Consumer card pack publisher Direct Response Inc., Omaha, NE, has purchased Solar Direct, the card pack publishing division of Solar Communications Inc. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The acquisition is a way “to expand market share and hit consumer markets we weren’t hitting before,” says Lee Payne, president of Direct Response.
Solar Direct is being relocated from Naperville, IL to Omaha. Most of the division’s employees have been retained by Solar Communications; none will move as a result of the sale.
Solar’s publishing roster contained 24 titles but only the Western Lifestyle, Premier Sportsman (which had been called Wild Sport) and Great Food packs will continue to be published. The combined circulation of these decks is 1.2 million. Each covers a specific consumer interest or hobby.
The mailing schedule will remain the same as it was at Solar Direct: one drop in the fall and one in January or February. “We may expand on the number of issues we mail each year, depending on how they are received in the marketplace,” Payne says.
These packs were each about two years old and their success rate was “OK,” according to Payne. “They were new. They hadn’t fully developed yet. So we’re going to continue their development and grow them to their full potential.”
Direct Response has suspended publication on four or five Solar decks because the Direct Response group in Omaha isn’t large enough to handle all those titles. They will be phased back in over the next year or two. The remaining titles had not even begun publishing because “an aggressive publishing schedule was truncated” by Solar Communications’ purchase of Solar Direct in 1996, notes Payne. Their reintroduction – at some point – is also under consideration.
Direct Response issues three card packs with a combined circulation of 2.28 million. Two of them, First Wallstreeter (for investment and business opportunities) and Marketing Manager (targeting marketing directors) are business-to-business decks. The third, Elite Woodworker, is a consumer title.
Direct Response is a sister company to Marketshare Publications Inc., Overland Park, KS, which reaches 12 million consumers annually. Marketshare mails 11 titles in eight markets. It bought Direct Response in March.
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