We sometimes hear our fellow AD-men complain that it’s hard to consistently come up with new ideas. But in DM what works is leveraging proven ideas and turning them on their side.

Like this one that came to Stalelife Austin:

It’s a news clipping in an OE with a Post-it note – not exactly new tactics.

Combined, however, is a different story. Especially when you add no sign of a return address, a unique handwriting font, a full-priced stamp and no printed barcode – suddenly this resembles the articles that Aunt Suzie mails.

We passed this one around, trying to figure out who sent it. “Who calls me Joseph? And lives in Santa Clara? What is this all about?”

In all, we held onto the package for a good three or four minutes – beating the pants off the known DM readership of two seconds.

Right out of the gate, a win. Sure the match mailing will cost a little more, but something tells us that the cost is recovered in new accounts for Grande.

Think fresh while looking through your samples – there’s a new idea in there somewhere.

Speaking of ideas generators, our friend Robert at Adomatica recently received the same mail and blogged about it, too. Great minds… His blog is a good source for industry news and quips.