Other

Gordon Mortensen
Direct Mail

Invest West
Property Management

American Cancer Society

Anxiety and Panic
Disorders Clinic

Gordon Mortensen's
direct mail campaign

1. The Van Gogh Caper

It started with a piece of an ear in the mail.

The square envelope was addressed to me: Detective Smith.

I opened it and a swarm of repulsive bugs erupted. I shouted and batted at them. They stung and bit me until I chased the last one out the window. Then I emptied the envelope on my desk.
It was some fragments of wire and cloth and a piece of a human ear.

I gulped and stubbed out my smoke and poured myself a double shot from the fifth in the file cabinet. A private dick should have a secretary to open his mail, but I was as broke as an honest agent.

Why would anybody send me an ear? I decided this one was for the cops. I reached for the phone. It rang before I touched it.

"Detective Smith!" said an old man's heavily accented voice. "There is danger! You must, how you say..."

The voice finished in some rapid foreign tongue; all I could make out was a single phrase repeated over and over: "Mort d'ensign, mort d'ensign." Then the phone went dead.

Did he mean the death of an ensign...or the death of design?

Then I heard a noise outside my office. Through the frosted glass window of the door I saw a shadowy figure moving toward me. I stuffed the envelope and the contents into my pocket.

It looked like something was up.

Next: Thalia Busts In

Chapters:

1. The Van Gogh Caper

2. Thalia Busts In

3. The End of New Ideas

4. A Bug In The Ear

5. A Bug In Between

6. She Rose To The Occasion

7. High Caliber Encounter

8. He Triggered It

9. The End

Communication Arts magazine article about this direct mail campaign