NEW YORK — The difficult times many in direct marketing are experiencing were absent yesterday when the Direct Marketing Club of New York honored winners of its Silver Apple Awards at a luncheon.
Bernice Grossman, president of DMRS Group Inc., reviewed her career in detail — from her hippie days to her time at McGraw-Hill, where she was an “on call” girl, or a secretary. She got a particularly big laugh while discussing her entry into the world of direct and database marketing, when she learned that direct mail “was not an aggressive man and that core is not what's left when you are finished with the apple.”
Adrian Courtenay, founder/CEO of Courtenay Communications, discussed the early months of DM News, joking about a meeting with industry pioneer Lester Wunderman, “who … when I told him about my idea for DM News, he didn't see the need for another DM publication.” Courtenay also said he could go into greater detail on the many characters in the industry, but “we've published most of those stories.”
Courtenay and others mentioned the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and paid tribute to those who died.
In accepting the 2001 Corporate Silver Apple Scholarship Endowment Award, Bill Vignola, president/CEO of Mailmen Inc., Hauppauge, NY, said, “In these uncertain times, I must say, in New York, in the Big Apple, with everything that is going on, it's a really great thing to be recognized for doing good. That's a very good feeling.”
The crowd laughed when Andrea Nierenberg, president of the Nierenberg Group Inc., said it would take too long to thank everyone, but “you will all get handwritten personal notes.” With tears in her eyes, she also thanked “my true inspiration in my life, my father. We just lost him two months ago. I know he's up there looking down.”
Others honored this year were Mitch Hisiger, senior vice president and director of sales at the FalaDM Group; Ray Schultz, editorial director of Direct; and Laurie Spar, vice president of the Direct Marketing Education Foundation.
