Pitney Bowes is closely aligned with the mailing industry, so what are your thoughts on the increasing postage costs blighting many countries in recent months?
It poses a threat and an opportunity, and certainly puts more pressure on people thinking how they can make a mailing really work. However, marketers are always thinking about return on investment, so if they can increase the response rate from 1% to 1.5%, they’re a hero and the mailing cost doesn’t matter as much.

Transpromo is another key trend, but take-up seems slow.
One of the challenges is that people who produce the mail are not necessarily the same people who would like to use it as an advertising medium. So it’s really about trying to get the marketing people in the same organisation thinking about what they can do with the white space on a document. We’re currently experimenting with a forum where we can bring these sorts of people together.

Your secure digital mailbox system Volly is an interesting development – has beta testing in the US been completed?
We’re already rolling it out in the sense that we’re signing up mailers in the US, the analogy is iTunes, which wasn’t launched until Apple had secured content from the record companies. We’re going to mailers first, so when we officially launch, the average user will be able to find 50% of their bills online. We hope that in the second half we will be ready for a ‘consumer’ launch. We will also be launching in Australia around that time too, where it will be branded as Australia Post.

Partnerships are clearly important to you – is there a lesson there for the industry?
If the whole industry pulls together and focuses on ways of making communication more effective, there’s a good future for all.