Chevron will cut a significant number of jobs this year from its marketing department as part of a restructuring effort.  

The oil company announced March 9 that it will cut 2,000 jobs this year. Lloyd Avram, a Chevron spokesman, told CNNMoney.com that the eliminations will occur in marketing and refining, among other areas. He said the restructuring should be complete by the year's third quarter.

Chevron, facing lower oil prices and relatively low demand, also expects to continue cutting jobs through next year.

To address the fast growing emerging mobile marketing space the DMA held its annual Mobile Marketing Day 2010 in New York on March 4th. The mobile marketing event looked at the ins and outs of mobile marketing through panels on legal issues concerns mobile marketers, as well as through a keynote from Google executive Alex Barza, mobile ad sales and business development director, who spoke about the future potential for mobile marketing as mobile operating systems get more powerful and more.

Barza said that Morgan Stanley is predicting that by 2013 there will be 1 billion mobile devices in the world that connect to the Internet, which includes phones, GPS systems, notebooks and mobile gaming devices. As these devices get more widespread and the bandwidth gets bigger, Barza predicts that online behaviors like shopping and researching products will shift to the mobile device. “4G is the equivalent of putting a broadband cable modem into the palm of your hand,” he said.

Barza said that mobile will become more powerful than online advertising because of the ability to target locally. Not a surprising thing for him to say, as last month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt told the Mobile World Congress attendees that the desktop would become irrelevant in three years.

As mobile grows, so too do compliance concerns. During the panel, called “Legal Dos and Don'ts of Mobile Marketing,” attorneys Adam Snukal at Reed Smith and Andrew B. Lustigman, principal attorney, The Lustigman Firm discussed the ins and outs of mobile marketing legal space, which is much stricter than other marketing channels. Mobile is the only channel in which consumers have to opt-in to receive messages, rather than just providing sufficient information about the program and the option to opt-out.

Unlike some traditional forms of advertising, the mobile space is under the strictest scrutiny of privacy and data laws, said Snukal, attorney.

Because mobile is an Internet-based medium and a telephone-based medium it is uniquely subject to both the CAN-SPAM rules, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), as well as any other legislation that is being considered by the FCC or FTC in regards to online advertising and privacy such as the ongoing investigation into behavioral targeting.

Lustigman said that unlike other channels, mobile's intimacy makes it the most scrutinized. The two lawyers stressed that it is best to be transparent about data collection practices and marketing practices, since most of the legislation sides with protecting consumer privacy.

Marketers looking to use the emerging channel should be very clear about their terms and conditions when getting consumers to opt-in. The terms and conditions have to be prominently placed next to the opt-in in a font big enough to read, and not just available when clicking on a link. In addition, the pricing has to be clear and transparent. If opt-ing into a free mobile alerts program also means subscribing to a $9.99 a month magazine subscription, then that must be stated.

Marketers should also be wary of co-branded mobile marketing that is not explicitly laid out in the opt-in terms. If a consumer opts in to receive mobile messages from one company and they plan to share the data with another company, this all must be spelled out clearly.

Sometimes following best practices is not enough. As the market gains traction, legal precedents are being set. The lawyers highlighted the 2009 class action suit, Satterfield versus Simon & Schuster as an example.

In the case, the plaintiff had opted in to receive mobile messages on behalf of Nextone and its partners in exchange for free content. On January 18, 2006, Laci Satterfield received a text message from Simon & Schuster advertising saying that it was sent on behalf of Nextone. The message stated, “The next call you take may be your . . . Join the StephenKing VIP Mobile Club at www.cellthebook.com. RplySTOP2OptOut.

PwdByNexton.” The phone call was a haunting ad for the new book Cell, which was answered by Satterfield's child. She sued and won the case. The ruling stated that “the equipment utilized by Simon & Schuster has the requisite capacity under the TCPA.”

“Nextone had the right to send SMS on behalf of Simon and Schuster and were very transparent about it, but they lost on account of the auto dialer violation,” said Snukal. The case is a good example of how the precedents for mobile are still being determined.

On Tuesday night, social media agency Buddy Media threw an event at Hiro Ballroom in Manhattan. The party, which had the tagline “Social Media is No Laughing Matter,” featured a great performance by Seth Meyers of SNL fame.

Meyers and CEO of Buddy Media, Mike Lazerow, were roommates in college.

