Chief Marketer Staff

• SkillPath Taps RSA Direct for British DM Efforts

  SkillPath Seminars has chosen RSA Direct, a UK-based agency to provide direct marketing services.

• KFC Entices Employees with Scent Marketing

  KFC is using the power of scent to drive people to its restaurants.

• Agencies

  Office Depot Takes Its Marketing Mobile

  Office Depot will launch its first national mobile marketing initiative with the creation of a site on the go2 mobile content platform that will let wireless users find the nearest store via their handsets, together with any in-store special offers, promotions, coupons or sweepstakes.

• Sunoco-NASCAR Giveaway Pushes Two-Wheel Prize

  Sunoco and NASCAR are running a chopper giveaway with a novel tag line for a gas company: “Cars are overrated.”

• Branding Faces Social Challenge: Report

  The growing popularity of social networks such as Facebook and MySpace makes the sites attractive targets for online ad spending, but a new report from research firm IDC finds that the networks face some serious hurdles in monetizing their success with ads

• News Brief

  JJILL: is out with an online sweepstakes offering the chance to win a $1,000 JJill wardrobe.

• Agencies

  Card Tricks: Gift Cards Are Big Business for Retailers

  Consumers are expected to spend upwards of $90 billion this year on gift cards, up from $76 billion in 2006, forecasts Dan Horne, associate professor of marketing at Providence College in Rhode Island. And by 2008, the category is projected to surpass $100 billion.

• Agencies

  From Mail to Mall: Using Catalogs to Drive Retail Traffic

  (Multichannnel Merchant) You’ve got a catalog. You’ve got a retail presence. It only makes sense that each should drive the other.

• Agencies

  Forget About Integrated Marketing—Think Integrated Shoppers

  There’s lots of talk about integrated marketing. But let’s chat about integrated customers.

• Agencies

  Retail Newsbites To Go

  Families with school-age children are expected to spend $563.49 on back-to-school merchandise this year, up 6.9% from last year’s $527.08 average, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2007 Consumer Intentions and Actions Back-to-School survey, conducted by BIGresearch