Chief Marketer Staff

• Agencies

  Cotton Inc. Hosts Mall ‘Camp’

  Cotton Inc. and Seventeen Magazine are wrapping up a weeklong event that sent 50 high schoolers to camp at their local mall. “Cotton’s Fashion Camp” runs through Aug. 5 at General Growth Properties’ upscale Galleria Dallas mall, with seminars conducted …

• News Briefs

  VOLVO CARS OF NORTH AMERICA: will convene the final leg of its global treasure hunt promotion tied to Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest on Aug. 6. Seven finalists will be taken to a secret location somewhere in the world where the …

• First Person: Ethnography, Quaker Oatmeal, and Frito-Lay

  More than a decade ago, marketers, researchers, and innovation firms relied heavily on focus group research to vet new product offerings (more than 85% of which fail).

• Blog Aims to Smear DiGuido

  Someone has apparently started a blog in an attempt to smear Al DiGuido, the president of e-mail service provider Epsilon Interactive.

• Acquisitions Pace ValueClick Second Quarter Growth

  ValueClick Inc. reported net income of $14.4 million for the second quarter, up from $6.8 million last year.

• AIG DM Unit Acquires Taiwan Insurance Firm

  American International Group Inc.

• Justice Launches Catazine, Mails Out 1 Million Copies

  Justice, a direct marketer of apparel for girls ages 7 to 14, has mailed out 1 million copies of its first “catazine,” a cross between a catalog and a magazine.

• D&B, Acxiom Join Forces for New Services

  D&B has signed product and technology outsourcing agreements a deal with Acxiom Corp.

• Agencies

  Bush to Nominate Bilbray to USPS Board of Governor

  President Bush intends to nominate James H. Bilbray to be a Governor of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, for the remainder of a nine-year term expiring Dec. 8 and for an additional nine-year term expiring Dec. 8, 2015.

• Email

  AOL Confirms Free E-Mail Offer

  AOL, the beleaguered online unit of Time Warner, confirmed in its earnings report Wednesday it is giving free e-mail service to subscribers to any broadband service.