Australia: Direct Mail is Booming

In the global junk mail world, Australians are among the underprivileged, forced to exist on just 208 pieces of junk mail a person each year, according to Gary Lee, the Australia Post executive who runs the core letters business. Lucky Western Europeans get about 400 pieces a person, depending on the country. And Americans enjoy a lip-smacking 700-plus pieces of junk mail each nearly 200 billion pieces zipping from coast to coast annually. So while we stagger beneath our modest burden of ‘transactional and promotional’ mail – the delicate euphemism used by direct mail companies – and debate whether privacy laws can lighten it, Australia Post officials and mailing house executives rub their hands in glee. Insisting that only ‘unaddressed’ supermarket and take-away food flyers crammed into letter-boxes deserve to be called junk mail, they look at the huge gap in junk mail rates and confidently expect that the business will continue to grow faster than the wider economy.” Ben Potter states: “The Australian direct marketing business is worth $13 billion and is growing at 7 to 8 per cent a year, says Scott McClellan, communications director for the Australian Direct Marketing Association. ‘I think there is room for considerable growth in this country and, notwithstanding what you might hear from so-called privacy advocates, there’s a high degree of consumer acceptance,’ he says. ‘If people weren’t welcoming these offers, the industry wouldn’t be growing at the rate it is.