People bidding for a direct mail pack on eBay!
by Nick Cliffe
Have you heard of Direct Mail packs receiving multiple bids on ebay? I hadn’t either until I searched for ‘Rapha’ on ebay a few weeks ago. Rapha produce super stylish, retro tinged clothing for the road cyclist and is quite an aspirational brand for me. In fact completely aspirational as I don’t own a single piece of their clothing yet! The direct mail pack that was subject to intense bidding on ebay was a simple 16-page leaflet with ravishing full bleed black and white photography, no prices and few words except for the web address and a list of products. It sold for an incredible £8.50. Extraordinary customer behavior by any brand’s standards I think, let alone one that only launched in 2004 with one core product; a super expensive softshell jacket. Did I bid for the DM pack? Of course not. I already had a copy of my own stashed safely away.
When Julian asked me to give Gary Numan a call about some illustrations, I was unimpressed. Partly because I’m often the butt of the practical jokes round here, and partly because I’m more of an Ultravox man myself. So it was with some apprehension that I went back to my desk to make the call. As I dialled I decided I’d play it safe: skip the musical chit-chat and get straight down to business, which turned out to be a wise move when illustrator Gary Newman – and not the King of synthpop – answered the phone.
