And the blank look on the printers faces revealed a sad truth that hasn’t much changed: “We know our customer’s names, but not much more than that. What are we supposed to SAY to them?”

At last people are starting to get it right. Hope you have enough staff as the word gets out!

Now someone will get that exactly the same thing can be done in Print. For products that people will willingly buy. And enough already with chasing advertising that is running away for a medium that is no longer the best for selling stuff.

Print embedded in the web is still a opretty good way of starting a conversation. But how many printers have the focus or attention to maintain a conversation.

I’m going with about 3%.

Another interesting thing to discuss is how this shift to “relevant” personalization, as opposed to “name in lights” personalization, can be subtle and unnoticeable.

A good example of this is the current campaign that we’ve worked together on for Canon. I had a sales rep call me today after receiving the mailer. His first response to me was, “Man, I wish there was more variable data used. I only see a PURL.” At first I laughed a little to myself (knowing the weeks spent developing the variables before the launch). Then, when I showed him all the different variables we actually used, he was shocked that he didn’t realize it while reading. Because the variables were worked subtly into the text itself, he didn’t even realize they were there.

My thoughts are that this form of personalization may even be more effective in driving response rates. I, for one, know that when I get a mailer and can tell where and how things were personalized, I usually quickly lose interest. (I recently received a mailer from Discover about a recent purchase I had made).

Needless to say, it will be interesting to see the results of this campaign given all the different aspects to it.