From AOL's mass-mailed diskettes and CD-ROMs to JetBlue's customer-retention efforts, most well-known US and international corporations have used direct marketing, e-commerce and digital efforts to engrain themselves in American popular culture.

Since it launched as a telemarketing company in 1986, 1-800-Flowers has bloomed as a direct response floral delivery business. In the 1980s, the brand focused on building its fulfillment program and delivering fresh flowers across the country via phone and catalog orders.

As one of the first e-commerce companies to open up shop on the Internet, Amazon.com has grown to become one of the largest retailers in the world. Since it first became a public company in 1997, revenues have grown substantially.

Any brand still thriving after more than a century and a half of existence has likely balanced reinvention with a consistent, stable brand message. Such is the case of American Express, founded in 1850 as a secure, faster alternative to the US Postal Service in an era of westward American expansion.

Once known as America Online, AOL long ago was locked in a race with competitors Prodigy and Compuserve to become the most widespread Internet service provider in the US, and became as well-known for its marketing strategy as its products.

Few brands have been impacted more by the digital revolution than the Book-of-the-Month Club. Yet the brand's survival after 83 years is a testament to its ability to adapt to both competition and new media.

Since it was founded in 1988 as a credit card issuer, Capital One has become one of the 10 largest consumer banks in the US, with 45 million customer accounts. Its marketing efforts established the brand as a household name.

Coca-Cola was invented in 1886 and sold for five cents a glass. In the decades that followed, its marketing pushes had both brand and direct elements, starting with coupons for free tastes of the soda and giveaways of Coca-Cola branded clocks, scales and other equipment for shop owners.

Founded by Michael Dell as a computer manufacturer, Dell was in the business of selling PCs direct to consumers by 1990. Today the brand is one of the largest online retailers. Dell began selling to consumers through catalogs, but got into e-commerce by 1996.

EBay placed a winning bid on consumers' appetites for buying and selling goods to each other. The online auctioneering Web site and brand has also always made the most of its real-time transactional data to inform marketing decisions.

Despite a rocky beginning that saw it struggling to pay bills and find funding, Federal Express was delivering 65,000 packages per day by the early 1980s. One key to Federal Express' success was a crafty use of multi-channel marketing and IT before most other marketers had recognized their strategic advantage.