Direct Response articles from November 2002

Direct Response archives from November 2002

EDITORIAL: Reluctant bedfellows.
November 26, 2002... One of the beautiful things about data is that it comes in many guises. In this issue we attempt to cover data no matter what its provenance. First there's lifestyle data, which has metamorphised from being simply a good source for...

ONE-MINUTE BRIEFS: GB Group is Supplier of the Year.
November 26, 2002... SMART AWARDS GB Group, the Cheshire-based database services company, has scooped the first ever Supplier of the Year award in the 2002 Smart Awards. The company was presented with its award at a ceremony in the Le Meridien Grosvenor...

ONE-MINUTE BRIEFS: Single mail delivery 'no concern to clients'.
November 26, 2002... POSTAL SERVICES Mailing houses say that their clients are so far unconcerned by Royal Mail's plans for a single postal delivery. Royal Mail, which is losing pounds 1.2 million every day, says the change would enable it to make annual...

ONE-MINUTE BRIEFS: Field marketing moves closer to DM.
November 26, 2002... FIELD MARKETING Recognition of field marketing as a key DM discipline is growing with news that Europe's largest field marketing company, CPM, is teaming up with sister company WWAV Rapp Collins. At the same time Proximity, a top five...

ONE-MINUTE BRIEFS: Centrica, Tesco at Data 2002.
November 26, 2002... CONFERENCES Some of the UK's largest database owners are lining up to speak at Data 2002, a Haymarket conference being run in association with Royal Mail. Delegates will hear presentations from Centrica, Tesco and The Telegraph Group...

ONE-MINUTE BRIEFS: Concern over 'offensive' text messaging to children.
November 26, 2002... SMS Promotions that are reaching children through carelessly targeted, unsolicited text messages are under increasingly close scrutiny by industry watchdogs. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has upheld complaints against an...

ONE-MINUTE BRIEFS: Events planner.
November 26, 2002... NOVEMBER 11-12 - Experian UK Conference Venue: The Landmark Hotel, London. Contact: Amanda Sirth, tel: 01159 344973 13 - GB Group/DMA Data Workshops 2002 Venue: Britannia Hotel, Birmingham. Contact: Christian Southall on tel: 01244 657...

OPINION: Drayton Bird on ... media buying.
November 26, 2002... Some years ago I hired a media buyer from what was then Britain's most famous agency. He told me his employer made much of its money by ripping off clients. It bought media cheap and passed it on at full rate. The general rule in...

OPINION: Ken Gofton on ... feeling the pinch.
November 26, 2002... Direct marketing, they say, holds up well in a recession. It's measurable, accountable, it delivers sales. Hmm. I seem to have spent more time than usual in the past couple of months talking to DM agencies. They've suffered later, and less,...

HOW TO ... manage the mail production process.
November 26, 2002... The best way to create innovative and exciting direct mail is for the design and production teams to work together from the outset, advises James Kerr. When appointing an agency to manage your direct mail, you'll probably be looking for...

CASE STUDY: ENGLISH REGIONAL TOURISM - Tourist trap. Success through segmentation.
November 26, 2002... The English Regional Tourist Boards came up with a novel solution to combat the effects of Foot and Mouth. David Murphy reports. The Foot and Mouth crisis of 2000-2001 had a devastating effect on tourism in the UK, driving many small...

LEGAL EAGLE: Watchdog bares its teeth.
November 26, 2002... James Milligan on an action by ICSTIS, e-commerce requirements and Robertson's latest move. Q: Is it true that a mobile phone company was fined recently by ICSTIS for breaches of the ICSTIS Code of Practice? A: Yes. The Independent...

CREATIVE MASTERCLASS: Tell the right story.
November 26, 2002... Microsites can be extremely effective for online data gathering and brand-building. Nick Meads reveals some of the tricks of the trade for getting the most out of an internet promotion. Microsites are not just small web sites, they have an...

DATA CLINIC: Ask the experts.
November 26, 2002... Leading database specialists answer readers' real life data-related problems. This month they tackle data mining on a budget, driving web traffic and data entry problems. Q: We specialise in mail-order children's toys and have a customer...

