Chief Marketer Staff

• Good Design is Serious Business

  Challenging the traditional world of brand marketing in virtually every consumer product category, private-label brands have shown that they have what it takes too. No one needs to talk about the original private-label brands with their plain wrappers, modest communications, and super-low pricing. What you need to talk about is how they are now taking risks and communicating to their consumers in a way that portrays quality in brand/product imagery, and at an affordable price.

• Alli: Not A Magic Pill

  In order for Alli to work, consumers must be willing to do some serious heavy lifting with diet and exercise. But if a consumer is truly committed to losing weight the old-fashioned way, will they want or need to take a pill? Why not just go to Weight Watchers?

• Agencies

  Loose Cannon: A Latte Good It’ll Do

  For those made nervous by a constant stream of consumer data breach reports and their impact on direct marketing, the San Francisco Chronicle recently reported on one victim who quite literally took her identity back from the woman who stole it. And there’s a lesson in this particular data theft, one that might hearten marketers.

• Letters to the Editor

  :

  I vote for herd. Not only is it an accurate description of the scene during cocktail hour in the exhibit hall, but can also be a spin on the great Abbott and Costello routine:

• Listline e-Newsletter 06/22/07

  More than 11.5 million consumers have registered with this “singles” Web
  site. Registration allows members to search each other’s profiles,
  exchange messages, use online chat rooms, access blogs and exchange
  dating tips.

• Agencies

  Pier 1 Losses Widen, Will Close 100 Stores

  Pier 1 Imports Inc. posted a net loss of $56.8 million for the first quarter, compared to a net loss of $23.2 million in the prior year

• Email

  Live from DMDNY: ‘Free’ Making a Comeback, Says Speaker

  Marketers are increasingly bucking conventional wisdom and using the word “free” in e-mail subject lines, and they’re doing it with success, said Jay Schwedelson, corporate vice president of Worldata at the Direct Marketing Days in New York conference Thursday.

• Live from DMDNY: New Marketing Services Firm Rolls Up Lanyap, Fury Group

  W&L, a newly formed holding company based in Chicago, has acquired Lanyap Inc., a marketing services firm, and analytics company Fury Group. Terms of the acquisitions were not disclosed.

• Agencies

  AeroGrow Mails Over 50,000 Copies of Debut Print Catalog

  AeroGrow International Inc., an online agricultural marketer, has unveiled its first print catalog and mailed more than 50,000 copies to its house file.

• Agencies

  R.R. Donnelley Consolidates Print Brands, Promotes Knotts

  R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. has unified its printing and related services offerings under the single RR Donnelley brand, absorbing Moore Wallace, Moore Canada, Moore Response Marketing, OfficeTiger and the company’s network of North American commercial printing under the Donnelley name.