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This issue of DIRECT Newsline is sponsored by
Direct Media, Inc.
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GOLF DIGEST
1,100,000 Active Subscribers
The concept of "the good life" to the Golf Digest
subscriber is being able to play more golf and better golf. But they
have also demonstrated a compassion for life off the course.
Historically, these affluent consumers have responded to publishing,
fundraising, financial, membership offers - just to name a few.
Contact:
Heather Winnicki/ hwinnicki@directmedia.com/
203.532.3831
Mike Rovello/ mrovello@directmedia.com/
203.532.2427
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Top Stories
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Tiffany Reports Flat Holiday
DM Sales
Tiffany & Co. posted direct marketing sales of $69.9 million for the
holiday period, roughly the same amount as the prior year.
At the same time, the New York Company reported worldwide sales of
$867.3 million for the period between Nov. 1 and Dec. 3, an 8% increase
over last year.
The jewelry marketer posted U.S. retail sales of $449.1 million for the
period, a 4% increase over the prior year. Despite the gain, Tiffany's
said the number of transactions dropped although spending per
transaction increased over last year.
""Tiffany's holiday sales results were mixed but we still expect to
achieve strong earnings growth in the fourth quarter ending Jan. 31,"
said CEO Michael J. Kowalski, in a statement. "We believe a recent
pullback in U.S. spending likely reflected a more cautious attitude
among customers about the near-term direction of the economy."
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Restoration Hardware Posts
Lackluster December Sales
Restoration Hardware Inc. experienced flat holiday sales, the firm
said Friday.
Revenue for the nine-week period ending on Jan. 5 fell by 1% to $171.5
million. Last year, Corte Madera, CA company reported a 22% increase
during the same period.
The retailer and direct marketer reduced its circulated catalog page
count by 17%.
"The seasonal sales we anticipated in gift items during the final days
of Holiday did not materialize as expected, contributing to softness
that was concentrated in our decorative accessories business," said CEO
Gary Friedman in a statement.
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Infomercial Firm to Refund $1
Million-Plus
Florida consumers will be paid over $1 million as part of a
settlement between State Attorney General Bill McCollum and infomercial
firm Whitney Information Network Inc.
Whitney and its subsidiaries, including Millionaire University and
Whitney Intelligence Academy, promised in infomercials that customers
could achieve financial independence by attending their seminars,
McCollum's office claimed.
The firms also used deceptive "testimonials," the AG's office continued.
As part of the deal, Whitney and its subsidiaries are barred from making
misleading statements in their infomercials.
Whitney has already refunded more than $580,000 to victims, and must pay
another $450,000, McCollum's office said.
In addition, the firm must set up a reserve account of $150,000 to cover
unresolved complaints. And it must pay $300,000 to the state -- half to
cover investigative costs and half to support the AG's Seniors vs. Crime
program.
According to McCollum's office, elderly consumers signed up for
Whitney's classes based on the claim that they could earn without
investing any of their own. Many were retired and on fixed incomes.
The AG's office received over 250 complaints.
"When companies make direct or indirect implications that by using their
products or services, a consumer can attain wealth and financial
independence when that is not the experience of the typical consumer
using the product, these actions could indicate potential violations of
our consumer protection laws," McCollum said in a statement.
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This issue of DIRECT Newsline is sponsored by Millard Group, Inc.
Reach over 2 million mature buyers of men's and women's apparel, fashion
accessories, gifts, home décor, gadgets, and more with Haband!
This list works well for a variety of offers from catalogers,
fundraisers, and publishers alike. Select recency, dollar, product,
size, and multi-buyers from the core file!
*Enhancements excluded.
Call Tony Troiano at Millard
Group, Inc. - 201-488-5656, ext. 632.
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E.U. Printer Drops DM to Improve Bottom
Line
One of the largest printing services companies in the European
Union, Schott Gruppe AG, based in Freudenstadt, Germany reported on Jan.
11 that the disposal of its direct marketing division significantly
improved its bottom line.
Discontinuation of direct marketing operations resulted in the
equivalent of a $21.8 million gain, compared to the equivalent of an
$8.8 million loss last year, according to the firm.
Disposal of its direct marketing unit will allow the company to pay
shareholders a dividend, as a result of reduced debt and a strengthened
balance sheet, according to a company statement.
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Alliance Data, Austin Extend
Contract
Alliance Data Systems Corporation last week announced it has renewed
its contract with the City of Austin.
Under the terms of the agreement, Alliance Data will continue to provide
Austin's city-owned electric utility with customer-information-system
application hosting and management, bill print and mail services, online
customer care, and electronic bill presentment and payment, the database
marketing services firm said.
The City of Austin has been a client of Alliance Data since 1998, the
company said.
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Usana Health Sciences Says It Is Clear in SEC
Probe
Usana Health Sciences Inc. said on Friday that it has received a
letter from the Salt Lake City regional offices of the Securities and
Exchange Commission, which announced that a formal inquiry of the
company's marketing activities has been completed, with a recommendation
that no enforcement action be taken.
