I Detest These Republican Mailers « Blog Entry

I Detest These Republican Mailers

October 7, 2009 / 9:12 am • By John Hawkins

One of my pet peeves during the 2008 campaign season was the deceptive mailers I received from Republican politicians. That’s not because I received a lot of them. That just goes with the territory if you give even small amounts of money to pols. After all, the more times they ask for money, as a general rule, the more money they’ll receive.

However, it’s insulting to send out an email like this to your supporters:

“Must?” “Return this Survey Document at once?” “Official Republican Party Document — Do Not Destroy?”

My first thought after reading language like that was something like: “Who the hell does the NRSC think they are? Who the hell do they think they’re talking to? …” The little dots are where I politely left off before the obscenities started.

Newsflash NRSC and the rest of the Republican organizations and campaigns that send out emails like this: We don’t work for you. When you guys start paying our bills, then you can tell us what we “must” do. Until then, go easy on the language in these mailers.

PS: Now, I don’t know what percentage of people open these particular mailers and send in money. However, the return on investment here had better be out-of this-world to make up for the authoritarian language.

John Hawkins blogs at Linkiest, among other blogs, and is happy to have been given the opportunity to help fill in for Dr. Melissa Clouthier.

Posted in Political Animals

http://PHOTONCOURIER.BLOGSPOT.COM david foster

I get a lot of these, and agree that they are moronic. Particularly irritating are the ones that try to look like some kind of official document.

People in a position to give a lot of money are generally fairly sophisticated about sleazy marketing and unlikely to be impressed by it–much more likely to feel insulted by it.

I think every industry forever bears the stamp of its formative years, and many direct-mail experts seem to think it’s the early 1950s and the prospects are unsophisticated yokels.