News

• Short Cuts

  John Hunter, senior vice president of customer services for QVC Inc., has been elected to serve on the board of directors for GSI Commerce Inc., an online marketing services firm. Quebecor World Inc. has renewed and extended its $1 billion bank credit …

• DMA’s Insert Media Council to Honor Jeff Holland, BMG Columbia House

  The Direct Marketing Association

• Alliance Data Integrates Epsilon, Frequency Marketing Units

  Alliance Data, Dallas, will merge its Frequency Marketing Inc. unit into Epsilon, a multi-channel marketing services firm it acquired in late 2004. Frequency Marketing had been operating as a separate unit under Alliance’s umbrella.

• EHS Brann Discovery to Use Alterian Offerings

  EHS Brann Discovery has inked an agreement with Alterian. Under the terms of the contract, Brann, a data management services firm based in the UK, will offer Alterian

• ValueAct Increases Offer for Axciom to $25 Per Share

  ValueAct Capital increased to $25 per share, up from $23 per share, its offer to acquire roughly 77 million shares of Acxiom Corp. The offer announced on Monday is worth roughly $2 billion.

• Don McKenzie Joins Petsky Prunier as President and CEO

  Don McKenzie has been named president and CEO of Petsky Prunier LLC, a Wall Street investment-banking firm that provides merger and acquisition services for direct marketing firms.

• Online Sales to Hit $329 Billion by 2010: Forrester

  Innovations in Web analytics and personalization will drive online retail sales to $329 billion in 2010, up from $172 billion this year, according to the latest e-commerce forecast released by Forrester Research Inc.

• Chico’s Sales Up 34.5% in Second Quarter

  Chico’s FAS Inc. posted net sales for the second quarter ended July 30 of $343 million, a 34.6% increase from the $255 million reported for the same period last year.

• Live from SES San Jose: Search Powers Blue-Sky It

  The subject was maps, user experiences and whether size really matters — in fact, anything except advertising– at a roundtable discussion among representatives of the five leading search engines yesterday at the Search Engine Strategies 2005 conference in San Jose.

• Aura to Provide Technology to Tremor Video Ad Network

  The Aura Group has signed a contract to provide flash video banner ad technology to Tremor Network’s new contextual video advertising network.