AdAge reports on over a dozen states considering do-not-mail lists. My colleague Pete Blackshaw has a few nice quotes in the feature, including:
In short, marketers will have to open their own doors and figure out ways to lure customers in, said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics, who adds it’ll probably get worse before it gets better. "We’ve reached this perfect storm of consumer power and advertising intrusion. The inevitable outcome of marketers continuing their siesta of indifference or inaction is regulation, and I think the next election cycle-coupled with a Democratic-controlled Congress-is going to accelerate overtures for oversight.
For all you state legislators out there, listen up: I – a New York resident and voter – support this initiative! I’m not against occasional and relevant mail solicitations, but the snail spam is so bad that a short trip away from our old apartment last year resulted in a broken mailbox – from the massive overflow of junk. Seriously, the lock broke when the mailman tried to stuff it all in there. I’m talking about three days of mail!
I’m sure, though, that any states legislation would run up against United States Postal Service interests. The NYTimes reported in November 2006 on USPS stats indicating that junk – aka “direct” – mail grew 15 percent year versus five years prior. And that year, for the first time, the volume of bulk mail, which is all direct mail, exceeded first class. I commented on that here, including the startling snail-spam-is-better-email-spam-because-it-is-less-oppressive mindset of some direct marketers.