An Obvious Concept for DMers Marketers

I HAVE THE UTMOST RESPECT for Les Wunderman as well as for Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, but I am dismayed at the “who invented LTV” quarrel.

Lifetime value is an obvious concept for direct marketers and it existed long before any books.

I looked it up in one of my own books, “Database Marketing: The Ultimate Marketing Tool,” published in 1993. Lifetime value is discussed in chapter 13, Improving Database Return on Investment. It is included in a glossary compiled (from sources which existed even earlier) by researcher Amy Zipkin and defined as “the total profit or loss estimated or realized from a customer over the active life of a customer record.”

It's a concept I used routinely, before and after the publication of that book, for packaged goods clients like Procter & Gamble, Kellogg's, Seagram's and Mary Kay, as well as clubs for Weekly Reader and Mattel and the Capitol Record Club.

Writing about and using LTV in 1993 might qualify as being “first” by some standards, except I don't claim to have invented this concept.

Every author contributes to the theory and practice of direct marketing by teaching about concepts like this. That alone deserves respect and appreciation. “Who wrote it first” is irrelevant.

ED NASH is president of New York direct marketing agency/consultancy TeamNash Inc.