The Direct Marketing Association, New York, will induct three leading luminaries of the direct marketing industry to its Hall of Fame.
Jim Kobs, chairman/CEO of Kobs Gregory Passavant; Eddie Smith, founder of the National Wholesale Co.; and late catalog pioneer Eddie Bauer, who founded his eponymous firm, are the 1999 inductees to the DMA Hall of Fame that has so far has honored 67 people for building the practice and stature of direct marketing.
A formal ceremony is scheduled Oct. 26 during the DMA's 82nd annual conference and exhibition in Toronto.
The candidates were recommended for induction a committee that based its selection on nominations received from the trade body's 4,600 member companies in the United States and 53 other countries.
The award is the highest recognition from an industry that last year accounted for $1.3 trillion in direct marketing sales, according to figures from a DMA-commissioned study by The WEFA Group. Of that amount, an estimated $759 billion in direct marketing purchases were made by consumers and $612 billion by businesses.
