The Private Life of Mail explores “the role of mail in people’s homes, hearts and heads, plus the impact this has on advertisers’ ROI”.

The report supports Royal Mail MarketReach’s new campaign, MAILMEN, which combines digital, press, OOH and direct mail and has been endorsed by industry leaders including Robert Senior, worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi; Karen Blackett, CEO of MediaCom and David Robinson, sales and marketing director at The Sun.

The research combined ethnographic work, including CCTV in participants’ homes; focus groups; neuroscience techniques and online and telephone quantitative work. Outputs included a heat map of the typical display areas for mail within a household, as well as emotional and physical responses to direct mail.

“In today’s rapidly transforming media landscape, brands and consumers are communicating in more diverse ways than ever,” said Jonathan Harman, managing director at Royal Mail MarketReach. “Over the last 18 months, we have conducted a series of research projects to understand exactly what that means for consumers and what it means for advertisers.

“It is an unprecedented look at what happens to mail when it enters the home which is why we have called it, The Private Life of Mail.”