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While I will admit to being somewhat biased, and to having a clear and vested interest, I have always believed that physical mail had much stronger impact than email or banner ads. And now, I am happy to be able to share some evidence that physical brain activity actually bears this out.

On March 17, 2010, Mike West, Royal Mail’s business development manager, published an article titled “Mind over media? The neuroscience behind effective media planning”. I received a link to the article from an associate and I was fascinated by the results of the research on which it was based.

The article discusses the role that different marketing channels can play in influencing buying decisions and it also provides a key piece of information that has been missing, which is how the human brain physically processes the marketing messages it receives.

The research has determined that physical media, such as conventional mail, “generated more activity in the parietal cortex, an area closely associated with the integration of visual and spatial information”. Additionally, the article went on to say that “Direct mail-based material was also associated with responses which suggest greater ‘internal’ thinking – suggesting it is processed more in relation to subjects’ own feelings and memories.”

In contrast to the foregoing, it was observed that “Material presented to subjects on the screen elicited responses associated with greater difficulty in maintaining attention on the task. Researchers noted that online materials proved harder to focus on, engaging areas of the brain associated with greater filtering of irrelevant information in order to attend to the task, such as the temporo-parietal junction.”

If you are interested in a fascinating read, you can access the complete article at: research-live.com.

In summary, the article provides some very compelling arguments for the effectiveness of physical media as compared to online media. In our blog post titled “A False E-conomy: Email or Fail Mail?” we discussed the challenges of promotional email stemming from mistrust, congestion and inconvenience. So, in addition to these, we can now add that the human brain has a preference for physical stuff. Consider this: would you sooner look at a picture of your significant other or give them a hug? I think the answer should be obvious.

As always, if you have any questions regarding the foregoing or direct mail in general, please do not hesitate to contact us!