DATA CLINIC: Get connected - Experian's Phil Singh reviews some of the websites that help him get the most from his working day, from the latest news and company analysis to offbeat e-commerce.
November 26, 2002... For a head of e-commerce, I don't use the internet as much as people might think, and when I do it's not for surfing, but to get information quickly. www.whatis.com We all sit in meetings and listen to technical people tossing out...

DATA CLINIC: How to buy ... business data - Business lists are very different from their consumer counterparts.
November 26, 2002... Simon Lawrence highlights the need to focus on quality and cost-effective licensing. 1. Prioritise your choice of selection The range of choices in business data tends to be much more limited than for consumer lists. It's a useful...

DATA CLINIC: Data Talk - Should you host your own database, or hive it off to a third-party specialist?
November 26, 2002... Paul Graham of Npower says outsourcing is fine in the short term but ultimately customer analysis belongs in-house. For as long as there have been computer-run databases, the debate has raged over whether an internal or outsourced database...

DATA CLINIC: What I do in data - Charlotte Guiver, head of donor development, the British Heart Foundation.
November 26, 2002... How did you arrive in this job? I joined the BHF in 1998 as direct marketing manager and was promoted to head of donor development a year later. Before that I worked in publishing for four years. I have a BA Hons degree and the Advanced...

DATA CLINIC: What is ... a propensity model?
November 26, 2002... A propensity model is a statistical scorecard that is used to predict the behaviour of your customer or prospect base. Propensity models are often used to identify those most likely to respond to an offer, or to focus retention activity on...

DATA CLINIC: DATA HEALTH CHECK - London Power Networks.
November 26, 2002... Switching electricity suppliers became a lot easier once GB Group created a standard address format for suppliers. THE CASE If you're one of those London residents who has switched electricity supplier of late, the process may well...

DATA CLINIC: DATA HEALTH CHECK - CLEANING KIT: The Postal Address File.
November 26, 2002... What is PAF? The Postcode Address File (PAF) is the database of all UK postal addresses which is owned and compiled by Royal Mail. It covers 27 million residential and business delivery points and 1.7 million postcodes. It is updated...

DATA CLINIC: CASE STUDY - Royal Bank of Scotland. Getting into the minds of decision-makers reduced mail volumes and improved response Noelle McElhatton reports.
November 26, 2002... In direct marketing's league table of carpet bombers, the financial services sector has the dubious distinction of ranking top, year after year. So it comes as a pleasant surprise to hear of a bank embracing segmentation to improve its...

TECHNIQUE: The marriage of market research and databases.
November 26, 2002... You can understand more about your many customers by probing just a few. Unette Spencer explains how overlaying survey data over your own database can bring greater insights to your marketing communications. If you have built up a customer...

DATA CLINIC: SOFTWARE GUIDE - Campaign management.
November 26, 2002... Our expert panel of specialists have sifted through the wealth of software products on the market to bring you this comprehensive digest, complete with handy jargon buster. For this month's guide, we are examining the sophisticated world...

DATA CLINIC: A broker's view.
November 26, 2002... List brokers should sell themselves on the service they provide, not on the basis of how much commission they are prepared to give away, says Lynn Stevens. All too often, we list brokers find ourselves putting in weeks and sometimes months...

DATA CLINIC: Which list? A round-up of new or updated consumer, business and online lists.
November 26, 2002... NEW LISTS CONSUMER ONE UP GOLF One Up Golf is a new list of 48,000 female golfers who enquire or buy from the contemporary ladies golfwear catalogue. The file, which is managed by Marketing and Media Solutions, is for advertisers...

LISTS: Alternative lifestyles.
November 26, 2002... Smart marketers are reinventing lifestyle data for use in a world that is now devoid of the full Electoral Roll. Tony Coad of CCB explains how. Lifestyle data caused a targeting revolution in the 1980s, became a must-have for direct...

INTERNATIONAL MAIL: Mail sans frontieres - Deregulation has opened up foreign markets to direct mail campaigns.
November 26, 2002... Mark Woodcock of TNT International Mail advises on how to avoid any possible pitfalls when mailing overseas. The deregulation of international postal services some years ago has meant that successful cross-border campaigns have become a...

