A/B tests on direct mail have also come up with some insights that are difficult to explain. According to Neal, for certain clients application forms with a blue background seem to perform better than forms using a different colour. No-one’s quite sure why.



Sometimes, though, it’s about simply delivering something that people haven’t seen in their post before - like Paladino’s smelly leaflets. Jason Andrews, executive creative director at creative agency RAPP UK explains how he once helped the British Red Cross charity come up with a mail campaign drawing awareness to destitute people in central Europe facing a particularly harsh winter. A message written in temperature-sensitive ink would only appear when the letter was placed in a freezer for several minutes.

“The only place in Britain where it felt that cold was actually in people’s deep freezes. So you would put the letter in there, get an idea of what it was like,” explains Andrews. “That’s what these people were putting up with without food, heat, clothing and so on.” While it was a bit of a gimmick, it shows that it’s still possible do novel things with the old medium of paper and envelopes.

Tangible products

Understanding the special relationship we have with physical post is now integral to the design of these campaigns. Harman’s work at The Royal Mail is largely to do with investigating how people consume mail when it comes into their home. This has been done by setting up cameras in people’s hallways and recording what they do with letters when they arrive.

“On average, mail will stay in the home for 17 days,” says Harman. “So there’s a real permanence to what we do. We also know that people pass on mail that they think might interest their friends or relatives.”

Harman has even looked at what happens to our brains when we read a letter addressed to us. While it may be worth taking these findings with a pinch of salt, analysis of brain activity revealed that post stimulated parts of the brain associated with long-term memory and also involved more emotional processing than virtual media. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that brands are continuing to invest in sending physical leaflets despite the lower costs promised by email and other digital communication.



