Chief Marketer Staff

• Agencies

  Dry Run

  Reader’s Digest created a systematic and disciplined approach to testing new products, primarily because of the creation of expensive one-shot books and

• Agencies

  Window-Shopping the Small Screen

  Little more than a month after the holidays, many consumers probably still have psychic scars from the jammed malls and parking lots. Those memories may

• Agencies

  Watch This

  Publishers and other marketers looking to get their customers’ and prospects’ attention might want to put on a show — a video Webcast, to be specific.

• Media Mash

  For years, promotions and branding were separate nations. Promotional campaigns were developed by agencies working separately from those responsible for

• Agencies

  Political Post

  One thing we’ve never been able to figure out is when and how politicians started using direct mail. Some sources say it was during the 1960s, when large donor and voter lists became available.

• Agencies

  No Promotion Before Its Time

  It’s a cold afternoon in January, and a woman’s thoughts turn to drinking. Well, why not? I mean, something has to take the chill off the old bones, right?

• Agencies

  Write Away

  If you’re at a loss for words next time you sit down to write a sales letter, you might want to take a look at

• Agencies

  ZIP+4 + 2 = ZIP+6

  How do you get an entire newspaper chain to improve its targeting? It’s not easy when you own 90 papers, ranging from small weeklies to big-town dailies.

• Hello, Old Friend

  Looking for the Next Big Thing? Here’s something you might not have thought of. Direct mail. Yes, old-fashioned snail mail. It is the only targeted medium

• Agencies

  CLARIFICATION

  RCI Global Vacation Network uses SAS’ Enterprise Miner data-mining software in its customer modeling work (Vacation Planning, January).