Chief Marketer Staff

• Agencies

  Merkle Names Craig Dempster First CMO

  Customer relationship marketing agency Merkle has promoted Craig Dempster to the newly formed role of executive vice president and chief marketing officer.

• Agencies

  Cabela’s Promotes Several Top Executives

  Cabela

• Consumer E-mail List Prices Show Biggest Decline: Worldata

  Permission-based consumer e-mail lists suffered the largest price declines between winter 2009 and winter 2010, according to the most recent Worldata List Price Index.

• Nearly Half Of DM Firms Plan Staff Increases: Bernhart

  The first quarter of 2010 will see the job market for direct marketers loosen. Nearly half (46%) of them plan to add staff, compared with 30% last quarter.

• Greco Out As DMA CEO, President

  John A. Greco has resigned as president and CEO of the Direct Marketing Association as of Monday, January 18. The organization has not named a replacement.

• Email

  Stupid Idea Watch: The Sarcasm Punctuation Mark

  Great, just what we need: a punctuation mark denoting sarcasm.

  Everyone reading this by now knows that e-mail

• Email

  Strange Idea Watch: What the … ?

  Arguably the strangest idea in the short history of e-mail marketing comes in the form of the Web site BottleOnBeach.com.

  Touted as an innovative answer to the spam problem, BottleOnBeach allows marketers to craft a text message and upload a list of e-mail addresses for which the message is intended.

• Email

  Stupid Top-10 Watch: Dumbest … List … Ever

  For the stupidest top-10 list of 2010—yes, it’s only January, but it’s difficult to imagine this one being topped—look no further than the top-10 list of e-mail service providers published last week by an outfit called TopSEOs.

  Besides claiming to evaluate things it can’t evaluate, actually being an existing e-mail service provider apparently wasn’t a requirement for inclusion.

• Kmart, WWE Enter Ring for Second Round of Promotions

  Following a successful in-store campaign to co-promote World Wrestling Entertainment’s merchandise and pay-per-view events, Kmart and the WWE will mark the signing of another partnership with a new multi-platform promotion

• Agencies

  7 Ways to Improve the Pop-Up Experience

  Pop-up shops have redefined the notion of when and where a sale can be made. These temporary spaces not only deliver an element of surprise just by their mere existence