"We have always been confident about the integrity of our company,"
said in a statement David A. Wentz, president of Usana.
The investigation concerned the firm's multi-level marketing activities
for selling dietary supplements through distributors. Usana disclosed in
March 2007 that the SEC was investigating its activities.
Usana is the subject of a separate inquiry by the Chinese government
that's under way concerning Web sites and Chinese nationals associated
with multi-level marketing activities all over the world. (Direct
Newsline, Jan. 7, 2008).
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Time Warner Targets Teens with
Virtual World Investment
By Brian Quinton
(PromoXtra) Time Warner has disclosed that it has made an investment
in Gaia Online, a virtual world targeting a teen audience.
The size of the investment was not revealed, but press reports quote
Gaia officials as saying the capital was not enough to give Time Warner
directorial influence over the company.
The investment was part of a $12 million funding round completed late
last year by the San Jose CA-based Gaia. Other participants in that
funding included venture firms DAG Ventures, Benchmark Capital and
Redpoint Ventures, and Sony Pictures, which announced its stake in Gaia
last month -- also without disclosing the sum of the investment.
Both Sony and Time Warner signed deals in December to stream movies and
TV shows into virtual theaters created in the Gaia world. Members will
be able to move their avatars into these theaters and watch 50 titles
from each provider, including movies such as "Spider-Man," "Ghost
Rider," "Batman Returns" and "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective." Sony will
eventually provide TV content, including its Minisode Network -- TV
episodes condensed and optimized for online viewing.
Gaia members will reportedly be charged $1.99 for each pay-per-view
movie they screen within the world. Other video content will be free and
supported with ad sales.
Founded in 2003, Gaia Online claims to have around 3 million monthly
users and to see more than $1 million in virtual transactions each
month.
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Chefs Catalog Shutting San
Francisco Office
By Tim Parry and Jim Tierney
(Multichannel Merchant) Cooking and kitchenware products merchant
Chefs Catalog will close a San Francisco office and shift jobs from that
location to its Colorado Springs, CO, headquarters.
The San Francisco office was opened last year to handle merchandising
and creative. Chefs Catalog CEO Tim Littleton said the consolidation,
scheduled to take place during the first quarter, will improve
efficiency. He would not reveal how many employees the closing would
affect, other than to say the number of job loses was "minimal."
Littleton was just promoted to the top job; he had been the cataloger's
senior vice president-marketing. He replaces Patrick Wynhoff, who had
taken over the company when its former president/CEO Jon Medved retired
a year ago. Chefs Catalog did not say why Wynhoff, a former
Williams-Sonoma executive, left the company.
According to its data card, Chefs has a list of more than 1.18 million
names, but just under 259,000 12-month buyers with an average sale of
$125. Private equity firm JH Partners acquired Chefs Catalog from Neiman
Marcus Group in late 2004. JH Partners formed Chef's parent company
Pikes Peak Direct Marketing for the transaction.
Littleton would not reveal Chefs Catalog's sales or comment on how the
merchant did for the holiday season, other than to say it had "mixed
results." But some industry watchers say the business may be suffering
because of its narrow niche.
Lee Helman, managing director of New York-based investment bank Financo,
thinks Chefs Catalog needs to add more products to be successful. "I
think this business is struggling because they only sell commoditized
kitchen products and appliances that anyone would go to shopping.com or
another comparative shopping engine to get the cheapest price on," he
said.
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Loose Cannon: E-Mail Metrics: A
Destructuralist View
By Richard H. Levey
Early in the New Year, a marketing research firm declared Wednesday
the best day for e-mailers to send out their messages. This contradicted
late-2007 research, which stated the choicest days were either Tuesday
or Thursday. That finding, in turn, had refuted mid-year research that
conclusively proved Saturday was the one day every e-mail marketer
should embrace.
In an effort to sort through conclusions that run the gamut from
specious to spurious, Loose Cannon commissioned a cross-discipline
academic roundtable discussion at Miskatonic University. We convened in
a small lecture room in the physical social sciences building.
"When evaluating how a given day of the week affects e-mail open rates,
one must consider the Heisenberg uncertainty principle," said Pavlova
Rugelach, chair of the applied philosophical mathematics
department.
She continued, "Until a marketer reviews a campaign report, every e-mail
sent exists in a state of both openness and un-openness. Once an effort
is launched a marketing director may truthfully tell C-level executives
that overall open rates stand at 50%, given the binary nature of the two
possible outcomes for every message. Of course, this falls apart once
the marketing director looks at an actual campaign update."
Mandelbrot Babka-Fresser, professor of unstructured marketing
mathematics, indicated the numbers weren't quite that simple.
"Nano-segmentative analytics require that we look not only at day of the
week but time of day, as well as desired result," Babka-Fresser said.
"I've just submitted a paper to the American Journal of Vapid Algorithms
in which I break a standard-issue week into 168 discrete temporal units.
