Chief Marketer Staff

• Agencies

  Cheez Doodles UGC Contest Lets Kids Interact with Mascots via Augmented Reality

  Snack maker Wise Foods is hoping to drum up some viral excitement for its Cheez Doodles brand among teens and young adults with a campaign and contest that uses a technology known as augmented reality to get a trio of animated cheese puffs to rock out.

• Volkswagen Leans on Smartphones to Buzz New Model

  Volkswagen is building buzz for the release of its 2010 GTI with a campaign that relies heavily—and so far, solely—on getting the car built into a racing game designed for the iPhone

• Agencies

  Neuromarketing: What the Human Brain Means to Your Campaign

  Neuromarketing, defined as the practice of using brain-scanning technology to measure marketing effectiveness, has applicability to the field of loyalty marketing and CRM in a number of key areas.

• Chicago Agency Upshot Acquires Digital Firm

  Upshot, a Chicago-based marketing agency, will acquire its long-time partner Emerge Digital, a Naperville-based interactive agency Terms of the acquisition were not released.

• InfoGroup Creates Nonprofit Unit

  InfoGroup, formerly InfoUSA, has merged its May Development Services and Triplex into InfoGroup Nonprofit.

• MidOcean Partners, Allant Management, Buy Allant Group

  MidOcean Partners, a private equity firm which focuses on the middle market, has acquired The Allant Group in conjunction with Allant’s management.

• Acquisition

  Targeting Institutional Names in a Consumer Prospect Universe

  Most business-to-consumer direct marketers do their prospect merge/purges at the family level; that is, both the physical location and Surname must be the same for a duplicate situation to exist. This is because the cost-effective strategy for most of them is to send just one piece into a household at a time.

• Agencies

  Mail Stream: October 26

  Sexy superheroes and other outrageous outfits adorn the pages of the new Frederick

• DR Agency Mercury Media Hires Two

  Mercury Media, a privately owned direct response media agency, has hired Chris Conderino and Mitchel G. Bader.

• Agencies

  Frederick’s of Hollywood Has Weak Quarter, Year

  Frederick’s of Hollywood saw its fourth quarter net sales drop 18.1%, from $42.1 million a year ago to $34.5 million. The company’s net loss diminished, however, from $7.2 million a year ago to just over $7 million.