Chief Marketer Staff

• Rene Aiu Becomes President and CEO at ShopNBC

  Rene Aiu has been appointed president and CEO for the TV shopping network ShopNBC With this appointment she also becomes a member of the board of directors.

• Cashtomatos Splattered in Union Square Money Melee

  A Cashtomato.com giveaway in Union Square last Friday quickly turned from free money event to free-for-all when a New York City crowd got beyond restless.

• Agencies

  Dove Offers Goodie Bags to Tanger Outlet Shoppers

  Dove is spreading the word about some of its products in a new sampling initiative with Tanger Factory Outlet Centers.

• Agencies

  American Greetings Launches Caption Contest

  American Greetings is on the hunt for some clever-witted people to develop captions as part of an online contest.

• GE Names CMO; NBC Shifts Exec Roles

  General Electric named Beth Comstock as senior vice president and chief marketing officer.

• WWE Renews Make-A-Wish Relationship

  World Wrestling Entertainment refreshed its 20-year commitment to the Make-A-Wish Foundation with a new multi-year, multi-million-dollar sponsorship deal this week.

• Garmin Gears Up for NASCAR Rerun

  Garmin International is renewing its associate sponsorship deal with Gillett Evernham Motorsports’ No. 19 Dodge driven by Elliott Sadler.

• Agencies

  Social Networks: Fickle Fad or Potent Channel?

  Social networking sites tend to attract specific communities of visitors whose demographic and psychographic characteristics closely match those of specific audiences. As a result, such sites provide marketers with the opportunity to engage with highly targeted communities of users. Marketers can participate on these sites in numerous ways, including placing a search, display or contextual ad; posting a comment; tagging a piece of content with a keyword; or posting a link to their site.

• Social Strategizing: If You Want to Network, Have a Plan

  If everyone was going to jump off a bridge, would you? No? Really? Then why do you have a blog? Many marketers are leaping on the social marketing bandwagon, simply because everyone else seems to be there. That’s a mistake if you don’t have a strategy, says Denise Shiffman, founder and principal of Venture Essentials.

• Agencies

  Insourcing Versus Outsourcing: The Challenge of Today’s Multichannel Marketer

  Marketers do a good job at handling their in-house systems on a daily basis. But do they have the skill sets to access and track customer behavior? Michael Caccavale offers a primer on what marketers should consider about outsourcing