Journalism…Content…Culture
By Ray Schultz
About
Ray Schultz has written for publications ranging from The New York Times to High Times. He has also served as editor of DM News and as editorial director of Penton Media’s Marketing Group.
Contact
We’re right here in New York. Please e-mail Ray at ray@tellallmarketing.com.
DEAR FRIEND: The Rascals, Rogues And Roues Who Made American Junk Mail, Chapter 33: Junk Mail Babylon
Despite the sleaze that surrounded it , junk mail started to attract notice on Madison Avenue. By client demand, the J. Walter Thompson ad agency hired its first full-time direct mail copywriter: Ed McLean, a literary type from Chicago who had knocked around in New Orleans and thought he was applying for an editorial job when Red Dembner hired him as a direct mail writer at Newsweek. He was treated with the utmost disrespect at JWT.
“Direct mail was shit in the ad world,” McLean said later. “It was not commissionable. When creating TV or radio spots, you could make money even for production costs. But in mail, the costs were very low, so you couldn’t make any money on that.”
