Q&As

Texas grocer H-E-B is asking shoppers to produce and star in TV spots for an ad campaign that breaks next week with the new tagline “My H-E-B.”

Microsoft Corp. is conducting a nationwide search for the most creative small-business idea in the country.

Toy retailer KB Toys touts its fledgling Grandparents’ Rewards Club with extended discounts designed to recruit new members.

An engineer has been defined as “someone who measures with a micrometer, marks with chalk, and cuts with an ax.” The message of this quip is simple: If the tool to take action is blunt, fine measurement means little.

Can an investment in improving customer data analytics to drive precision-marketing effectiveness be considered a green initiative?

If there’s one strategy that should guide your marketing tactics for the next 12 months, it’s microsegmentation. What we used to call the “average” customer no longer exists.

If there is any sight more gratifying to retailers’ hearts during the holiday shopping season than eager, underemployed consumers camping out in front of their stores, they aren’t saying.

For the most part, direct marketers haven’t capitalized on these annual overblown media events. But thanks to the efforts of a few die-hard DM consumer enthusiasts, this may be changing.

One such DM customer blogs under the name GameSchnook.

BSC Ventures has acquired direct mail printer Champion Printing, Cincinnati, for an undisclosed sum.

Willowtree Advisor Inc. has acquired OmniReliant Corp., a developer of products sold through infomercials and online marketing.

The U.S. Postal Service has extended until Nov. 30 contract negotiations with its four largest unions