Chief Marketer Staff

• Agencies

  Microsoft Picks Entrepreneurs’ Brains for Big Idea

  Microsoft Corp. is conducting a nationwide search for the most creative small-business idea in the country.

• Agencies

  KB Toys Woos Grandparents with Discounts

  Toy retailer KB Toys touts its fledgling Grandparents’ Rewards Club with extended discounts designed to recruit new members.

• News Brief

  THEKNOT.COM: will run a month-long promotion timed to

• 2007: The Year of Differentiation

  It may seem oxymoronic to say that differentiation will be an overriding trend for 2007. But what companies will have in common in the coming year is the need to set themselves apart from the competition

• Data & Analytics

  The Luxury of Change: Trends for Upscale Marketers

  Perhaps the rich are different…but in many ways companies targeting the wealthiest consumers aren’t that different from those marketing to a mass audience.

• Agencies

  Demand Insight and the Data Value Chain

  An engineer has been defined as “someone who measures with a micrometer, marks with chalk, and cuts with an ax.” The message of this quip is simple: If the tool to take action is blunt, fine measurement means little.

• Agencies

  Precision Marketing Is a Green Initiative

  Can an investment in improving customer data analytics to drive precision-marketing effectiveness be considered a green initiative?

• Agencies

  Microsegmentation for Macro Returns

  If there’s one strategy that should guide your marketing tactics for the next 12 months, it’s microsegmentation. What we used to call the “average” customer no longer exists.

• Agencies

  Loose Cannon: Diary of a Would-Be Video Gamer

  If there is any sight more gratifying to retailers’ hearts during the holiday shopping season than eager, underemployed consumers camping out in front of their stores, they aren’t saying.

  For the most part, direct marketers haven’t capitalized on these annual overblown media events. But thanks to the efforts of a few die-hard DM consumer enthusiasts, this may be changing.

  One such DM customer blogs under the name GameSchnook.

• Agencies

  BSC Acquires Champion Printing

  BSC Ventures has acquired direct mail printer Champion Printing, Cincinnati, for an undisclosed sum.