfect gift for the entire family. "We mailed the premium as our solicitation, and it did really, really well," says Rice Gardiner. "We were surprised that we were able to make it work and pay for it."

Another surprise was how much one little change could affect the response to a campaign. Four years ago, the Society changed the name of its kids' magazine from National Geographic World to National Geographic Kids. "The growth of the magazine since then has been amazing," says McBee. "The content of the magazine has always been superb, but I think everyone was somewhat astonished that something so seemingly small could have such a profound effect. It was instructive of being clear."

The Mail Persuasion

In May 2007, the U.S. Postal Service rolled out a new approach to pricing based on the shape of mail, not just the weight. For a company that mails about 175 million packages per year in 330 campaigns, this can mean mass-mail confusion-and higher prices, even at the nonprofit rate. Luckily, the Society's current control package for its flagship magazine won't be affected as it's a #10 envelope voucher format; the prior control was a 4"x 73/4" polybag effort that contained a specimen issue and an envelope-clad, voucher-style invitation to become a member. Although this mailing had been a strong performer for a couple years, it was expensive to produce and mail-and under the new postal rates for flats, it would have been tough to make work. The current control beat out the polybag control in the nick of time; the marketing services division had conducted testing in 2005 and moved to rollout just last year.

A surprising benefit of the new postal rates and regulations is that the Society now may be able to do some more aggressive pre-sorting, which will save it money. "For some other [marketers'] packages that are larger than the new size for letters, they're looking for different ways to mail what they have," says Rice Gardiner. "I'm sure we'll be doing some downsizing on some things, but there hasn't been a wholesale rush to redesign everything because the things we mail the most aren't being affected." The Society, in addition to having such impressive help as a map division and a research library, also has a postal division with a liaison to the Postal Service, so it will be working to see how the nitty-gritty of the new regulations will affect its mailings.

Fresh Delivery

From collaborating with far-flung divisions to coming up with ideas that are fresh yet in tune with the time-honored brand, the direct mail projects at the National Geographic Society mirror the exciting content of its magazines. "Every day is an adventure when you work here," says Rice Gardiner. "Things come up all the time, and when they do they're a lot of fun to work on. There's plenty of creative challenges to be had."

Linda Formichelli is a freelance writer based in New Hampshire. She's also written about marketing to professional photographers for this issue. She can be reached at linda-eric@lserv.com.  

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