The postman used to ring at least five days a week. As of the first of July however, New Zealand Post will restrict deliveries to every second day.

But the demise of postal services is not limited to New Zealand.

In 2011, the US Postal Service estimated yearly budget cuts of $20 billion – a third of annual costs – would be necessary to return a profit. Declining demand has seen Australia, Singapore and many European countries eliminate Saturday deliveries as a preliminary cost-cutting measure.

Like record stores, newspaper classifieds and the ability to hide your past, the internet is being blamed for killing Postman Pat – while generating endless memes of his black-and-white cat.

Consequently, in a bid to boost competitiveness and gain access to private capital, Britain’s iconic state-owned postal service founded in 1516, Royal Mail, was privatised in late 2013.

Despite the deluge of controversy surrounding the choice, the privatisation has, arguably, resulted in Royal Mail becoming more innovative in creating demand for an otherwise dying service.

The company recently announced a new ‘secret’ pilot scheme in the hopes of improving revenues amid falling demand for postage stamp sales and increasing competition for parcel delivery services.

The idea seems simple enough.

It involves a collaboration between Royal Mail and an as yet unknown UK retailer. The retailer will collate data on products that customers most frequently browse, use cookies to store information on internet activity and miraculously match all this data with the customer’s postal address.

All that is required of the customer is to remain undecided about a prospective purchase by adding the item to cart, but not completing the transaction. And voila! The customer will receive a bespoke advertising catalogue within just 24-48 hours, rather than the usual email prompt or browser alert. Lucky them!

Royal Mail is confident the experiment will succeed on the basis that post makes people “feel more valued”.

Whether the scheme is a stroke of marketing genius that keeps the postman knocking remains to be seen. The catalogues could end up lining budgie cages, providing little benefit to the retailer, customer and struggling postal operator in the long run.

Either way, the innovation behind the idea is something to be admired, particularly as there is little evidence of this out-of-the-box thinking in Royal Mail’s 500 year history as a state-owned company.