Chief Marketer Staff

• Merger Mania

  NEW YORK – Mergers, acquisitions, and buyouts in the direct marketing industry grew 99 percent during the first quarter of 1998 over same period last

• Agencies

  Listen to This-Free Long Distance

  A new service allows people to sign up for “free” long distance service if they agree to listen to advertising pitches over the phone. One company, Eagle’s

• Agencies

  Envoy Drives Correspondence Course

  We feel toward serial mailings the way most people feel toward serial killers. However, unlike serial killers, serial mailings are sometimes amusing.

• Agencies

  Have Book, Will Travel

  Eight-year-old retailer Audio Adventures began direct sales this spring, renting (and selling) mostly through a Web site, www.audioadventures.com.The

• Agencies

  Introducing the Web Call Center

  Then the call center at IDT Corp. gets swamped, the Hackensack, NJ telecom company turns to Communications Service Center, a Margate, FL service bureau

• Dream Team

  SAN FRANCISCO – Sega of America last month announced agency assignments for the $100 million launch of its Dreamcast video game console, slated for introduction

• Agencies

  Brokers Break Bread

  American List Counsel Inc.’s executive vice president Fran Green and president Donn Rappaport welcomed more than 100 brokers in May to the firm’s second

• Sponsorships Grow Without the Olympics

  If there was a year for sponsorship spending to drop, 1997 should have been it. For more than 14 years, the sponsorship category has seen growth of at

• International

  Birthday Treats BUENOS AIRES – The Cartoon Network celebrated its fifth anniversary here with a program that got kids to show off their artistic abilities

• Agencies

  Chicago Internet Guru Jay Gondelman Dies

  Jay Gondelman, the Chicago Association of Direct Marketing’s interactive guru and partner in Visionautics Inc., died in June of cancer at 50. According