Packaged goods company Unilever has named Euro RSCG 4D to its roster of global digital agencies, which already included Razorfish, AKQA and Lean Mean Fighting Machine.

Apparel maker Muscle Flex will launch an online marketing campaign for its new Muscle Flex VATA Brasil Sports and Active Wear Collection in January 2010. The campaign includes search, display, database, affiliate marketing and a new e-commerce site.

Hispanic marketing research firm Garcia Research and Hispanic marketing consulting group Santiago ROI have launched Latinomics, The Hispanic Market Index. This tracking service monitors consumer sentiment, economic activity, political perspectives and other issues within the US Hispanic community.

Farmers Insurance Group, parent company of Foremost Insurance Company, has promoted Jack Hannigan to EVP of independent agency operations from SVP and CMO. He will retain his marketing responsibilities, a spokesperson told DMNews. The move is effective immediately.

ETargetMedia.com introduced the Canada Consumers SMS Mobile Marketing list to the market December 23. The file contains Canadian consumers who are responsive to targeted offers on their mobile phones. It is selectable by age, gender, homeowner, income, lifestyle, marital status, occupation, presence of children and province.

As 2010 is poised to finally be the year of mobile, DMNews chats with Federico Pisani Massamormile, global chairman and interim CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, about the continued evolution of the medium.

For the last month, my inbox has been full of e-mail messages from retailers and marketers trying to push transactions for the holidays. Yet this past week, the marketing calmed down a bit and my inbox was filled with holiday greetings from friends and colleagues.

Despite the rumors of the impending death of e-mail marketing, overtaken by social marketing and mobile technology, e-mail is still the most popular medium for receiving marketing messages.

As recession pains ease, marketers have seen an uptick in budgets. Now that companies are coming out of the bunker, they are looking for revenue growth, not cost cutting, to improve the bottom line. The logical place to turn to in this circumstance is marketing. We have had discussions with a number of companies that are trying to figure out how best to spend their budgets, and it's no surprise that many are looking to capitalize on the growth of digital and social media. The challenge is spending the money in a way that maximizes impact. Companies need marketing that delivers results, measurably and effectively, regardless of channel.

While we can all appreciate the vast amount of information within our company's customer relationship management (CRM) system, many of us still find it difficult to get the most out of our database. Marketing departments in particular struggle to harness this valuable asset as we, like the business as a whole, lack trust in our data.