The Big Fat Marketing Blog

Apparently two things are inevitable when you cover new marketing technology as much as I do. First, you become attuned to the point at which technical explanations no longer make sense, and you have to look for help in dumbing it down to their least-geeky essence.

And second, you’re almost bound to become something of a shade-tree legal expert, since almost all of these new tech platforms contain the seeds of class-action suits. more

Does the name Elmer Lynn Hauldren ring a bell?

If not, it’s because he didn’t sell bells, but carpeting. Lots of it. He was best known as the Empire Carpet Man, and he passed away at the age of 89 on April 27th, 2011.

If you grew up in the Midwest, this guy was a legend. Take a peek at one of his commercials here.

Unlike so many pitchmen, this guy was the grandfatherly type, who oozed honesty. R.I.P.

Anyone who reads Multichannel Merchant on a regular basis knows about the potential massive postal rate increase coming in the next year or two for catalogers. Some industry experts believe the U.S. Postal Service will phase the increase in over a span of a few years, rather than throw a 22% rate hike at catalogers in, say, 2012.

But nobody knows for sure.

The Postal Regulatory Commission’s Annual Compliance Determination for fiscal 2010 found that rates for Standard Mail flats are not in compliance with the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act when it comes to “a fair and equitable apportionment of the cost of postal operations.”

The attributable cost of Standard Mail flats in fiscal 2010 exceeded revenue by $577 million, resulting in a cost coverage of 82% with a loss of 8.2 cents per piece. The ACD directs the USPS to devise a plan to improve the cost coverage of Standard Mail flats.

The PRC wants the USPS to fix the problem swiftly, which could lead to a devastating rate increase of 22.3% to bring flats to full cost coverage.

I think one of the big questions lies in what can the industry do as a group to fight this potential rate hike. Hamilton Davison, president and executive director of the American Catalog Mailers Association, says that the letter mailers are being aggressive attacking catalogs. “They also have a lot of credibility with the PRC.” And the PRC prefers to base its decision on the written record submitted to it, “and that record is not flattering for catalogs.” more

As the late deadline for entering the 2011 PRO Awards looms (May 11), it’s an appropriate time to take a look back at last year’s Best Overall winner: “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day.” In addition to exceptional planning and execution, two outside influences helped raise that campaign to the top of the pack among hundreds and hundreds of stellar entries.

For one thing, the economy was a mess. Visits to Walt Disney World had fallen off and the expense of vacationing there, even for a day, was out of reach for many. So Disney offered 1 million people a free day at its parks if they donated some of their time and energy to a charity. more

The new duck will be done by a man from…Hugo, Minnesota. Here are the details, complete with a video of the new commercial that introduces the new quacker, courtesy of USA Today.

Every day, or so it seems, you hear how direct mail is dying and that eventually everything might be electronic.But what happens when the two are melded together?

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