MediaTel

The IPA's director general, Hamish Pringle, has warned direct marketers to stop abusing interactive media, or face the wrath of consumers.

In a keynote speech at the recent IDM/PM Symposium, Pringle described email and SMS as the "most intrusive" direct marketing tools and said they could be potentially damaging to the industry.

He also spoke of worrying signs that the direct marketing industry is abusing the power of these interactive applications with inappropriate advertising campaigns and suggested that brands need to adopt a full set of "manners" to communicate with consumers ethically.

Pringle went on to address the growing problem posed by spam and pointed to the US, where currently around 90% of email traffic is junk. The majority of this junk mail advertises debt relief, impotence remedies and pornographic websites.

He called on the industry to wake up to the social and political climate of corporate responsibility and warned that the Direct Marketing Association is not immune to the increase in consumer activism. He pointed to companies that have faced trouble due to political or ethical issues such as Shell, Nike, Gap and Clifford Chance.

Pringle also tackled problems with the traditional forms of direct marketing, claiming that door-stepping is getting a bad name. A recent survey from the Trading Standard Institute shows that 95.7% of people do not want doorstep sellers calling at their home.

He went on to warn that the growth of random direct mail is likely to continue to downgrade the image of direct marketing. He claimed that bulk mailers have reduced the postal medium to commodity status with low added value and poor margins for agencies, whilst irritating customers, politicians and consumer groups and undermining brand values.

Pringle emphasised that the industry needs to defend itself with effective self-regulation and called on agencies to leave low-reward bulk-commodity work behind.

Earlier this week digital advertising solutions group, DoubleClick, unveiled a major research project into consumer attitudes to spam, as part of a series of initiatives to tackle the growing problem of junk email (see DoubleClick Teams With AOL For Spam Crackdown).

IPA: 020 7235 7020 www.ipa.co.uk

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