The perils of (passive) personalization.

Conventional wisdom and most test results hold that personalization (what Barb Kaplowitz calls "passive personalization in the above article) of marketing materials almost always pays off. It will add 15-20 percent to cost but still more in response.

But I can't help but wondering if the novelty is off this rose. My first experiences with "personalization" came 30+ years ago when hotel marketers learned about it. By the sixth or seventh letter I received I was less impressed with their ability to insert "Yes, Fred, when you see our 500 completely renovated rooms ..." three or four times throughout a two-page letter.

But I also wonder how much the results of personalization could be improved with more quality control.

I'll not forget the mailing I received when I was executive director at the newsletter association: Dear New Ass Soc

Many years ago, struggling with an order card in my execrable handwriting, The New Yorker came to know me as "Fngo Guss." I've kept that tag all through the years and renewals. It's fun to trace The New Yorker's list rentals by seeing all the mail Fngo Guss gets.

But now we have a new winner. Driven by the current political scene, I joined the ACLU and am now a proud, card-carrying member known to the organization's mailers as: Mr. Friederiac D. Goss

Honestly, do these people outsource data entry to Burkina Faso? Where do you find key punchers who think that Fngo and Friederiac are men's names in North America?

But I suppose the all-time winner for flummoxing personalization programs was my old colleague, publisher of Association Trends newsletter, who always styled himself as:

Col. Frank L. Martineau, Jr., CAE, USAF, (Ret.)