Winning Big Snyder Communications Inc., Bethesda, MD, announced that its’ wholly-owned subsidiary Blau Marketing won seven Tempo Awards for its work with Sears, SunTrust Bankcard N.A., and The Associates, a Texas bank.

The Tempo Awards are given annually by the Chicago Association of Direct Marketers in recognition of leading marketing and creative programs.

Chicago-based Blau won three Business-to-Business Direct Mail awards for its Sears campaign designed to encourage store managers to internally promote the benefits of the Sears credit card. The SunTrust Bankcard N.A. campaign involved targeting increased check usage by new and existing card members and won two Consumer Direct Mail awards.

Blau also won two additional consumer awards for its programs focusing on new college-age credit card consumers on behalf of The Associates.

“These awards are the effect of hard work, quality talent and resulting value-added direct marketing campaigns created throughout our entire network of integrated companies,” says Snyder Communications ceo Daniel M. Snyder.

Streamline and 1-800-DATABASE Join Forces Streamline, Inc., Westwood, MA, and 1-800-DATABASE announced a multi-year agreement to develop and maintain a database of product images and information designed to expand Streamline’s customer base.

Working with the Grocery Industry Database, 1-800- DATABASE will develop, maintain, and validate product data and images to enhance Streamline’s consumer offerings direct to the home, not only adding to the number of customers but boosting value. 1-800-DATABASE manages a centralized database for the grocery, beverage, hardware, housewares, automotive, office products, pet products and other industries that enables marketers to increase sales and cut costs.

“Enhanced product information is a fundamental ingredient for consumer-specific marketing in the consumer-direct marketplace,” says Tim DeMello, chief executive officer of Streamline.

The partnership is designed to build Streamline consumer value and accelerate channel adoption, he says.

“Streamline joins a growing list of online retailers who have begun to use the Grocery Industry Database as their sole source of product information, ” says Rob Carter, president of Norcross, GA-based 1-800 DATABASE,

Streamline, Inc. helps time-starved families enjoy a higher quality of life by delivering a wide selection of goods and services directly to customer’s homes. Currently available in the Boston area, these include groceries, prepared meals, dry cleaning, video rental and return, and Kodak Premium Processing.

A Wider Choice of Direct Mail Insignia Solutions, Mountain View, CA, and MySoftware Company, Palo Alto, announced a joint promotion to provide Macintosh customers with new marketing and mailing bundles for small businesses. Insignia customers who purchase SoftWindows 95 5.0 (a MySoftware Company PC product), will receive, free of charge, one of two bundles of selected software applications. One bundle, valued at $99.90, includes MyMarketingMaterials and MyMailManager that offer high-tech solutions that enable small businesses to create professional brochures, post cards, flyers, and newsletters, at their desktops. The MyMailManager can easily print labels, handle mailing lists, and maximize postal discounts.

The other bundle, a $109.95 value, includes the Pacifica Personal WebPage Designer and Jalapeno Hot Banners and Hot Buttons. The latter includes professionally- designed templates and over 5,000 Internet-ready graphics and password protection features to help create great-looking Web pages.

“Our marketing and mailing bundle gives Macintosh customers access to a complete Windows direct mail solution that would otherwise be unavailable to them,” says MySoftware vp of sales Joe Cortale.

Polk Names Riley VP Sales The Polk Company, Stamford, CT, one of the nation’s top database companies with a list of more than 100 million households, announced that Jack Riley would become its new vp of the company’s Direct Marketing Business Unit. His responsibilities will include boosting the company’s growth, profitability, and market share in the direct marketing industry, the company says.

Riley has a 20-year background in sales and marketing, including an extensive history in direct marketing. Before joining Polk, he served as manager of Advo’s Key Account sales group for the Detroit region. Riley’s experience also includes 11 years of sales management, business development and sales positions with the Pepsi-Cola Company and a successful stint in private business.

Riley holds an undergraduate degree from Mercyhurst College, Erie, PA.

Alien Intrigue General Motors is using its joint promotion of the 20th Century Fox movie X-Files: Fight for the Future as a chance to acquire new buyers for its Oldsmobile Intrigue.

As part of the partnership, Lansing, MI-based Oldsmobile recently mailed 1.5 million Intrigue/X-Files glossy booklets, each containing six stills from the movie, to “conquest” consumers – those who don’t already own an Oldsmobile product, according to GM promotions manager Steve Braun.

Each mailing contained six free vouchers to be redeemed for tickets with a test drive of the car. The tickets are good for the new X-Files film or any other 20th Century Fox movie, an offer three times the value of that being tendered in regular, broad-based media.

“We figure that two tickets aren’t enough to budge someone off the fence, so we decided more were needed,” Braun says. He adds that the premium’s greater value also reflected “the higher potential” of the target recipients.

In planning for the promo, GM got its recipient consumer list from its competitive database at Lansing, focusing on drivers who own Ford Taurus Nissan Maxima or Toyota Camera cars.

The demographic characteristics of Intrigue owners are similar to X-Files series addicts. Both groups have families with children and are college-educated. But Intrigue drivers skew older (35-54) than X-Files fans (18-49) and have slightly higher average incomes ($60,000 versus $50,000).

GM expects its six-ticket offer to pull in between 30,000 to 60,000 test drivers. This would take a response rate of between 2 percent and 4 percent, with perhaps another 55,000 drivers being lured in as a result of supporting nationwide TV spots and advertising.

Braun acknowledges that a 4 percent response “is aiming a bit high,” but that a 2 percent response wasn’t at all unreasonable.

According to Oldsmobile spokesman Jeff Roegner, the two ticket offer, currently appearing nationally in newspapers, magazines and tv, is going “really well.” He adds that, for those “actually shopping the car,” about 52 percent will usually end up making a purchase.