Ha-Lo Debuts Direct Unit
Ha-Lo Industries, Inc. is “e-transforming.”
The company last month announced an “aggressive new strategic platform to extend promo products marketing and services online.” To that end, the Niles, IL-based company unveiled Upshot Direct, a new subsidiary that will offer advanced data-mining and modeling services to support targeted campaigns. The new unit will meet increasing client demand for complete direct marketing and database solutions both online and offline.
“Our vision is to become the leader in brand marketing for the New Economy,” says John Kelley, co-founder of Ha-Lo’s Upshot agency division, who was named Ha-Lo ceo late last year.
“Online solutions are a natural extension of our business, enabling powerful one-to-one relationships among companies, brands, and consumers,” Kelley says. “In addition to expanding our service offerings to meet client demand for speed, convenience, and innovation, `e-transformation’ will provide significant cost advantages.”
Kelley takes the helm from Ha-Lo founder Lou Weisbach (who remains chairman) as part of a reorganization. Ha-Lo bought Upshot in 1998. Weisbach had been ceo since 1972.
“John Kelley has demonstrated extraordinary leadership at the helm of Upshot, our fastest-growing marketing services unit,” Weisbach says. “His background as a proven strategic-marketing professional with a bottom-line focus is precisely what we need to complete our evolution to a unified brand marketing company.”
As part of the reorganization, Ha-Lo took a $30 million third-quarter charge and accepted resignations from four board directors – one of whom, Richard Magid, also resigned as chief operating officer. Magid will serve as a consultant to Kelley for an indefinite period, the company says.
Ha-Lo hired Max Coats to head up Upshot Direct. Coats had been performing data analysis as senior executive vp at Brand RMG, a data-marketing division of Snyder Communications. The new Ha-Lo unit will be using a proprietary tool called Zoom Technology, which Coats and a team have developed since he joined Ha-Lo in August, he says.
Ha-Lo Direct’s capabilities will include analyzing client databases to find the most profitable customers and assessing the campaign’s effectiveness on sales and loyalty by media.
Zoom is faster than existing systems, Coats says. “Modeling can take two to six weeks. We can turn it around in a day,” he says. As real-time information is collected on Internet promotions, Zoom can crunch the results on the fly, allowing the promoter to adjust elements of the offer or the target audience.
Coats expects to increase the current staff of six programmers to 29 people by June. Upshot Direct also signed a marketing partnership with Hewlett Packard Co. to develop “total solutions for the customer,” says Coats.
