An extra pair of eyes is now watching over Canada’s direct mailers. Advertising Standards Canada has revised its guidelines to include direct mail in the media it scrutinizes for violations of ASC codes.

ASC, Canada’s advertising watchdog, has looked at some direct mail in the past, says Linda Nagel, ASC president. The revisions have now been clarified to include all direct mail.

‘In the past, freestanding inserts that came in your newspaper were considered newspaper advertising but the same insert that came through the mail would be considered direct mail,’ she says. ‘Now we are examining all direct mail.’

In addition to traditional print and broadcast advertising, the expanded ASC guidelines now cover Internet and new media advertising, point-of-sale messages, and even advertising in foreign media – as long as the advertiser is Canadian. The guidelines exclude advertising on packaging, wrappers and labels.

Direct response advertising will be judged under the same criteria as other print and broadcast advertising. The ASC accepts consumer complaints regarding everything from the truthfulness of the advertising to whether it crosses the line with respect to public taste and decency.

The volume of direct marketing in Canada has exploded over the past five years. In 1998, direct marketing accounted for more than $13.5 billion in sales, up from just $6 billion in 1990. The industry expects to reach $15 billion in sales by the end of the year, according to the Canadian Marketing Association, which represents direct marketers.

With direct response marketing playing an increasingly significant role in more and more advertising campaigns, it was important for the ASC to clarify the rules about the inclusion of direct mail in its guidelines, Nagel says.

While the CMA has its own process for handling consumer complaints about direct mail, the two groups should have little overlap, says John Gustavson, CMA president and a member of the ASC board.

‘The ASC covers the message of the advertising, whereas the CMA (direct mail) council looks at what advertisers are doing with personal information and their compliance to our own code of ethics,’ he says.

The CMA receives between 200 and 300 complaints about direct mail every year, Gustavson says. Most are from customers who either did not receive the items they ordered or were dissatisfied with the products they received. The CMA clears up about 90% of the complaints, he says.