"You there in the back row, pay attention. You are at the magic crossroads".

I just got an email from not one, but two of my old clients, making a big mistake.

It read:

Tell Us What You Think

At American Express, we want to know what you think of our service - and what we can do to make it better.

We noticed you recently contacted our Customer Service Centre with an enquiry. We hope we were able to help you and that you were satisfied with the service you experienced. But could we have done more?

To help us do more, we would like to invite you to complete a short survey. It will only take a few moments and we will use your comments to improve our service to you. We will not use your responses for marketing purposes.

Thank you in advance for your participation. We look forward to hearing from you.

The survey was run by Synovate and the message ignored the facts. I did not make an enquiry. My P.A. cancelled the card.

The magic crossroads in marketing - any kind of marketing - is the point at which you use your knowledge about someone to talk to them in a relevant way.

Relevance matters far more than "creativity". If you ignore the facts, you pay the price.