On Thursday, December 17, the US-DMA held its first International Council teleconference in quite some time. This was the first of six teleconferences scheduled by Mr. Neil O’Keefe, VP Multichannel and Jodie Sangster, SVP Global Development and Educational Services.  There were two International Council members on the call, and three DMA staff.

Mr. O’Keefe mentioned that a monthly newsletter would shortly be launched for the International  Council.  He also offered to coordinate arrangements if there was any interest in a gathering of the Council.

Miss Sangster  discussed in some detail three of her current projects.  The first is an educational program, completely online and interactive, covering all aspects of direct marketing The program is being adapted to and localized for Japan, Argentina, South Africa, the Arabic-speaking world, China, Hong Kong and Singapore in partnership with in-country partners, the local DMA’s.  It is called the “DMA Certified Marketing Professional” program.  The program is in the process of being approved by the American National Standards   Institute, which apparently has international recognition.  A number of recognized DM experts from the US have participated in the development of this course, including Ron Jacobs, Herschel Gordon Lewis, Arthur Hughes, Heidi Cohen and others.  The course may be taken module by module or in its entirety, and there are test elements at the end of each module.

This is an interesting effort, and one hopes it is financially successful for the DMA, which needs to expand and “digitize” its educational offerings.  The strategic implementation of localizing the material and maintaining quality will be difficult, especially since in most of these locations the organizations are very small in size, with limited or even non-existent budgets, and are volunteer-driven by local professionals.

We are not quite clear why this will be of any interest to the International Council or to DMA’s general membership. I do not recall any effort to engage the membership in discussing the strategy or the content of the program. Obviously, the US version of the course will be useful to expand the business, and perhaps the presence of the DMA brand overseas will be of benefit.

Nevertheless, it does appear that it will generate an income stream for the DMA, and we hope it is substantial. We also suggest that the relevance of the project could be enhanced if the DMA staff were to generate out of the localization materials information about these markets for the US members with interest in doing business in those markets. Perhaps the DMA personnel could file “trip reports” of their observations of these various markets when they return from their travels, or present a series of papers on what was changed from the US version in other markets. Naturally, any of that material could occupy the promised monthly newsletter.

Another useful goal would be to work to produce potential business opportunities and introductions in those countries, such as by conducting trade missions or networking opportunities of some form.

Ms. Sangster also mentioned that the DMA is developing a global portal in partnership with other organizations around the world, presumably other DMA’s, although specific mention was only made of trade offices.   The portal will have social networking capability and is intended to encourage the flow of data between and among the DMA’s of the world.

Some readers will remember that the UK DMA’s International Council constructed something quite similar to this for the exclusive use of its members.  Because this depended so much on volunteer efforts, I believe it has disappeared.  Perhaps an effort that includes more associations and is open to a wider audience will be more successful. However, one questions the utility of this if it only duplicates information already available, such as that of most trade offices.  Why duplicate what Google can do?

Ms. Sangster also noted that she was working on globalizing the annual study done by the US DMA known as “Power of Direct”.  She mentioned that because the terminology was different in the different markets, time was being spent agreeing on benchmarks before proceeding.  This could be a useful implement for dealing with policy-makers. In the past, the cost of doing this was carefully explored and was found prohibitive, one reason being that direct was not viewed as worth measuring, or was mistaken for one or another media.

In South Africa, for example, the mobile spend is many times that of direct mail, and in Japan it is somewhat larger, also.  In Italy, television dominates all ad media and methodologies. Gathering enough data to produce meaningful credible conclusions is an extremely expensive proposition in the US, and won’t be cheaper in other countries because it is not a size-dependent exercise, and the US is the biggest “direct” market in the world.

In any event, in many markets, off-line direct has been leap-frogged by on-line direct/interactive and the attendant associations who measure that space.

However, if the data is produced, we’ll be very interested in it, if it is affordable.

Finally, it was indicated that there would be an international track at DM Days in New York later this year.  It was not mentioned whether a call for speakers/subject suggestions would be launched, which was disappointing, as the DMA continues to decide what members want rather than asking them.  Ms. Sangster also mentioned that the DMA would partner with the well-known UK magazine Direct Marketing International in holding a panel discussion and networking event at  DM Days. This is a fine thing to undertake as DMI knows how to do this with panache. One issue here is whether it will be a separate event with its own small registration fee or be part of the larger DM Days.  Many people would not attend if it were the latter, given the cost of registration for the larger event, whose program in the past has not made much of a differentiation from other DMA events.

It was disappointing that there were only two call-in participants for this teleconference.  However, given the attention paid to the DMA’s membership in general and its International, Council members in particular over the last year, not unexpected.  We sincerely hope this is the beginning of targeted efforts to deliver value and increase membership in this interest area and wish DMA staff success in doing this in the New Year.