Talk:Advertising mail/Archives/2014

Advertising Mail

The term used in the Marketing/Advertising industry is "Direct mail" advertising, and this should be the title of the article. Zambelo; talk 23:57, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I think Direct mail would be an appropriate title for an article focusing specifically on the marketing aspects; this article has a section called "Direct mail marketing" that does just that. But this article is broader in scope than the marketing perspective only.

I am highly skeptical that direct mail is widely used outside of the marketing industry; it's not sufficiently recognizable among the general public to qualify as a WP:COMMONNAME. For example, it doesn't show up much in the sources looking at the issue from an environmental or opt-out perspective, which tend to use junk mail and advertising mail. Given that division, it's definitely not used widely enough to meet the standard for adopting a WP:POVNAME.

All things considered, I think the best solution is to keep a neutral descriptive title (WP:NDESC). Advertising mail makes immediately clear to readers what the subject of the article is in a way that direct mail doesn't (how is advertising mail any more or less direct than any other piece of mail?), thereby better meeting the recognizability criteria of WP:COMMONNAME. It's also more neutral than either of the more common alternatives, junk mail and direct mail.--Trystan (talk) 01:09, 2 July 2014 (UTC)