A guy made contact with me yesterday who I haven’t seen for a long time. But, I remember him well from a CV he sent me over ten years ago. It included a polaroid picture answering the advert headline of “We’ve showed you ours, now show us yours”. I still tell people about it.

We used to get some cracking CVs from designers in the early days, but it became bland PDFs over time or bad Flash demos.

I know I am also guilty of getting so wrapped up in the cost savings and ease of sending digital communications that I moved away from good old fashioned (and clever) direct mail.

The thing is, the more of a certain type of communication we get, the less we notice (or want). And, despite the clever technology around variable data and digital printing, there is a lack of clever mailing ideas from marketing teams, especially in B2B. Perhaps technology itself has made us lazily less creative?

Some of the best mailings we did at The Escape over the years were well thought out campaigns; from data collection, through personalisation, creative execution and delivery. All ‘lumpies’ (as Rob used to call them) to ensure that they got noticed. Many were well received, and one even upset a client who thought it was a bit offensive. That’s got to be a good thing (I think).

Earlier this year someone mentioned a campaign we did for 1999 Valentines Day involving a “last rolo” and how they still talk about it to people.

So, if you are job hunting – get personal and creative with your CV delivery. If you are looking for attention from clients or prospects, remember that it doesn’t have to be digital.