Unlike many industry party standup routines, Meyers's was actually funny. He knew just how to read the crowd and used just enough profanity to keep the audience on their toes. He jabbed at the social media channel and had most of the room in hysterics.

At one point he told all those in the room that were offended by social media jokes to “go home where they're more comfortable.”

Among my favorite one-liners were the ones aimed at MySpace, which, as we all know, has lost a large amount of the social networking market share to Facebook.

Meyers called MySpace “the Internet's Bronx” and “the abandoned amusement park of the Internet.” He also noted that if MySpace were a celebrity, it'd be on Dancing with the Stars.

He riffed on Foursquare, ChatRoulette and Google Buzz—of which he said its best quality is that it's the first social network that doesn't distract people at work.

“Social media is the instantaneous exchange of knowledge,” Meyers continued. “It's the democratization of information. It surrounds us. It penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. No wait I'm sorry…that's The Force. Social media is how a 12-year old stranger can call my vacation photos gay.”

Good stuff.

The US Postal Service's management is releasing more details about the organization's future business plan. In a video message to USPS employees, Jack Potter, postmaster general, said on March 2 that projected mail totals are “very sobering.”

“Mail volume is not going to come back,” he said, adding that in 2020, if no changes are made, the USPS could lose $33 billion in one year. For fiscal year 2009, the Postal Service lost $3.8 billion.

To fix the problem, the Postal Service will ask Congress to restructure its payments on retiree health benefits and to change the law to allow five-day delivery. The USPS will also focus on “expanding access and helping customers do more business with us through new and existing channels and retail partners,” according to Potter's message to employees.

Arlington, VA-based Atlantic List Company changed coasts to acquire Bush Co, a Christian-focused list manager based in Newport Beach, CA. Bush will retain its name and serve as a division of Atlantic. Bush's Arlene Baum will serve as VP of Bush Company, a division of Atlantic, and continue to work out of an office in New Jersey.

Atlantic Lists' mostly nonprofit clients include the American Federation of Police & Concerned Citizens, the ASPCA, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the National Organization of Women and the USO. Bush's clients include Christian Book Distributors, Cook Communications, Group Publishing, Outreach Marketing, Salem Publishing and Women of Faith.

Industry planners are gearing up events for 2010. Advertising Week, a panoply of digital marketing related events that take place all over New York City has opened up its registration. The show will be held September 27-October 1, 2010.

Also, the Online Trust Association is Annual Online Trust & Cyber Security Forum will be held on September 22-24, 2010, at Georgetown University, Washington DC. They are currently accepting speaking proposals. For more info visit https://www.otalliance.org/events/2010Forum.html.

When search and interactive agency iCrossing launched destination Web sites for Vail Resorts' properties including Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge and Keystone in Colorado and Heavenly in California and Nevada, the goal was to integrate all of Vail's resorts under one umbrella.

This move came after the 2008 launch of Snow.com, which serves as a hub for all of the resorts, collectively.

I spoke with Matt Windt, senior manager of online marketing and e-commerce for Vail Resorts, who told me that since their launch between September and October of last year, the sites have seen over a 20% increase in traffic during peak periods.

I also chatted with Amy Simpson, iCrossing's VP and managing director of travel and hospitality, who said the new sites have a completely integrated and redesigned booking engine. “There were some products unique to the individual sites, but now they're centralized under one system,” she explained, “and now the interface is the same for all of the sites." The sites are also now able to share information seamlessly with Snow.com. “For example if Heavenly uploaded a set of photos, Snow.com can easily pick and choose which to apply to that site,” Simpson said.

She said the target audience for the sites varies based on geography and where they are in the planning and booking cycle. “If users are searching by location name, we'd direct them to the individual site, but if they're searching for a more general term like ‘ski vacations,' we'd want them to hit Snow.com first.”

She also noted that at the initial launch, the goal for the new sites was customer retention, but with the current economic situation and the skiing industry struggling, the company has shifted to more of a customer acquisition model.

Additionally, she said different locations are typically more interested in certain resorts. “Whereas Vail might be very New York-focused, Keystone tends to be more Texas-focused.”

Once users visit the sites they have the option to sign up for e-mail newsletters as well as opt-in for mobile text communications like updates on weather conditions.

The sites also drive users to enroll in Vail's Peaks Reward program, which allows users to earn points on skiing and dining purchases and then redeem those points for things like lift tickets and ski lessons.  

Windt said that since the relaunch, awareness of the loyalty program and the accessibility of information on the program have also increased significantly.