Such devices are harmless tricks. If you don't like them, you don't have to pay attention to them, just as if you don't like obnoxious TV quiz programmes you don't have to watch them. Some say they insult people's intelligence. There is a certain type of personalisation which falls into this category. When it was first tried it increased responses by as much as 50 per cent.
People like to see their names.
The bigger the better. So one mailer sent out an order form with the recipient's name in huge letters on it. He got hardly any responses. When he researched to find out why, he discovered that people loved the personalisation so much they were pinning the order forms up on their walls. Often, of course, a mailing will try to make the personalisation unobtrusive, so as to look as though it really is a personal message.