Time change. But our ability to reach our targets is not keeping up-at-least not with "mass" media.

A changing media landscape
The mass media of 20 years ago was remarkably simple in structure. Three TV networks, regional/local radio, the "Seven Sisters" of women's magazines (plus Cosmopolitan for the racy crowd) and newspaper comprised a good portion of the packaged goods media choices. Everybody was happy and media blitzes in those vehicles generated big results.

However, the days of uncomplicated TV buys with cheap and effective GRP's are gone. We now have two TV universes: cable (57%) and non-cable (43%). Cable programming can claim 24% to 45% of viewing time. And cable strength is growing.

Further, TV is becoming extremely fragmented in audience structure. In fact, today's TV programming reads like CACT's 47 different lifestyle clusters: "Roseanne" for the low-mid income blue-collar group; "Golden Girls" for the seniors; "Empty Nest" families with older children and empty nesters, etc!

Beyond prime and cable, independents and even the network affiliates are running half-hour "advertorials" on hair growth, weight loss, real estate and used cars. Enter the world of junk TV.

For its part, radio continues to narrow its audiences with major markets holding shares in formats that used to be splinters at best. New age, jazz, talk (by segment - personal, financial, business), news, big band, etc., all maintain an audience.

NPR (National Public Radio) has contributed by stepping out of its traditional classical mode with excellent jazz, country and blues programming. The American Radio Theater is continuing to build audiences and "Car Talk" is one of the funniest and most popular shows on radio anywhere.

Magazines have segmented and specialized to the point of shakeout. The growth rate of consumer titles is 80% + since 1970 to over 2,160. Building visibility with any group of consumers via magazines is a true test of psychographic reach analysis and media buyer courage.

Advertising and the media planner
In fact, Anthony O'Reilly, the president of H.J. Heinz recently called the 90s "the decade of the media planner."

The optimists will say that media dollars may now be spent more effectively if they're targeted properly. Others look at the amount of media clutter consumers are now exposed to - both in the form of tremendous increase in media alternatives and in sheet tonnage of communication - and they don't like what they see.

Key media criteria for the 60s - efficiency, effectiveness of position of placement and frequency are inadequate. You can meet those criteria and still miss your target.

In fact, conceptually, the idea of mass media is giving way to the notion of global point-to-point communications. This is reinforced not only through home shopping on cable, but all around us in other electronic forms; fax machines, teleconferencing, and electronic bulletin boards.

Our ability to reach a mass audience with mass media is actually declining; yet our ability to really target groups is not being effectively achieved by the mass media in spite of the attempts in that direction.

Direct mail comes of age
Most of the packaged goods marketing professionals I know and worked with over the past 17 years have always looked somewhat askance at direct mail. It was never a substantive part of the packaged goods marketing menu. Of course, there would be coupon delivery and promotion vehicles like Donnelly's "Carol Wright" program.

We were probably justified in our thinking. Mailing lists were crude and unreliable. Mailings were expensive and there was a "junk mail" stigma attached to direct mail that self-respecting agency creative (and the rest of us) didn't want wany part of. (Although, now that I've seen George Hamliton selling cosmetics on the half-hour TV "advertorials" referred to above, junk mail seems pretty tame.)

But progress in technology (much of it occurring outside of the direct mail field) over the past 10 years is changing many perceptions of direct mail. Fourth generation computer and database technology, census and other data collection techniques, sophistication of UPS targeting capabilities, the rampant success of direct mail catalog services like Land's End, L.L. Bean, etc., suggest direct mail is now a legitimate tool for many business categories.

Selling automobiles is a current example. In a recent issue of Ad Age, Michale D. Williams, a data base manager at Porsche talks about the Porsche "300,000," a group of carefully screened high-potential prospects who will receive direct mail solicitations on Porsche. The most striking of his comments is this: " We have access to a lot more information, a lot more specifics, than we can legally use in an unsolicited communication. We have to tread a fine line."

The impact of this statement (in my mind) is so profound as to jolt all of us into a much closer look at the capabilities of direct mail. The "rifle" vs. "shotgun" analogy isn't even adequate. A better perspective is offered by David Wager, VP of marketing at Porsche: "This year we're using advertising. Next year we're going to hire private detectives."

Outside of immediate sales stimulus, Case International is building long-term brand loyalty with direct mail efforts against the country's largest farmers. The program has already exceeded expectations and brought in an incredible 42-44% response rate.

One of the problems with using direct mail and its related technology is the pace of technology change. One can fall behind quickly. The Census Bureau, for example, has just announced a new device called "TIGER" (Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing) coming in 1991. What does it do?

Well, for starters, TIGER has the ability to ...

... chart every block in every country in the U.S.

... "see" customer locations for target clustering efforts.

... define geographic boundaries of customers.

... pinpoint an address on every city block in the U.S.

Direct mail will receive a tremendous boost when programs like TIGER are revealed as part of the new census. The Census Bureau will be providing more information, more accurately, in more sophisticated formats on the 1990 data than ever before.

Get out your stamps
Should you toss out your Nielsens and forget the struggle over next year's Super Bowl rating? Perhaps. But the point here is that the gigantic strides made in the technology surrounding direct mail have elevated this medium to a position as a legitimate contender for serious marketing attention.

The marketing community now has a tool which can live up to the concept of true "targeting" in a way that 10 years ago could only be imagined.

Times change. And direct mail is doing a better job of changing than many of us realize.