FULFILMENT: Why fulfilment fails - People are clamouring for your products, but they're still at the warehouse.
November 26, 2002... Where did it all go wrong? Steve Dole of Dataforce tackles fulfilment's five commonest mistakes. The fulfilment process is about getting the right product to the right person at the right time. There's more to it than that, of course, but...

ADDRESS MANAGEMENT SHOW: The name and address show.
November 26, 2002... Given the increasing importance of clean, accurate data to the direct marketing process, David Murphy welcomes the arrival of the first Address & Data Marketing Solutions exhibition. Companies in and beyond the direct marketing firmament...

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Suppliers - National Letterbox Marketing.
November 26, 2002... Door-to-door leaflet distributor National Letterbox Marketing, has appointed former DMA president Colin Lloyd as chairman. Lloyd will bring his knowledge and involvement in postal de-regulation and competition to oversee strategic developments...

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Suppliers - The Database Group.
November 26, 2002... CRM specialist Professor Merlin Stone has been appointed as a non-executive director of The Database Group. Professor Stone is IBM professor of relationship marketing at Bristol Business School.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Suppliers - Tri-Direct Sales.
November 26, 2002... Inserts and consumer lists broker Tri-Direct Sales has appointed Ann-Marie Rugman as sales and marketing executive. She previously worked in the recruitment field.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Suppliers - Direct Excellence.
November 26, 2002... Customer performance measurement company Direct Excellence has appointed Andrew Buffrey to head up client services. He joins from Holly Benson Communications.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Suppliers - Halcyon Business Solutions.
November 26, 2002... Print management and direct mail supplier Halcyon Business Solutions has boosted its roster. Paul Jubbs joins from Communisis Chorleys as production director, while Peter Henry joins as business development director. He was previously MD of an...

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Suppliers - Emery.
November 26, 2002... Southampton-based fulfilment company Emery has promoted Andy Grant to the new post of call centre operations manager. He began his career at sister company Keywords Direct as a call centre operator.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - Tarantula Responsive Communications.
November 26, 2002... Tarantula Responsive Communications has promoted Louisa McGinn to senior account manager, working on Tele2 and Marlow Foods. Viv Hall joins from the press office at the Pre-school Learning Alliance to work on Kwik Save.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - DraftDigital.
November 26, 2002... Database and digital marketing agency DraftDigital has appointed Neil McCarthy, formerly managing director of Worldwide Media, to its board.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - SMP.
November 26, 2002... Integrated agency SMP has recruited Tim Carter from Browne International to develop European business. Also at SMP, Taryn Woodhouse joins from Masius (part of the D'Arcy network) as junior account manager for the National Car Rental Group,...

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - Liquid Communications.
November 26, 2002... Liquid Communications has appointed Matthew North as partnership director. North joins the promotional relationship marketing consultancy from integrated agency archibald ingall stretton.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - Gyro.
November 26, 2002... Integrated brand communications agency Gyro has hired Lesley Mason as account director. She joins from Compaq where she was head of integrated marketing communications for the UK and Ireland.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - 23red.
November 26, 2002... Tequila associate director Greg Thorpe has joined 23red as senior project manager. He started at Tequila in 1995, working on Marlboro and Hewlett-Packard.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - Hicklin Slade & Partners.
November 26, 2002... Hicklin Slade & Partners has appointed Nick Horswell as chairman. He was a founding partner of media agency PHD.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - Response Direct Publishing.
November 26, 2002... Sophie Elsom joins Response Direct Publishing (RDP), a publisher of card decks and response-based publications, as account manager. She previously worked at Experian in Sydney and at Office Angels.

MOVERS & SHAKERS: Agencies - CCB-Profits from Data.
November 26, 2002... CCB-Profits from Data has recruited Simon Harwood to help develop real-time database and research systems. He joins from Identex, where he was a development programmer.

SECRETS OF MY SUCCESS - Chris Hawken, General manager, marketing, Volkswagen Asia Pacific.
November 26, 2002... I've spent my working life in the motor trade, most recently at Skoda, and I have discovered that, of all the marketing theory you learn at university, nothing bears out more than that simple, yet classic, marketing tenet - the four Ps. ...