DMA Enters the Merger Race

The Direct Marketing Association has finally caught up with its members’ merger mania by making an acquisition itself.

The trade group announced last month that it acquired the Association for Interactive Media (AIM), a Washington, DC-based not-for-profit group with 250 corporate members. The group is the largest association of companies doing business on the Internet, according to the DMA.

The deal will provide the DMA with “intellectual capital” in the e-commerce area, while making it the largest single online trade group.

AIM will operate as an independent subsidiary of the DMA, while making use of the DMA’s accounting, legal, conference and public relations services.

Andy Sernovitz, who founded AIM in 1993, will continue as president.

While declining to give an exact figure, DMA president H. Robert Wientzen says the purchase price was “under $10 million and over $1 million.” The DMA will finance the acquisition, its first ever, from its operating capital and reserves.

Asked if it is profitable, Wientzen says AIM is “on the edge of being in the black.”

AIM publishes several free e-mail newsletters, including AIM’s Who’s News and AIM’s Internet Policy Insider. It also runs conferences, including the Internet Policy Forum, formerly known as the Washington Web Conference.

Sernovitz, who paid for his college education in part by selling lists, formerly ran the Interactive TV Association, which “morphed” into AIM in 1993. Its members include The New York Times, Citibank, Bloomberg, Universal Studios and Yoyodyne, according to Sernovitz. There is about a 20% crossover in membership between AIM and the DMA.

Wientzen says the DMA has been “trying to grow in the interactive area for over a year.” At one point, the DMA considered acquiring the Interactive Marketing Association, but AIM “beat us to it,” and acquired the group.