New technologies and the business of delivery

The onslaught of new technology continues to bombard us on a daily basis – each great new thing promising to solve some, if not all our problems. Unfortunately few deliver on their promises and we are quickly encouraged to buy the next great ‘thing’ – built-in obsolescence seems to be a way of life – replace don’t repair.

If we look back over the last 10 years technology used to have a positive impact on mail volumes, as companies used the mail as an effective and ‘trusted’ channel to get to prospective customers and generate interest and hopefully sales. I have noticed in the last few years that this trend has tailed off and companies now rely on web and magazine advertising to generate interest and sales. This is however a potentially risky strategy as there are zillions of web pages now and over 2,000 magazines available in the UK (although only 300+ are actually stocked by the likes of W H Smiths). In the US however, recent figures from TNS Media Intelligence report that advertising spend has reduced by over 14% 2008 vs 2009 – with the biggest advertising spend coming from the automotive sector which I guess is no real surprise. In contrast advertising mail in the US has only declined around 5.6% (USPS Household Diary) in the same period.

So what is the future for mail in the advertising mix over the next 5 years – will it survive or will it continue to decline as companies favour cheaper and more interactive online channels. There seems to be some polarisation on the topic with some pundits predicting its decline into a commodity low cost channel which only serves a low value market, and then there are others who predict that although volumes will fall, it will be increasingly seen as a way of getting ‘eyeballs’ in the overcrowded marketing channel.

For some time mail has been seen as a complimentary channel to customers – working with other channels to reinforce the message and a way of driving interest to online resources.

One of the things I have been disappointed with is that the advertising mail I receive today looks pretty much the same as it did 10 years ago – just more of it. Many of the great ‘inventions’ which build this connection between offline and online have never come to mass market. I remember a couple of years ago seeing a technology where a 2D barcode when shown to a webcam turned an apparent video on the page – a truly amazing technology that seems to have disappeared – whereas something like this could have transformed the mail channel, bring back the cool factor.

In 2006 it was announced that 3D barcode technology could hold up to 1.8Mb of information – enough to encode a video when a mobile phone camera is used to read it? These are similar to QR codes which can, however, only store around 72k but by using multi layer printing the storage capacity can be significantly increased. Where is this technology today?

Why have these technologies not taken off? What has stopped advertisers bringing new technologies to the mail channel? Why has the industry remained in the 1980s?

I hope this post will generate some responses and hopefully provide some examples of how the mail channel is responding to the 21st century demands of the consumer as, certainly from my point of view, all I see is more of the same old same old! Although I have been a great supporter and exponent of the mail over the last 20 years I am starting to believe the pundits who are predicting its demise – prove me wrong!