Lauren Bell

A memo released today by research firm Borrell Associates Inc. indicates that newspapers may soon pull out of their current slump. Colby Atwood, president of Borrell Associates and author of the memo, expects the decline in the newspaper industry to end this year, followed by a 2.4% increase in advertising revenue in 2010 alone.

Kmart has kicked off a tweens-targeted back-to-school campaign with longtime agency of record Draftfcb. The campaign, called "Schoolebrity," features TV ads, flash banners, online games, in-store promotions, e-mail blasts and a sweepstakes.

DMNews chats with The Benefit Companies and its CRM provider Sage Software about CRM. On the line is Larry Ritter, SVP of global product management and product marketing, Sage; Bill Sells, manager of IT, The Benefit Companies; and Justin Andaloro, marketing manager, The Benefit Companies.

JetBlue jumped into the new loyalty fray this week, with plans to upgrade its TrueBlue membership program following closely on last week's loyalty program upgrade announcements by Delta and United.

Mediabrands, a division of Interpublic Group of Companies, has launched a new agency called Geomentum. Geomentum uses "hyper-local," neighborhood-based, market intelligence to help clients plan, execute and measure campaigns targeted to the sub-ZIP code level.

Southern Accents, a Time Inc. publication focusing on Southern style and living, will cease publishing. The September/October 2009 issue will be the last print edition of the bi-monthly, though it is slated to continue online production at SouthernAccents.com. The economy, which has seen Southern Accents' ad pages drop 37% between Q2 2008 and Q2 2009 (per PIB), was cited as a major reason for the closure.

Military Advantage, an online network serving the US military, veterans and their families, has implemented Unica Corp.'s NetInsight OnDemand Web analytics tool in a push to improve customer service and user engagement.

Measuring and maintaining data quality remains a major business hurdle for large businesses — those with annual revenues greater than $1 billion — according to a report released August 4 by Pitney Bowes Business Insight and Silver Creek Systems.