Underwear Enclosed… No, Really

It’s not every day someone sends you underwear. Out of the hundreds and hundreds of fundraising packages I receive annually, this one from the Southwest Indian Children’s Fund is a hands-down standout.

I have bins full of T-shirts and umbrellas and fleece blankets and teddy bears and all sorts of pens and pins and what-nots in addition to heaps of non-premium mail. But until that fateful day, no one had ever sent me underwear.

It arrived in a 7.5-inch-by-10.5-inch canary outer envelope with a handwritten teaser: “Underwear Enclosed.” How could anyone resist opening it?

So many aspects of the package are brilliant. But beginning with that teaser, it’s also a lesson in the nuance of language and how careful practitioners of our craft are mindful of words as triggers.

The four-page letter is on yellow, lined notebook paper — in a nice, large, legible “handwritten” font. The Johnson box reads, “When I first heard about Maria, her husband was gone. She was living in a shack. The family’s food consisted of dry cereal and noodles. There was little furniture. Her children didn’t even have underpants.”

Not “underwear” this time, like the teaser, but “underpants.” Think about that for a moment. Underwear. Underpants. A more specific word, and a potential trigger opening up a kaleidoscope of thoughts and conscious or unconscious responses for the reader. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes not.

Be aware of triggers
“My Dear Friend,” the letter begins. “By mailing these brand-new, spanking-clean underpants, it is the best way I know to convince you that your kindness translates into real, tangible help for one Native American Indian child in desperate need.”

So they’re not just any children’s underpants. No, they’re brand new, spanking clean. Wow. Not a potential trigger there — it’s the real deal.

And this letter talks a lot about underpants. There are only a few paragraphs where the word or one of its variants does not appear at least once. They are “a personal gift from you to one Native American child in need … your name and gift will help provide one child clean, new, respectable underpants.” Respectable is good, as is “giving a poor child the dignity of clean, warm underclothes.”

Now, like many of you, I’m guessing, I grew up hearing about the importance of clean underwear and the horror and shame raining down on the unfortunate souls whose lack thereof is discovered by the emergency personnel who take them away in an ambulance. And my guess is that donors to the Southwest Indian Children’s Fund are right there with us on that, too.

That’s what makes the addition of a gift tag for the donor to sign and return such a key component of this appeal, involving the donor in the act of giving a child dignity and new, clean underwear just for him or her.

However, the gift tag itself is a disappointment. It’s a 3.25-inch-by-1-inch scrap of paper stapled sideways on the reply device. I was hoping for something more substantial. Imagining the recipient of my gift of respectable new underwear, I wished for a nicer notation than “These underpants are given to you by: (print your name here).”

Suspension of disbelief
The letter induces a beautiful DM version of the suspension of disbelief up until the last page. Although I doubt it hurt response, one can no longer believe it’s not a mass mailing, because there, smack dab in the middle of the lined, yellow notebook paper is a knocked-out photo of the letter signer, Blessed Cloud, holding a child.

Together with the logo footing the page, it ruins the “I sat down and handwrote you this letter myself” effect — as does the angled square of slightly darker yellow that’s supposed to be a sticky note reminding me not to forget to send back the underpants. Unfortunately, the note pad lines print right across the faux sticky-note design.

Opportunity missed?
I also have to wonder about a 3-inch-by-6.5-inch buckslip that made me say to myself, “Hmm, and now suddenly into the race comes this horse.” The little slip explains that thanks to $1 million set aside by a foundation, gifts received can be matched during the next few weeks. The buckslip easily could have been overlooked, and the match offer is mentioned nowhere in the letter or on the reply device, a lost opportunity to perhaps persuade donors to spring for underpants and a T-shirt.

Not your granny’s undies
One thing I simply can’t get past with this package is the underpants themselves. The label says they’re a child’s size 4 and they’re 100 percent cotton, made in Pakistan. Briefs, with no fly. OK.

But … they’re not benign little tighty-whities like the ones my grandmother gave me every year to be sure I’d uphold the family honor if ever I should be carried off in an ambulance. Nope, they’re red. True, undeniable PMS 185 red. I don’t even know where to go with that.

On the upside, nowhere in the package are they called “panties.” But they sure are red underpants, no doubt about that. And another thing is sure: I will never forget the day they arrived in my mailbox.

Kimberly Seville is a creative strategist and freelance copywriter. Contact: kimberlyseville@yahoo.com.