Chief Marketer Staff

• DM Hiring to Taper Off During Summer Months: Survey

  Direct marketers will slow their hiring during the summer, compared with spring’s levels, according to a new survey.

• Bissig Leaves Millard-Mokrynksi Group

  Dennis Bissig, formerly senior vice president of the Millard-Mokrynski Group, has left the organization. His resignation was confirmed by Ed Mallin, president of infoUSA’s Services Group, the parent company of Millard-Mokrynski. According to Mallin, Bissig resigned last week.

• Digital

  After Semel, a Wait-and-See Q2 for Yahoo!

  Almost exactly one month after Yahoo! replaced former CEO and president Terry Semel with co-founder Jerry Yang and former chief financial officer Sue Decker, the search engine/ Web portal posted quarterly financial results that seemed to suggest why the change was necessary.

• Agencies

  Robert Sahadevan to lead United’s Mileage Plus

  UAL Corp., the parent company of United Airlines, has named Robert Sahadevan managing director of its Mileage Plus program.

• Digital

  Amazon.com’s Grocery, Shoe and Handbag Sites Retain Ad Agency Fly

  Amazon.com has tabbed Fly, a Manhattan-based advertising agency formerly known as RowenWarren, to develop interactive campaigns for its grocery and Endless.com, its shoe and handbag Web site, as well as Unbox, one if its digital categories.

• 1-800-Flowers.com’s BloomNet Adds Executive Staff

  BloomNet, a floral wire service provider and wholly owned subsidiary of 1-800-Flowers.com, has tapped Vincent McVeigh to serve as senior vice president, with responsibility for BloomNet’s customer service and technology divisions.

• Agencies

  Burger King Launches Interactive Promo Tied to ‘Simpsons’ Movie

  Burger King has launched a promotion tied to “The Simpsons Movie” that lets customers convert digital pictures of themselves into ‘Simpson’ characters.

• Agencies

  Audi Showcases Varied Driving Experiences

  Audi is launching a national driving tour this month to give consumers in five major markets a chance to do more than kick the tires on a range of its cars.

• Agencies

  WWE and Gold’s Gym Pump up SummerSlam

  World Wrestling Entertainment and Gold’s Gym are pumping up WWE’s annual SummerSlam pay-per-view event with an online sweepstakes.

• Academy of Country Music Forms New Marketing Group

  The Academy of Country Music has created a new in-house marketing, publicity and creative team.