One Size Fits Most from Gregory Ng on Vimeo.

I received an amazing piece of direct mail yesterday from McDonald’s. Yes, McDonald’s. This piece, written in Chinese, is marketing 2 new chicken sandwiches.

Now, as a Chinese American I get mail and phone solicitations all the time in Chinese. As a direct marketer, I know that my name on a mail file is sorted and tagged as “Chinese”, this despite the fact that I can;t read or speak a word of Chinese.

But what makes this piece strange to me is not that they assumed I spoke Chinese but that they made some assumption that Chinese people like chicken sandwiches. After all, there must be a few other CHinese people who received this printed piece besides me.

In fact, if you look closely, you will notice a few other insights into McDonald’s strategy: People eat chicken for breakfast! Because McDonald’s Southern Style Chicken Biscuit is positioned as an “AM” sandwich. In addition, people apparently only like pickles on their chicken sandwiches. And finally, and perhaps most importantly, McDonald’s feels that sending FREE coupons in the mail to Chinese people will get them to come into the restaurant. I, for one, will use it because I can;t pass up something for FREE.

P.S. One thing McDonald’s should know is most Chinese people prefer dark meat.

Chalk this up to an idea that I just don’t have the time to pursue on my own. So I decided to post this up here so hopefully Apple or another enterprising company can jump on. The idea is this: Using your iPhone as a Wish List barcode Scanner.

Imagine going to any store in the world, seeing something you like and then telling everyone who matters to you that you want it. Now imagine that instead of having to write down the store, the product name, or color choice, you simply use the camera function in your iPhone, scan the barcode on the item, and it auto-populates to your .mac wish list. Read more…

There is an interesting article in the New York Times today about the attitudes of women towards gadgets as well as how tech makers are responding to them.

The Times article explains that “Only a few years ago, feminizing a consumer electronic product meant little more than creating a pink or pastel version of the same black or silvery item coveted by men. And, some retailers note, that kind of marketing still goes on. But feminizing technology is more about a product’s fundamentals, often expressed in its ease of use. It is not always aimed exclusively at women, but it is female friendly.” Read more…

Whether you are a designer or an account executive, if you consider yourself a direct marketer, you need to understand data. Before you go and jump off a building because you are a self-proclaimed “idiot at math” and the word “data” makes you cringe, think about this for a minute:

We are in the business of causing people to act. Why do we cause people to act? So that we can sell products or services, of course. That’s the benefit to the client. Why do direct marketing agencies want to cause people to act? It’s because without action, we have nothing measureable and without measureable response, we have no success or failure to the project. We are all still on the same page right?

Ok. So guess what? We can’t even begin to concept a strategically viable direct marketing campaign without data. And once that campaign launches, we can’t possibly learn anything without the proper benchmarks in place. Again, the data. And when we launch subsequent campaigns and build out more robust communication cadences, the data is our compass. Read more…