Peapod Names Times Direct

Online grocery service Peapod, Skokie, IL, named Times Direct Marketing, San Francisco, agency of record for online marketing. Times Direct will use banner ads and e-mail to attract new subscribers for Peapod and increase orders from the company’s 104,000 existing subscribers.

Peapod launches a national delivery service, Peapod Packages, this month to build brand recognition as it expands its online grocery-shopping service beyond its seven current markets. The company is opening distribution warehouses to replace the local supermarkets that now fill orders.

With its own warehouses, “manufacturers see us as a company to talk to directly about promotional allowances and the like, as they would with a traditional retailer,” says chief operating officer John Walden.