Q&As

(Promo) This might come as a surprise, but young people, especially men, like to read grocery-store direct mail.

Last month, The New York Times ran an article on questions posed to business school graduates by investment banking firm recruiters. The questions were designed more to gauge applicants’ reactions than test their knowledge. They ranged from the unknowable (“How many gas stations are in the United States?”) to those requiring lateral thinking (“If you could stack up enough pennies to reach the top of the Empire State Building, could you fit them all into a room?”).

They also included some personality-determining brain teasers, such as “How much would you pay to play the coin-toss game?” and “What is the most controversial belief you hold?”

Zingerman

Today we meet Chris Mayka, director of list brokerage at Atlantic List Co. He switches back and forth every two weeks from working at home in Vermont to working at corporate headquarters in Arlington, VA.

(Direct) When it comes to video ads on the Internet, advertisers have shown themselves willing to jump in with both feet, provided they can get answers to two questions: How will they work, and what can they do?

IAC posted net income $102.1 million for the first quarter, a 2.7% decline from net income of $104.9 million in the prior year.

ValueClick reported net income of $18.6 million for the first quarter, nearly doubling net income of $9.8 million last year.

(Multichannel Merchant) Not long ago, marketers though it sufficient to plan catalog mailings and e-mail campaigns in concert with one another, acknowledging that the e-efforts would support and bolster the printed and mailed catalog.

(Multichannel Merchant) Best-practices marketing database content provides a consolidated view of all customers and inquirers across all channels. The complete history of transactional detail must be captured.