Marketing through the post is the traditional and oldest form of direct marketing. For mail to be considered to be direct marketing it must, generally speaking, be addressed to a named person and must be promoting a product or service. Unaddressed mail or mail addressed to "the occupant", "the resident" or "the householder" does not normally involve the use of personal data and consequently data protection legislation would not apply. However, where a data controller can identify "the occupant", "the resident" or "the householder" from the address in conjunction with other data in or likely to come into his possession, this may involve the processing of personal data and data protection requirements would apply. Also, the rules do not normally apply to postal marketing of corporate entities (companies, agencies etc) - including marketing of office-holders within such an entity (provided that the marketing is related to the organisation's business needs and that the details of the named person in receipt were obtained fairly).