Abstract
While letter volumes are declining overall (primarily driven by e-substitution), direct mail tells a slightly different story. The provision of direct mail is instead threatened by policy initiatives, notably: opt-out schemes, opt-in schemes, tax on direct mail, and data protection regulation. Regardless of which policy initiative we consider, its introduction has been primarily motivated by the cost of direct mail to society in terms of a negative environmental impact or unwanted nuisance to consumers. The positive value of direct mail to society has often been neglected. This paper makes a first attempt to analyze the socioeconomic value that direct mail bring to consumers and businesses. The results indicate that direct mail is likely to have a positive real value to businesses and consumers that should not be ignored when assessing and evaluating initiatives that will reduce direct mail volumes.
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Notes
- 1.
Data from WIK-Consult (2013) shows that the average number of letters per capita (across AT, DE, FI, FR, IE, NL, UK, CH, CY, ES, IT, MT, PT, BG, CZ, EE, HU, LT, SK, and HR) declined by roughly 3.5 items from 2010 to 2011, while the number of direct mail items per capita declined by 1.25 on average in the same time period.
- 2.
‘No Thanks’ – in place in most countries and sometimes extended to local newspapers, e.g., in Denmark.
- 3.
‘Yes Thanks’ – discussed in some countries, e.g., in Denmark and the UK.
- 4.
In place in Austria and Sweden and discussed in Belgium, Denmark, and in the US, where an Ad Tax has been proposed in Congress, reducing deductibility of businesses’ advertising costs. (Osterland 2014)
- 5.
Hindering companies from developing targeted communication towards consumers.
- 6.
This initiative primarily targets addressed direct mail, while unaddressed direct mail sent to the address, ‘the resident’, or ‘the household’, does not necessarily involve the use of personal data and data protection regulation may not apply to this type of mail.
- 7.
Targeted direct mail is direct mail distributed according to a segmentation of the recipients. For example, among detached houses and multi-household buildings without gardens, the non-garden owners only those in detached houses with gardens will be targeted with direct mail from a firm selling garden supplies.
- 8.
The report written by Union des Annonceurs (2006) is a condensed version of the original doctorate thesis written by Maximilien Nayaradou, University of Paris-Dauphine, which was first completed in 2004.
- 9.
‘Annual advertising expenditures of £16 billion support the advertising and creative industries and associated employment. (…) We estimate that advertising adds at least £100 billion to UK GDP.’ (Deloitte 2013)
- 10.
The tax harmonised different regional taxation schemes on advertising expenditure, cf. Rauch (2011).
- 11.
Conducted in week 15, 2014. The publications reviewed were sent from five different categories of senders: do-it-your-self chain stores, grocery chain stores, lifestyle chain stores (interior décor, book store, hobby store, hardware store, beauty retail), household electronics and shopping centres (regionally distributed). The stores included in the sample were: Bauhaus, Silvan, XL Byg, Harald Nyborg, Bilka, Fakta, Kvickly, Netto, Ilva, Imerco, Bøger og Papir, Matas, Computercity, Elgiganten, Punkt1/Expert, humac, Amager Centret, City 2, City Vest, and Lyngby Storcenter.
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Okholm, H.B., Boivie, A.M., Rølmer, S. (2015). Spam or Ham? Assessing the Value of Direct Mail. In: Crew, M., Brennan, T. (eds) Postal and Delivery Innovation in the Digital Economy. Topics in Regulatory Economics and Policy, vol 50. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12874-0_5
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