The Apprentice….

FUNdamental · #1 (**permalink**) 01-16-2004, 04:37 PM

The scene- The women’s group was presenting an advertising pitch they designed to the high ups at the advertising agency. One of the geniuses giving the presentation says something like “our ad campaign mix will have television, newspaper, magazine, and direct mail.”

"Whoah," says the big time ad exec, continuing “Studies have shown for products like this, people really do just toss the mail out.” Or something like that,

Our heroine states proudly “but our direct mail campaign will only go to a ‘select’ list!”

There we have it, people a new dimension for direct marketing! According to one of the apprentices, list selection is the key to direct marketing being successful! Who would of thunk it! What a novel concept, nobody before has ever thought of target marketing through list selection! The concept of mailing only to a select group of people is just brilliant!

But seriously, folks,
What makes her statement so bone headed is she comes across stating the extremely routine process of direct marketing as her novel idea. Any direct mail campaign would normally go through the channels of target marketing through list selection. She presented nothing new, and acted to her superiors as if she had all the answers. Is she that naive to believe that her rebuttal of list selection was a concept no one had ever thought of before, and a direct mail campaign done by another would not go through such a process?”

If I were at the other side of the table, I would have thanked her for her time and walked out of the room and went back to work. Why should I waste my time watching a song and dance on a subject, clearly, she knows nothing about! How dare she insult the intelligence of someone she was trying to impress? Lesson in sales, people…Don’t ever assume you are smarter than your client, they wouldn’t be in their position if they were stupid.

This show may end up having more nuggets than the first Joe Millionaire!