Views > copywriting Dominance is short-lived


communications medium—declining relevance. Way, way back in the mid-1970s, I began a series of columns for the dearly departed Direct Marketing magazine. The publisher, “Pete” Hoke, had his hands firmly on the tiller of direct response relevance. The publication had no apparent challengers, and my column, “Creative Strategies”, ran in 200 consecutive issues.


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But what’s this? Another column, in the same issue, with the same column title, “Creative Strategies”? And that other column had a focus well outside our orbit. And what’s this? Bylined stories whose blatant purpose was to glorify the author. Ah! No surprise, then, that competition rose up


friendly warning to Facebook and Twitter and YouTube: Don’t let the arrogance that invariably accompanies quick success blind you to the troll lurking under the bridge of every


from the mists. And then, with faded relevance credentials, the once-mighty publication was gone.


By then I had established what became my US flagship outlet, an ongoing column in Direct. Every facet was perfect: The title of my column was “Curmudgeon at Large”, enabling me to do what I do best—criticise other people’s creative work. The editor was Ray Schultz, one of the sharpest and most perspicacious editors who ever wielded a blue pencil. What could upset such a golden load?


Beats me. After about 25 years of glory, suddenly the magazine no longer existed. Might it be that the volcanic direct response universe mirrors the daily newspaper situation, in which competition for attention by electronic media first rendered afternoon newspapers irrelevant and then began to eat into reader-attention and advertising income of morning newspapers? For the moment, I think I’m safe in this publication. (My presence is required only six times a year.) Relevance stands high, and competitors have disappeared.


Look out, Facebook All right, what does this have to do with


Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, MySpace, Friendster, and the fifty other social media that probably have sprung up over the past 24 hours? This: Note that number, 24 hours. It’s unstretchable. Time spent skimming through one medium is time not spent skimming through another medium. As is true in any competitive situation, whether it’s golf, tennis, banking, fashion, entertainment, or you- name-it, dominance is short-lived. Whatever happened to once-gleaming auto marques such as Plymouth, Oldsmobile, Packard, Rover, Nash, Hillman, Humber, Sunbeam, and... well, you get the idea. Not enough buyer-prospects, in an always competitive marketplace, continued to regard them as relevant. You know the logic here, mighty logic that sometimes escapes even mighty leaders of commerce: when our targets become aware of our diminishing relevance before we do, theirs is the telling vote.


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The world wide web is price-driven. Price- driven automatically bestows relevance. An example is Groupon, a latecomer that exemplifies straightforward web marketing logic.


Direct Commerce Catalogue e-business www.catalog-biz.com relevance The relevance of by Herschell Gordon Lewis


Social media tend to lack the directness of a flat-out offer to do business and thus they implicitly have an albatross hung around their necks. They represent a two-way street, in which input by a disaffected individual or commercial enterprise we may be courting can have a discouraging impact on results and, competitively, on relevance.


So what?


Direct always has been a marketing niche. Sometimes the niche swings wide, as it did when ecommerce joined our team. Sometimes the niche narrows, as it did when Google and Twitter claimed a share of the “take”. The question on the table: to whom is a specific medium relevant? Repeat: to whom is a specific medium relevant?


Here, at this distinguished journal, the focus is unwavering. Messages are aimed foursquare at our targets. Messages, whether editorial or advertising, are relevant to our targets, who as often as not recognise the relevance at least as often and as quickly as we do. Can social media make that same claim?


Moving into an even more unsteady area, can social media tromp down on an already-shaky reputation as the new home for hyperbole, self-aggrandisement, and questionable claims? All these are relevance negatives, attitude affecters that can damage an entire medium. We know, even as we tailor messages to match a specific medium, that any and all negative-relevance is hog-tied to individual experiential backgrounds, current economic condition, and prejudices. That’s a given. That’s the competitive challenge. Okay, you would-be competitors. Ready when you are.


Herschell Gordon Lewis is president of Lewis Enterprises. He writes copy for and consults with direct response and catalogue companies worldwide. He is the author of 32 books including the recently published Internet Marketing Tips, Tricks, and Tactics.


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