Cara Wood

Hospitality franchiser Choice Hotels has tasked text analytics software provider Clarabridge with collecting and processing nearly 1 million customer comments in order to improve service and customer lifetime value. The hotel chain, which includes brands such as Comfort Inn, MainStay Suites and Econo Lodge, has renewed its emphasis on the quality of rooms across brands.

Extrovertic and Virilion announced a joint venture on October 28, called EV Healthcare, to help healthcare companies implement digital and social media marketing campaigns. The service, based in New York, has just begun marketing to prospective clients, said Pfizer veteran Dorothy Wetzel, co-founder and executive marketer at Extrovertic.

With tighter budgets and a dizzying array of places to spend it, marketers are widening their responsibilities - but the real theme is how to integrated it all into a actionable strategy.

On October 19, Equifax and Strongmail announced at DMA09 they are partnering on a tool that enables marketers to target consumers not only by demographic and behavioral data, but also by social media influence. The tool has direct integration with blogs and social networks, including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

Martha Stewart delivered a single message to a crowd of about 600 at the Direct Marketing Association's annual conference in San Diego on October 19: It's good to be everywhere.

In response to increasing advertiser focus on ROI, Ogilivy & Mather and MarketShare Partners are teaming up to offer marketing effectiveness tools measuring results and predicting optimal media spend across digital, direct, TV, radio and marketing channels.

Analytics software provider Omniture Inc. announced $87.9 million in revenue for the third quarter of 2009, which ended September 30. The earnings represent an increase of 13% compared to revenue of $77.8 million reported for the same period a year ago. The company recently entered into an agreement to be acquired by Adobe Systems Inc.

APWU President William Burrus suggests eliminating mailer's workshare discounts.

InfoGroup's Fairfield talks about trends in the data, research and marketing services industry

Often simple ideas are the ones that resonate with your audience and end up defining your brand. Think JetBlue's customer bill of rights, LL Bean's return policy, or Apple's user manual. In the last week, many brands enhanced their communication strategies.