My analysis conclusively proves that the best time is Tuesday morning
for pure open rates, Saturday at just before supper for click-throughs
on links presented within messages, Monday at dawn for deliverability
rates, and alternate Friday afternoons for purchases.
"The Babka-Fresser algorithm consists of a list hygiene coefficient of
my own devising applied to total mail-out rate as indexed by a recipient
interactivity coefficient. All this, of course, is divided by 3:30
pm...."
Babka-Fresser blinked. "I seem to have inadvertently divided
click-through rates by the time the faculty sherry lounge opens. I must
call my publisher immediately!"
Kolach Zimtsterne, of the university's physics department, provided a
succinct suggestion for marketers. "Analytics are bunk. The individual
days of the week are irrelevant. My advice is that marketers gain a
mastery of quantum physics that will allow them to go back in time to
when their targets' e-mailboxes were less overrun. Say 1957 or 1958.
Failing that, they should print out their messages and nail them to
their prospects' front doors."
Kuchen Tishpishti, who occupied the university's endowed chair of
neurobiological marketing processes until he spilled a glass of
slivovitz on the fabric and it had to be taken away for reupholstering,
used a prop to illustrate his theory.
"Let my hat be the average e-mail recipient's cognitive functionality,
because before we can consider which day of the week is the most
advantageous, we have to consider the whole of the e-mail experience as
it interfaces with cognitive function," he said, holding up a dark brown
wool bowler.
"The forward-facing portion of the brim represents the attractiveness of
the subject line, while the brim's total circumference constitutes the
combined value of the offer, relevance of the messaging and
sophistication of the graphics, while the arc of the crown, divided into
24 segments of 15 degrees each, is the consumer's ability to focus on
the message."
Tishpishti then produced a horsehair brush from his briefcase. "This
little hat brush is the consumer's credit card purchase, or whichever
response action the marketer desires. While the little hat brush
provides good daily maintenance, the e-mail message/hat is going to need
a complete steaming and reblocking, preferably by a professional." He
waved the horsehair brush around once for effect, and sat down.
"That doesn't make any sense whatsoever, does it?" Rugelach blurted
out.
"With a last name like Tishpishti, what does it matter?" the professor
answered bitterly.
At this point Zimtsterne's BlackBerry device began beeping with the
announcement of incoming messages. As one, the academics muttered
excuses and rose to attend to other duties. I leave it to readers to
draw what conclusions they may regarding academia and e-mail
metrics.
To respond to this column, please contact richard.levey@penton.com
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This issue of DIRECT Newsline is sponsored by The Kern
Organization
Spend one fast-paced hour, right at your desk, and learn about the tools
you need to leverage your brand investments while generating peak
performance for your Direct campaigns.
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List and Database News
Movin' and Spendin'
Avrick Direct Inc. has taken management of its Movin' and Spendin' files
in-house. Approximately 2.2 million monthly hotline names are available
for new movers. The sources include utility hook up records and change
of address data from magazine publishers.
Selections: Change of address, credit card type, number of credit cards,
age, income, homeowner, dwelling type, home value market/accessed
(ranges), mortgage/purchase amount, available equity (ranges),
ethnicity, religion, pool, marital status, distance of move, apparel
buyer type, mail order buyer type, hobbies, presence of children,
Spanish speaking, state/SCF/ZIP
Price: $85/M (base)
Contact: Avrick Direct Inc., 323-662-1143
National Association of Home Builders
Infocus has been appointed to manage a list of 235,000 members of the
National Association of Home Builders.
Selections: Type of builder, number of units built, annual sales, member
type, contractor type/specialty trade, number of employees, gender,
state/SCF/ZIP
Price: $150/M
Contact: Infocus Marketing Inc., 540-428-3249
Fox Chapel Woodworking Lists
Fox Chapel Publishing Co. has appointed Names and Addresses Inc. to
manage four lists identifying woodworkers. The list group includes a
master file with 69,060 names. Separate files are available for Scroll
Saw Woodworking & Crafts and Woodcarving Illustrated magazines, in
addition to a list of book buyers.
Selections: State/SCF/ZIP
Price: $100/M (base)
Contact: Names and Addresses Inc., 847-850-1021
Banking Strategies
The Bank Administration Institute has appointed Statlistics to manage a
list of 41,188 subscribers to Banking Strategies magazine. Most
subscribers are senior-level executives at banks, savings institutions
and brokerage, insurance and mortgage firms.
Selections: Gender, state/SCF/ZIP
Price: $125/M
Contact: Statlistics, 203-778-8700
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About this Newsletter
Editorial Director: Ray Schultz
Managing Editor: Charles Vietri
Executive Editor: Beth Negus Viveiros
Senior Editor: Larry Riggs
Senior Writer: Richard H. Levey
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Copyright 2007, Penton Media. All rights reserved. This article is
protected by United States copyright and other intellectual property
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