Out Of Home

For EZ Lube, a car maintenance franchise based in Southern California, mobile marketing has brought the marketer's billboards to life and given its customers a way to interact with the brand.

Dylan Jones, former VP of content strategy and creative at Premier Retail Networks (PRN), has launched Jones Digital Media, an agency specializing in digital out of home strategy, creative and production.

E-mail marketing spending will continue to expand at double-digit rates — 18.5% per year — for the next five years, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson, a private equity firm, in its annual Communications Industry Forecast published on August 3. VSS specializes in the information and media industries. VSS puts the total spend for e-mail at $11.9 billion in 2008 and, by 2013, it forecasts e-mail will be a $27.8 billion business.

Hear what Julie Petroski, VP, group creative director at Targetbase, thinks of Shawan Downs' promotional effort for its Steeplechase, Gerber's "Start healthy, stay healthy pledge" campaign, and Kodak's "ScanMate/What's in your inbox?" campaign.

K-VA-T, a regional chain of grocery stores in the Southeast, has started implementing Retalix Loyalty software to manage the latest phase of its customer loyalty program. The 106-store chain was already using Retalix StoreLine and HQ software to manage point-of-sale and price management, but still put out an RFP to about 20 vendors before choosing Retalix Loyalty. The new system, which will manage the Food City ValuCard Baby Club, Kids Club, Pet Club and Wine Club programs, delivers targeted, personalized offers to consumers and tracks offer performance in real-time.

The first round of judging for the 2009 International Echo Awards, a body of awards from the Direct Marketing Association that celebrate creative, strategy and results across direct marketing media, began May 19. This is the first year Echos has had a vice chair from the client side. Another first this year is the Green Marketer Award.

CBS Outdoor has launched a new text messaging capability for its advertisers' outdoor media campaigns. The program, called Txt2go, will include a text keyword on advertiser signage that consumers can use to access marketing messages from the client, including special offers and promotions.