The Toppled Bollard is a mythical public house located somewhere in Corby, Northamptonshire.  The pub was invented by copywriters at Hamilton House Mailings plc who were working on ways to ensure that the name “Hamilton House” would become synonymous with direct mail. 

Through a series of stories (some of which are reproduced here) the Toppled Bollard was positioned initially as the pub to which Hamilton House executives would take potential clients.  The results of these rather long lunches were invariably disastrous – both in terms of public health and sales. 

Later, as the stories, developed the Bollard took on a deeper role as an important centre of the direct marketing industry – a place at which the leading lights of the industry would gather to debate the finer points of selling direct mail.  Unfortunately however events and debates were as often as not interrupted by over-indulgence and the activities of over-large egos.  This element was added as it became clear that many in our industry were highly suspicious of the number of awards that there seemed to be around.  Everyone who wanted an award, it seemed, could win an award.  So we started to make fun of the awards.  It turned out to be a popular theme. 

Later still, the Bollard gained an international dimension as figureheads from around the world used it as a staging post on their trips to Britain.  George W Bush featured regularly in the letters, as did John (“give me the chocolate and nobody gets hurt”) Prescott.  By 2004 we had the Toppled Bollard hosting an extraordinary meeting of the G8 group of nations.  The world has never been the same since. 

The Toppled Bollard stories have appeared as the cover page sales letters on promotional mailings sent out by Hamilton House for over four years.  The ploy of establishing an identity for our company has worked, and as a result of these letters many people involved in direct mail and direct marketing now know of Hamilton House and associate it with the Toppled Bollard, even if they are not our customers.  What we have found is that companies that do not use us, will turn to us when their existing mailing house cannot fulfil their needs on a particular project.

Over the years it has become apparent that there are some people who quite look forward to getting our direct mail.  There are some who collect it.  There are some who even photocopy it and pass it on to others in the company.  One reader even told us he regularly took the stories home to show his partner – but we think he was a bit strange. 

It is also clear that some people don’t like our stories.  We get one letter returned about every four or five months, covered in abuse and obscenities.   Strangely, however, these people never give us their names and addresses.  We also have a few customers who tell us that they use us “despite all that Toppled Bollard nonsense”, and tell us they wish we would stop this theme.   But when in 2003 we did stop running Toppled Bollard stories for about 3 months we got a whole load of complaints from customers and non-customers alike who regretted the fact that we were no longer writing Bollard stories.  So we were forced to re-open the Bollard once again. 

Quite often these days we are asked about the stories we have written, and we are asked to explain what we were trying to do, how we did it, and the benefits we got from the event.  This web site tries to answer these points.