Opinions/Columnists Direct Magazine

Opinions/Columnists

Direct Hit offers insightful commentary by veteran direct marketing journalist Ray Schultz, editorial director of DIRECT magazine. He is the founder of DIRECT Newsline, the industry's first daily online newsletter, and is also the editor of eZine IQ and the CRM Loop.

Green Hype
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, RAY SCHULTZ
The Federal Trade Commission announced last month that it's revising its packaging guidelines to make them more environmentally sound. Fair enough. The ...

Not So Fast
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, RAY SCHULTZ
Oh, the joy. The U.S. Postal Service has announced a May 12 rate increase. But it's modest as postage hikes go. At deadline, the DMA's Jerry Cerasale ...

The Golden Age
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, RAY SCHULTZ
Here's a stumper you may not be able to answer: Which DM trade publication published the following story? The baby was born on a Tuesday and officially ...

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Loose Cannon

Senior writer Richard H. Levey's popular weekly column Loose Cannon presents an irreverent look at the direct response marketing industry. His beats on DIRECT include database marketing and customer relationship management, and he is the coordinator of the magazine's three annual research survey's.

Loose Cannon: Spam @ 30
May 4, 2008 6:13 PM, By Richard H. Levey
Readers who didn’t drag out the party hats and noisemakers this past Saturday missed a significant anniversary: On May 3, 1978, the very first spam message hit e-mailboxes. (For those who want to mark the occasion properly, the appropriate gift for 30th anniversaries is pearls.) ...

Loose Cannon: We Interrupt This Universe For An Important Message
Apr 27, 2008 11:55 PM, By Richard H. Levey
It must be nice to be a brand marketer. Brand marketers get all the fun of creating advertising without having any of the responsibility for generating results. Consider a branding effort by Doritos, which will launch on June 12. That’s an actual launch date, as opposed to a campaign debut date: On that day, Frito-Lay will beam a 30-second Doritos commercial from a 500 megahertz Ultra High Frequency Radar into outer space. ...

Loose Cannon: Reflections During Passover and Easter
Apr 20, 2008 4:31 PM, By Richard H. Levey
As per my annual tradition, I offer the following column. I am presenting it again because -- just as the stories surrounding Passover and Easter are re-told every year -- so too does this one deserve a re-telling. Readers looking for Loose Cannon's usual breezy gloss on direct marketing may wish to skip this column. This true story, of how one merchant who valued his customers acted when his business was threatened, does not have a happy ending. ...

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Direct from Muldoon

Muldoon & Baer Inc. president Katie Muldoon shares her knowledge of the catalog business in her long-running column Direct From Muldoon. She is a former adjunct assistant professor at the NYU Center for Direct Marketing, and is the author of "The Catalog Strategist's Toolkit."

Communications That Count
Dec 1, 2006 12:00 PM, KATIE MULDOON
THE WAY A CATALOG REACTS TO CUSTOMERS CAN AFFECT ITS whole business. That said, it's a wonder more catalogers don't dedicate far more money to stellar communications. ...

Becoming a Content Provider
Nov 1, 2006 12:00 PM, KATIE MULDOON
We're content providers, Richard D. Beckman, president of Cond Nast Media Group, told The New York Times in August. Mr. Beckman essentially was saying ...

Be Blogged or Be Gone
Sep 1, 2006 12:00 PM, KATIE MULDOON
Catalogers, have you blogged yourselves yet? A recent Non Sequitur comic strip pictured a supposedly typical pick-up scene at a bar, showing a women instantly ...

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Don't Get Him Started

Nobody Left to Blame
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, KEN MAGILL
It happened again last month: Another JupiterResearch e-mail buyer's guide, another round of press releases from all the service providers congratulating ...

Stupid E-mail Watch
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, KEN MAGILL
Recently I received what has to be one of the most ignorant e-mail campaigns in the short history of the medium. It came in the form of spam from Bing ...

Barracuda Needs a Swift Kick
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, KEN MAGILL
Marketers should bury their collective foot in the rear end of Barracuda Networks' communications department. The Internet security firm certainly deserves ...

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The Makeover Maven

Thomas L. Collins adds a direct marketing edge to mainstream advertising as DIRECT's Makeover Maven. He is currently an independent creative and marketing consultant based in Portland, OR and is the author of four books on marketing. He has also been a DM copywriter, admaker and creative director.

Site Slighted
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, THOMAS L. COLLINS
It's a new print-ad world out there. It has been for 10 years now. But too many print advertisers still don't get it. They could be running what I now ...

What's the Message?
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, THOMAS L. COLLINS
A big part of the pleasure of reading the latest New Yorker magazine each week has always been its great cartoons. And more often than not there's at ...

Poor Visibility
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, THOMAS L. COLLINS
To start with: Mea culpa, sorta. In several recent makeovers, I dissected and redid an ad which I later discovered was one of a series of ads. The presumed ...

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Guest Columnists

Industry leaders share their knowledge on a variety of topics.

