By Josh Taylor, graphic designer
As a graphic designer at an advertising and PR agency, I’m charged with finding creative ways to send information on behalf of our clients. While it’s becoming increasingly rare to send direct mail, it still happens. The problem with direct mail is it’s often as well received as a telemarketing call – except instead of being hung up on it gets thrown away.
And that’s the challenge: make the mailer so interesting that the recipient’s gut reaction isn’t “trash, trash, bill, trash” but something more like “trash, trash, bill, oooooooh.” There’s a lot to consider before getting creative on a mailed piece: Can it be any shape? How small or large can it get? How much postage does this bad boy need?
To help us answer these questions (and to have a little productive fun in the office), we set up an experiment: find objects around the office we didn’t think would make it through the mail, slap some postage on them, and drop them in the mailbox. No envelopes. No containers. No packaging. Au naturel, if you will.
We began with sending a CD. Then, we sent a Kleenex, a business card, a dollar bill, a drum head and finished up our experiment with a fully inflated Jerry French doll from the French Paper Company. I won’t lie; I was very surprised to find almost every item successfully arrived at its destination, especially Jerry.The one item that didn’t make it through, sadly, was a big yellow highlighter.
Frankly, we were surprised that so many items did. Even the Kleenex made it through without any damage. Now it hangs, with the rest of the successfully mailed pieces, on the wall above my desk.
As market researchers, we learned how few limits there are on what can be mailed. With enough postage, it’s just about anything! So kudos to the post office. They even put some items in “we care” plastic bags or envelopes to protect them, and complied with our highlighted request to not deflate Jerry.
Tags: advertising, borshoff, marketing, public relations
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This is a really cool post. I’m always measuring aspect ratio and all the other ridiculous requirements… and yet you managed to mail all this. Thanks for the laugh.
Imagine my surprise when I opened my mailbox and found Jerry’s feet sticking out! I started laughing my head off in my driveway.
Great post! I hope we can put this idea to use with upcoming Alumni and giving campaigns.
This was an awesome project. Anyone else have any stories about fun things sent through the mail? Or maybe a challenge?