An association is being put together to ‘address the issue of the address’ worldwide. Industry leaders from the US and across Europe are joining forces and resources to improve the address industry.

Last week, a steering committee was formed to launch the association which will highlight the importance of addressing and postcode data for business leaders, postal officials, regulators and policy-makers. It is also planned that the association will represent postal data users and processors to establish more transparent and equitable data acquisition relationships with postal systems worldwide. 

The steering committee members are: Sheila Donovan, Global DM Solutions (US); Emma Gooderham, Allies Computing (UK); Merry Law, WorldVu LLC (US); Graham Rhind, GRCDI (Netherlands); Joerg Schneider, Deutsche Post Dialog Marketing (Germany); John Callan, Ursa Major Associates (US);  Alexander Singewald (Netherlands); and Alastair Tempest, FEDMA (Europe).  

Chairing the steering committee is Charles Prescott (pictured), principal, Oak Knoll LLC and editor of The Prescott Report. Making the case for the association, he said: "With many posts promoting e-commerce and export initiatives, the need increases for improved addressing accuracy and quality for this higher value traffic. The value of this postal and express traffic will be increasing. In short, the address will be more valuable than ever."

Prescott – who is chairman of the Universal Postal Union’s Consultative Committee – added: "Posts and mailers must work together to improve mail’s ROI in order to compete with electronic messaging by reducing undeliverables and by expanding the global supply of addresses that are current, clean, correct and available on fair terms. 

"Over half the world does not have an address. We will work alongside the Universal Postal Union in its campaign for ‘An Address For Everyone’ to dramatically increase the number of potential customers for businesses world-wide."