While Steve Vaughan's comments on direct mail are pretty downbeat, and I agree that the age of "carpet bombing" campaigns is likely over, I'm also of the opinion that the credit crunch could herald a golden age for one-piece mailers.
Witness the success of Boden's brilliant but simple personalised postcard campaign to re-engage lapsed shoppers. Just a postcard, but beautifully designed and executed.
The Chelsea Flower Show turned out to be a sell-out despite early jitters about attendance, and the power of print had a significant part to play in that. The RHS's first use of a promo mailer to galvanise ticket sales for the event proved a resounding success. Here, a straightforward but striking design based on a 4pp A5 single-fold did the trick.
Other notable items landing on my own doormat include a Time Out subs offer in an interesting format whereby a slightly oversized A3 piece is folded down into a 145x295mm attention-grabbing mailing. Clever.
Last but not least, a more complicated treatment promoting Unilever's Surf Small & Mighty brand involves a jaunty A5 format die-cut wardrobe shape with gatefold "doors" that open to reveal two scratch and sniff scent patches, plus a perfed promo voucher attached to one of the doors. Although a pretty complex example, this again is a one-piece product.
I realise this may not be music to the ears of envelope makers. But for printers faced with lackadaisical clients who are a bit jaded about DM, may I suggest it has to be worth trying an upbeat conversation about the sort of simple but effective one-piece mailing that really can work wonders.
