# Amnesty UK drops its pen pack

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/05/14/amnesty-uk-drops-its-pen-pack/
- Published: 2004-05-14T23:00:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Amnesty International UK, one of the first voluntary organisations to use a pen 
in direct mail supporter recruitment packs, will stop doing so.
The pen pack, introduced
by the human rights group’s fundraising director John Baguley in the early 1990s
working with agency Burnett Associates, was its best performing or banker pack for
some years. Unlike other charities that used pens for direct mail questionnaires
or other types of communication, Amnesty’s use was direct and relevant. Pens could
be and had been used as an instrument of torture, and they could be used to write
letters to campaign to stop such torture.

 

 

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“What you hold in your hands is an instrument of torture”, reads the pack. “Go on.
Tear it off the page. Hold it in your hand. Feel the point. Think about it. Stretch
the imagination. Because that’s what torturers around the world do. They excel at
it – using their imagination to fashion instruments of torture out of the most everyday
things.” Inside, the message reads: “It’s also an instrument of change”.

 

 

The pen pack is, according to Amnesty UK, still performing acceptably, but its effectiveness
has been dropping off, so the approach will be discontinued shortly.

 

 

It was such an effective recruitment pack that its text and style was used by other
Amnesty sections around the world including Ireland and Australia.

 

 

Amnesty’s decision to stop using the pen pack is fortuitous given the Royal Mail’s
plans to introduce new size-based pricing from September 2005. Pen packs would very
likely not be possible within a standard envelope size so would cost charities more
to post.

 

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