Q&As

DIRECT TALKED recently with consultant Kurt Medina, who specializes in the 50-plus market. He shared his thoughts about targeting boomers and seniors.

We suppose we should be doing victory laps. The Direct Marketing Association is pulling the plug on InMarketing, its excuse for a monthly magazine. Here’s

WHAT DOES A LOCAL PLUMBING concern do when business starts to slow down and the Yellow Pages doesn’t bring in work the way it used to? This was the problem

Mass marketing may be growing in some quarters, but not among executives surveyed by Epsilon. A poll of 175 U.S. marketers showed that most are cutting

I admit, I have to search widely for interactive ads that cry out for a makeover. Still, there always seems to be a plentiful supply of examples of advertising folly. And while the percentage of such ads may be small, the dollar waste is huge.

The latest example is one that I found in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal, an ad for the worldwide chain of Mandarin Oriental Hotels. It’s presumably one of a series.

IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING April the most recent period for which figures are available AOL lost subscribers at a clip of 258,000 a month. That’s twomonth.

Do you know about Diet Coke and Mentos? It’s not the latest weight-loss craze. It’s a Mr. Wizard science experiment gone berserk, and it’s currently storming

Best Buy, frustrated with the speed at which its loyalty program was growing, decided on an overhaul 18 months ago. It was a good move. Since then, enrollment

DEAD LETTER OFFICE My grandmother had her own (unique) solution to unwanted solicitations (Loose Cannon, June 1). After my grandfather died, she received

The U.S. Postal Service has a problem: It needs to improve customer relations. But that’s a tall order given the uncertainty of postal reform legislation passage, the new rate case and the promise of large annual increases because of the escrow account issue.