InfoUSA Ad Campaign Requests Reconsideration of Do-Not-Call Legislation

InfoUSA is spending $20,000 on a print ad, direct mail, fax and e-mail campaign aimed at loosening “do-not-call” provisions for small businesses, according to Rakesh Gupta, the firm’s chief marketing officer.

The ad is designed to look like a “Dear Lawmakers” letter from infoUSA chairman and CEO Vinod Gupta, and appears under the headline: “Exempt Small Businesses from Do Not Call Legislation.” (Vinod and Rakesh Gupta are not related).

“I am asking you to consider excluding small businesses from this Do Not Call legislation…businesses with fewer than 100 employees making fewer than 100 calls each day,” the letter reads in part.

It also states, “…this legislation has done more than protect consumers from large telemarketers pushing unwanted products and services. It is also destroying small businesses. Small businesses like beauty salons, independent travel agents, Doctors and Dentists and small restaurateurs are being hindered from calling their neighbors to inform them of a special sale or service. These are people who cannot afford a more expensive means of advertising.”

The bulk of the budget went to full-page tabloid-sized advertisements in the Feb. 11 issues of Roll Call and The Hill, two Capitol Hill newspapers that cover congressional goings-on. The ads are currently scheduled to run only once.

Additionally, every federal legislator was sent a letter containing a copy of the ad, as well as a letter from Vinod Gupta, on Feb. 8.

InfoUSA also sent e-mail messages to the chiefs of staff of each of the 535 Hill legislators. The e-mail and fax portions of the campaign were sent on Feb. 11.

The e-mail and fax portions of the campaign were a last-minute addition: InfoUSA had originally planned only to run the prints ads and send out the mailings, but the recent ricin incident that shut down the Senate office buildings caused the company to add the additional channel.

The letter is not the first Congressional outreach infoUSA has done over this issue: Since December, it has been in contact with Rep. Lee Terry’s (R-NE) office. In addition to representing the district infoUSA is headquartered in, Terry sits on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications.

While Terry’s office did not play a direct role in creating or placing the ad, “There is a lot of good talk, and a lot of good discussion [regarding the do-not-call exemption],” according to Robert Stien, who serves as telecommunications council to Terry.

Stien continued, “Discussions are happening between industry and this office, and Terry is speaking to other interested members here.”

InfoUSA has mulled contacting businesses within its database that would fall under the proposed exemption category for the purpose of grass-root organizing, but that proposal has not gone beyond the talking stage, according to Rakesh Gupta.