Award Winning Blog - Agitator

Threat To Direct Mail

Here’s a subtle example of the "forces" aligning to diminish the future viability of direct mail. Seth Godin writes here about "Profligate." He makes the point that consumers increasingly will be offended by wasteful packaging. It will affect their purchase decisions. Apply that to "wasteful" direct mail. Environmental groups in particular have always felt varying degrees […]

Learn More February 15, 2008

What Do Women Want … On the Net?

This article from Ad Age says that 2007 was the year that women became more than 50% of online users. What do women want online? Ad Age pulled some factoids from various studies, for example: Community — visits to "women’s community" sites like iVillage jumped 35% last year, and such sites tied with "politics" as […]

Learn More February 14, 2008

Her News Isn’t His News

Men and women differ in the kind of news they follow, and what news sources they use, as this report from Pew Research confirms. Men constitute roughly 60% or more of the audience for Washington news (59% men), International (63%), Business/financial (65%), Science/technology (69%), and Sports (74%). And men disproportionately lean to radio and online […]

Learn More February 13, 2008

The Spam Museum

Sometimes you just have to ask yourself … “How could I possibly gotten so far in life without knowing about this?!” That's what hit me when I visited the SPAM Museum, at the suggestion of Agitator reader Charles Langley, of the Utility Consumers' Action Network in San Diego. Age-old questions are answered on this site, […]

Learn More February 12, 2008

Obama: Did I Mention The Money?

Two contradictory thoughts … 1. If you didn't do this long ago, you must make a small online donation to Barack Obama, just to get on his list and learn what aggressive online fundraising is all about. 2. I'm sick of getting online fundraising appeals from Barack Obama! I just read the last 50 emails […]

Learn More February 11, 2008

Hope & Love … Yeah, Right!

Seth Godin says that people take action based on one of three emotions … fear, hope, or love. Not to play semantics, but I think this is a somewhat limited palette of emotions. For many in the direct response biz, the key emotional drivers consist of the “Super Seven” … FearFlatteryGreed/AdvantageGuiltAngerExclusivitySalvation/Hope This is a pretty […]

Learn More February 8, 2008