Chief Marketer Staff

• Pier 1 Losses Mount in Quarter

  Pier 1 Imports reported a net loss of $23.2 million for the first quarter compared to a net loss of $12.5 million last year.

• TeleTech Holdings Acquires Direct Alliance

  TeleTech Holdings, a business process outsourcing provider, will acquire Direct Alliance Corp., an e-commerce systems developer.

• West Corp. to Add Jobs at Florida Call Center

  West Corp. plans to add 300 new jobs at its Pensacola, FL call center, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

• FTC Settles With ‘Credit Counseling Service’

  A credit counseling service and related companies and individuals have agreed to pay $926,754 in consumer redress and civil penalties to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they made false claims about their debt management program and violated the FTC

• Iseemedia Closes Acquisition of RealBiz360

  Iseemedia Inc., a developer of online rich media content, it has closed its acquisition of RealBiz360.

• DMA Discontinues InMarketing Magazine

  The Direct Marketing Association has discontinued InMarketing, its 12-times-a-year house publication. The June issue will be its last.

• Agencies

  Synonyms Ain’t Synonymous

  Editor’s note: Herschell Gordon Lewis, Direct’s Curmudgeon-at-Large, is a copywriter renowned as an authority on the use of words. This is one of an occasional

• Agencies

  DM Growth Falls in First Quarter

  DIRECT MARKETING GROWTH flagged in the first quarter of 2006, dropping below the last two years’ robust levels, according to the Direct Marketing Association’s

• Agencies

  Click Fraud Has Radiator.com Boiling

  CLICK-FRAUD TROUBLES HAVE given industrywide prominence to a handful of small search marketers unaccustomed to the spotlight: Lane’s Gifts & Collectibles,

• Agencies

  Security Leads Global IT Priorities

  What are corporate decision-makers focusing on in information technology? Online security and data protection first, followed at some distance by online