Direct Marketing
Associations DMA
23 Direct Marketing Associations from five
continents established an International Federation of Direct Marketing
Associations. Founded in 1989, Direct Marketing Associations was established
to develop firm lines of communications between direct marketers around
the world, and is dedicated to improving the practice and communicating
the value of direct marketing; and to promoting the highest standards
for ethical conduct and effective self-regulation of the direct marketing
community.
The purposes of Direct Marketing Associations are generally:
 Promoting
direct marketing techniques and companies to consumers.
Fighting
negative images of the direct marketing industry.
Providing
training and professional development opportunities to marketers.
Conducting
industry research.
Hosting
networking conferences for marketers.
Promoting
direct marketing, informing consumers of the safeguards that exist,
and promoting the DMA as their protector, contact point and regulator.
Trying
to ensure that their members create consumer confidence.
Advising
how companies should use information by operating within the terms of
Data Protection Acts.
Lobbying
against Data Protection Acts which protect data against redistribution.
Lobbying
against laws forbidding e-mail address harvesting.
Direct Marketing Associations
have attracted controversy, as they purport to defend and promote spam,
junk mail, and telemarketing, which many consumers find irritating and
intrusive.
The Direct Marketing Association
has a political action committee that makes political contributions
in order to further its causes. The Direct Marketing Association asserts
that the mass-mailings done by its members are both economically and
environmentally beneficial (the latter because they supposedly reduce
the number of car trips taken by shoppers who would otherwise shop at
conventional stores).
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