A letter dropped through my letterbox the other day. Nothing surprising in that, obviously, but the envelope of this one caught my eye. On it was written, in large letters, "Will you send a blind child to Mars?"

This made me think. I doubt I would send a blind child to Mars, or a sighted one for that matter. First, I can't afford the rocket. Second, it seems a bit cruel and even if the little sprog was really annoying me, a stern word and withdrawal of comic privileges would probably do the trick. And third, I'd get awful grief from the kid's parents.

So I opened the envelope. This is almost unheard of. It was obviously going to be spam of one sort or another, and usually that gets ripped in half and discarded unopened (credit card companies take note: you're wasting your money, my time and a good few trees... and your ethics are dubious).

The letter turned out to be a more benevolent form of spam, asking if I wanted to support the National Library for the Blind. So they weren't actually sending blind children to Mars, but giving them Braille books to read. I was slightly disappointed, but it's a worthy enough cause.

"So what?", I hear you mutter. My point is that this charity had managed to breach my mental anti-spam defences through good marketing, with a slogan that was a fair representation of what was inside the envelope, but unusual enough to attract my attention. Much better than the usual credit card blurb ("Live like a king, with glamour models on each arm, simply by applying for our credit card... 93.2 percent APR, variable, your soul is at risk if you fail to keep up repayments").

Such marketing initiative is rare. You may think that the cunning slogans of today's mobile phone companies - variations on the theme of "Be the envy of your friends" - are new, punchy and relevant, but a glance through my dad's old Eagle comics from the 1950s reveals the same slogans being used to sell a Dan Dare walkie-talkie communicator. Few things change, it seems. And anyway, why would I want to make my friends jealous? They're my friends.

There's still a place for good marketing. It's true that stupid people will buy stupid things simply because a vacuous 'celebrity' tells them to, but if you really want to reach outside the single-cell gene pool, try a bit of creative marketing. Don't just aim high. Aim for Mars.