Several readers have wondered if John Greco of the DMA response to my post about the annual conference and the DMA's attitude toward the email community was lip service, and everything will remain status quo.
Last week I had a call from the new Executive Director of AIM (the DMA subsidiary focused on Interactive Marketing) Michael Aronowitz, This is the first conversation I have had with him, and I felt that he is ready to dig in and start rebuilding an organization that was taken in some extremely odd directions by previous executives. By rights, AIM should be the leading voice for the interactive marketing community. When founder Andy Sernovitz sold the association and turned the keys over to the DMA, the organization was strong and growing. Today it is a pale skeleton of what it once was. Here’s hoping Michael can reverse the trend.
He sounds like he is ready to listen to the membership and try to integrate the interactive audience into the DMA to help give us a stronger voice in Washington. What will happen remains to be seen, but Michael is saying the right words. But as they say the proof is in the pudding.
Jordan;
The DMA certainly has their PR machine cranked up. Today I received an email via ClickZ regarding a major shakeup in the DMA and its AIM division.
I'm not one to wait around hoping the DMA will effect changes in the way they do things. I have a hard time believing they'll do more than proselytize their positions in hopes of increasing their membership and mollifying marketers like myself who they left standing in the cold with the CAN-SPAM laws.
CAN-SPAM has no teeth. There aren't enough resources available to enforce the laws, and the only people abiding by it are the legitimate marketers. I realize this is old news, but it bears repeating, over and over and over again until the DMA and FTC do something to change it. The one good that came of CAN-SPAM was the immediate halt of a state by state spam initiative process which would have completely paralyzed and polarized the industry. We'd literally be left with almost no legitimate email marketing, while the EMarketing Research Groups of the world would continue to pound away at our inboxes with mortgage loan, body part enhancement and "little blue pill" ads.
I spoke to an associate of mine in the list management business. Advertisers are running away in droves because of the complexities and vagaries of CAN-SPAM. Re-orging and PR'ing is great, but it is time the DMA and AIM stood up and did something useful and tangible.
Needless to say I won't be holding my breath.
Posted by: Ben Ice | December 02, 2004 at 03:16 PM