Hail to the Chief

John Greco is a presidential history buff. But he's getting carried away with himself.

He apparently thinks he is president of the United States, and not head of an increasingly irrelevant trade association.

Greco's imperial behavior was on full view during his press conference last month at DMA05. As the reporters sat at a table, champagne in front of them, he strode in and stood at a podium. And when it was over 20 minutes later, he turned and walked out — just like George W. Bush.

Prior DMA chiefs would have schmoozed a little, but not Greco, who seems to dislike reporters and tries to limit his contact with them.

Then there was his cutting off of questions about the one hot topic that came up: the DMA's launch of inMarketing magazine.

We trade media types are livid about inMarketing, although I personally calmed down after reading the self-serving drivel. The problem is that it competes for ad dollars with Direct, Target Marketing and DM News.

What's wrong with that in a free market? Nothing, except we're all DMA members, paying substantial dues, and my firm actually is a business partner.

Then there's this: Should the DMA be gambling with your membership dollars on a boondoggle like inMarketing? Greco used words like “subsidize” and “invest” during the briefing.

Greco must know that publishing is a tough business, now that he has a conference show daily under his belt. Originally the DMA hoped it would be a tabloid newspaper with many pages of advertising, but it ended up as a tiny product with only a couple of ads.

How do we know what the DMA wanted? Because Greco's PR staff talked to Direct about doing it as a custom publishing project. We declined when invited to bid on it. (We had done an independent show daily for a decade.)

But enough about us. The bigger problem is that Greco has done little in a year except to insulate himself in layers of management. He certainly doesn't have much to say about issues like e-mail authentication.

The DMA has announced that authentication is now a requirement of membership. But I have two questions, and I hope Greco answers them with more aplomb than he answered Ken Magill's inquiries on inMarketing at the press conference (when it seemed he would blow up after one more):

1. How will you know that members are complying?

2. Why did you wait until a few weeks before the Microsoft standard becomes mandatory?

Direct marketing is a growth business, but it faces serious challenges. Is John Greco the person to lead us? And will inMarketing's PR handouts serve the membership and reflect the complexity of this industry?

Don't say you haven't been warned: DMers are headed for a rough ride with President Greco.