Good old-fashioned direct mail + social media = wow!

Social media marketing is new and exciting.

Direct mail is outdated and dull.

An easy conclusion to reach these days, but wrong. Not only are they both effective in their own ways, but put the two together and you get something fantastic - and you won't see a better example than the DM campaign above and the reaction it gained when it went out last week...

Consider this recent story about hosting company Rackspace, reported by Spike on his excellent Morgonzola Monologue blog. It started when Rackspace ran a bizarre, but attention-grabbing, DM campaign about how customer-focused they are. Or rather, customer-obsessed. So obsessed, in fact, that they did a parody of the 'bunny-boiler' Fatal Attraction movie, where Glenn Close couldn't leave Michael Douglas alone and ended up boiling his pet bunny on the stove. To make the point that Rackspace offered "all the obsession, but none of the bunny boiling", they sent out a saucepan and fluffy bunny, along with a recipe for rabbit stew. All good fun, and high-impact stuff. But while Spike loved the DM, he couldn't help mentioning on his blog that the quote that Rackspace had promised earlier in the week still hadn't arrived. Call that customer service?

This is the sting in the tail. Rackspace were so obsessed that they picked up on the blog almost immediately. Barry from Rackspace was on phone before you could say Fatal Attraction, explaining what was going on with the quote, restoring faith in the brand, and showing a real example of customer obsession.

And, of course, when you get customer service like that, you want to tell people about it - which is just what Spike did in his blog update.

So hats off to Rackspace for leading the way in both customer service and ground-breaking direct mail, and to Spike for rewarding good work with good publicity. Well done all.