Robert Keitch, chief of membership and brand at the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), has explained why the DMA can’t regulate the direct marketing industry.

This comes in response to results of Marketing Week’s recent Direct Mail Attitudes survey revealed that 61% of practitioners polled believe that the DMA should regulate the direct mail sector more.

As the largest professional body to represent the direct marketing industry, the DMA would appear to be the most appropriate candidate, but this is not the case.

A regulator must be an independent body that shows fairness and balance in its policing of industry regulations. However, the DMA is a partisan organisation with a clearly stated bias towards advancing the development of all direct marketing channels.

The DMA could never be perceived to be impartial and would therefore fail immediately in its remit as the regulator of the direct mail industry. The same goes for organisations such as Royal Mail and other brands, who respondents in the Marketing Week poll also named as their preferred regulators.

The DMA keeps the direct marketing industry in check through its role in maintaining its self-regulatory framework. As a regulator, the DMA would be powerless to help the direct marketing industry cope with these changes; but as the self-regulator the DMA can help to ensure that direct marketing remains a successful industry that continues to enjoy the confidence of business, consumers and Government.

As featured on Marketing Week.

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