Rules Made To Be Broken

How Patagonia bucks direct-marketing dogma

 

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA), trade group to the mail-order industry, is more than happy to send "The Seven Cardinal Rules for Direct Mail Success" to anyone thinking about setting up such a business. Says the DMA: "[These] principles have been the guiding light for untold numbers of today's successful practitioners."

Somehow, the rules never reached Patagonia, which manages to break every one. Consider a sample:

* Make it easy for the prospect to take whatever action you want him to take. Sounds simple enough to us. Patagonia is in the direct-marketing business, so you'd figure it'd want people to pick up the telephone to place an order. Well, not only is there no toll-free line for placing orders, but the phone number for ordering merchandise can be found exactly thrice in 112 pages. What's more, finding the number may not be enough. While L.L. Bean is happy to take your order at 4 a.m., Patagonia stops answering the phone after 6 p.m. on weekdays (and after 5 p.m. on Saturdays). On Sunday, like the Lord, Patagonia rests.

* Tell your story over again. Most direct marketers don't mail often enough, according to the DMA. Four times a year seems to be considered a minimum, with people who send out a catalog every month earning praise as "astute professionals." Patagonia mails two catalogs a year.

* Make the layout and copy fit. "Your layouts and graphics should be quite different in presenting a big ticket item in comparison to a low cost gadget," writes the DMA. Needless to say, Patagonia's layout people were absent that day. A display of shorts and T-shirts ($14.50 to $25) gets as much space as the women's back bowl jacket ($155).

* Promise a benefit in the headline or first paragraph. Tell the reader what he might lose if he doesn't act. Incite action now. Sigh. Patagonia's headlines are such eyecatchers as "Men's and Women's Insulated Drop Seat Pants," and the company discourages impulse purchases.

Somehow, we think it might be a while before the Direct Marketing Association features Patagonia as a textbook example. The company doesn't do anything right. Except sell.