A Call for Education
Aug 1, 2005 12:00 PM, BY CHRISTA HEIBEL
TWO YEARS AFTER ITS LAUNCH, more than 60 million people are listed on the Federal Trade Commission's National Do Not Call Registry. That's 60 million ...

Beyond the Traditional
Aug 1, 2005 12:00 PM, By Bob Gillen
ONE OF THE GREATEST obstacles to successful direct marketing campaigns is the difficulty of obtaining accurate mail data. Many of these challenges can ...

Podmarketing
Jul 1, 2005 12:00 PM, BY FRANK SALERNO
In his book The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman describes how companies that haven't laid one strand of fiber-optic cable have benefited greatly from the ...

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Pushing the Envelope

DIRECT's executive editor Beth Negus Viveiros writes about the lighter side of direct marketing in Pushing the Envelope. A member of the magazine's editorial staff shince 1995, she offers the perspective of a consumer with a behind the curtains knowledge of the DM world.

Fishy But in a Good Way
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS
I've come to the realization that I have no right to be impatient with my toddler sons' short attention spans mainly because I'm not sure if my own is ...

Ho-Ho or Ho-Hum?
Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS
Up on the laptop, Click, click, click. Some missives inspired sales, While the others didn't stick. The holiday party season is upon us. This year impress your guests with gourmet delights from GourmetFoodMall ...

And the Winners Are
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BETH NEGUS VIVEIROS
As I type this, the lights have just flickered out in my jack-o'-lantern, which means it's time to pore over the holiday catalogs. Between Labor Day and ...

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Curmudgeon at Large

Herschell Gordon Lewis skewers the foibles of direct marketing copy each month as DIRECT's Curmudgeon at Large. He is the principal of Lewis Enterprises and the author of 28 books, including "Asinine Advertising," "Marketing Mayhem" and "On the Art of Writing Copy."

Back to the Future
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
Did we ever have kinder, gentler times when direct marketing simply meant direct mail? We look back fondly at what we remember as happy days when we weren't ...

The Great Brand Controversy
Mar 1, 2008 12:00 PM, HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
I know just when it was that I found myself in the midst of the brand-vs.-direct argument. Well, make that battle, because opinions and tempers blow hot. ...

Curmudgeon on Film
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Beth Negus Viveiros
On a recent afternoon at the cinema, we were thrilled to see a shout out to Direct's own Herschell Gordon Lewis in the new movie In the comedy about a ...

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The Delpolito Letter

Gene Del Polito gives readers insight into the United States Postal Service each month in The Del Polito Letter. He is an advocate for those who use mail for business communication and commerce, and the president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom).

An Urgent Wake-Up Call
Apr 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Gene A. Del Polito
The word is out. The Postal Regulatory Commission has issued a schedule of recommended rates that could very well be the death knell for some of our industry's ...

Is Anyone Listening?
Dec 1, 2006 12:00 PM, GENE A. DEL POLITO
FROM MY EARLIER CAREER AS AN audiologist, I can remember the many corny jokes made about diagnosing and rehabilitating people with hearing disorders. ...

No Serenity Here
Nov 1, 2006 12:00 PM, GENE A. DEL POLITO
HAVE YOU HEARD OF THE Serenity Prayer? It goes like this: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things ...

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Websight

Senior editor Brian Quinton joined DIRECT’s editorial staff in September 2004 and now covers all aspects of e-commerce and online marketing, including e-mail campaigns, search engine marketing, Internet retailing and interactive advertising.

Getting In
Sep 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BRIAN QUINTON WEBSIGHT
If you have any doubts about how thoroughly geeky I can be and believe me, I can provide testimonials from family and friends please consider the nerd ...

Too Much Togetherness?
Jul 1, 2007 12:00 PM, By Brian Quinton
If you lived through the dot-com bubble, you could be excused for thinking you'd slipped through a wormhole in time and landed back in 1999. In rapid-fire succession, a slew of the biggest online ad players announced plans to get a lot bigger by acquiring platforms, technologies or expertise they hadn't had before. ...

Of Monkeys and Men
Jun 1, 2007 12:00 PM, BRIAN QUINTON
In early May, researchers from the Yerkes National Primate Research Center found a possible correlation between human speech and the gestures of chimpanzees. ...

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Letters to the Editor

Thoughts and opinions from the readers of DIRECT magazine.

Letters to the Editor
Apr 14, 2008 9:31 PM
Copious letters in response to Loose Cannon: Big Brother, The Gray Lady and Me By Richard H. Levey: ...

Letters to the Editor
Apr 9, 2008 9:14 AM
Regarding your reference to the "Beefy Cheesy Melt" copy theme, I was reminded that, every time I start a new direct mail project, I am overwhelmingly grateful that ...

Letters to the Editor
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM
SUGGESTION BOX I think Tom Collins' January makeover is an improvement, but could be less junky looking or simply less cluttery by moving the How We Helped ...

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