Being a Catalog CEO is Hazardous Duty
For catalog marketers, the external environment is volatile to say the least. Topping the list of concerns are consumer and business spending. Sales growth can mask a multitude of sins elsewhere on income statements. Costs including paper, freight and, to some extent, production all resist traditional management. Postal costs are often believed to be the ultimate “unmanageable external cost.” Beyond shaping circulation policy and changing mail piece design, most catalog executives believe postage is “uncontrollable.” That’s where they’re wrong.
Hamilton Davison has been the President & Executive Director of the American Catalog Mailers Association (ACMA) since its founding in April 2007. Prior to this, he consulted for an educational services start-up, created a specialty card and gift retail chain and grew it to more than 150 stores, was CEO of the oldest and third-largest greeting card publisher and manufacturer, and started an oil and gas exploration business. Mr. Davison’s involvement in postal affairs started in 1992 with his service on the Greeting Card Association’s postal affairs committee. He became chair and directed the litigation and witness team charged with protecting the GCA subclass against virtually every other mailer, helping bring his association from its nadir (losing a rate case appeal at the Supreme Court) to an established force in postal policy that was routinely consulted on all important postal policy issues. He championed and sold the Forever Stamp to many including proposing it to the Chairman of the Board of Governors.
