The giants of direct marketing need no intro­duction. These great innovators in the direct and digital marketing industry have one thing in common: Each and every one of them - in their own way - changed the game, carving a path for generations of marketers to follow.

The night I watched the ad guys on Mad Men's Sterling Cooper agency talk about David Ogilvy as a threat, because he had written Con­fessions of an Advertising Man, was surreal. "It's the book everybody writes," Roger Sterling says to the dashing Don Draper. "It should be called 'A Thousand Reasons I'm So Great.'"

Stone & Adler began December 1, 1966 as "an advertising agency providing mail order and direct mail programs." I joined four months later and spent 11 wonderful years working closely with Bob Stone.

While I was growing up in this busi­ness, Lester was one of my idols. He's the man who in a 1967 address at Mas­sachussets Institute of Technology liter­ally named and defined the practice of direct marketing. I was all of 13, but he paved the way for thousands of direct marketing practitioners, includ­ing me, to follow his vision.

Lee Epstein taught me — and countless others — what it really means to give back. Because of Lee, I always answer my own phone, I make time for anyone who asks, and I think "yes" before "no" when it comes to serving the industry.

Ten years ago, my husband and I were returning from a trip to Indonesia and stopped off in Singapore. Literally upon arrival, the small-world paradigm happened: David Hoch­berg, one of Lillian Vernon's sons, walked into the same hotel. Naturally, we asked after Lil­lian, who by that time, we assumed was resting on her accomplishments in comfort. Not so.

If anyone ever asks, "How did direct response climb from a marketing byway to a position of domi­nance?" you can answer in two words: Stan Rapp. Direct response veterans remember watching with awe as Stan, with his then-partner Tom Collins, built Rapp Collins into a giant direct marketing agency.

The continuing story of Herschell Gor­don Lewis already encompasses two lifetimes. In each of them he has played a bigger than life role in shaping an industry. It all began with winning his Master's Degree in Journal­ism at Northwestern, moving on to become a Professor of English Literature at Mississippi State College and then getting a job at a friend's advertising agency.

Ed Burnettloved lists. He believed in data. He was convinced that if one would only commit to studious analysis of the data, the mysteries of the universe — including the secret to a successful direct marketing cam­paign — would be revealed.

There are inventors, there are pitchmen, and then there is Ron Popeil. Ron transformed the role of salesman/inventor into a celebrity personality in a way no other had before him. Put simply, the man can sell ketchup popsicles to a woman in white gloves.

I have the unique perspective of having been at Tim Litle's side for all of his four decades in direct marketing. As a school kid on summer breaks, I learned from Tim and my mother Joan in the corridors of their catalog company. I watched, and learned, as Tim strove to meet the challenges of real businesspeople with practical solutions.