Loose Cannon: Big Brother, The Gray Lady and Me
Apr 13, 2008 7:10 PM, By Richard H. Levey
Anyone who has ever turned off a favorite radio station because they’ve heard a given song one too many times will understand my reaction to Adam Cohen’s recent New York Times editorial “The Already Big Thing on the Internet: Spying on Users”. “It’s not paranoia: they really are spying on you,” writes Cohen, who later alleges “The driving force behind this prying is commerce.” No, dammit, it’s not. ...

Loose Cannon: Are We Having Ads Yet?
Apr 6, 2008 11:24 PM, By Richard H. Levey
This week, Loose Cannon author Richard H. Levey considers Zippy the Pinhead, single-sponsorship online content and the closing of a favorite diner. Don’t be surprised if the column leaves you with a fast-food craving… ...

The Day Andi Emerson Made Me a Man
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Richard H. Levey
Roughly a decade ago I underwent a rite of passage that was necessary to my becoming a full-fledged direct marketing reporter. This rite occurred at the ...

It's Not Brain Surgery
Apr 1, 2008 12:00 PM, RICHARD H. LEVEY
News item: A new research system measures consumers' reactions to advertising. Test subjects wear a baseball cap containing microsensors that track changes ...

Loose Cannon Will Return Next Week
Mar 31, 2008 8:12 AM
Loose Cannon will not appear this week, as its author was engaging in the rites of spring and inadvertently strained his stravinsky. See you next week! ...

Loose Cannon: A Load Of Junk
Mar 23, 2008 11:50 PM, By Richard H. Levey
Of late, legislators have tried to place marketing channels under consumer control. The results range from the successful (the federal do-not-call list), to the questionable (the dubious effectiveness of e-mail registries as anti-spam mechanisms) to the unexplored (anti “junk mail” lists are not mandated by the government.) Pushes for these regulations are often accompanied by spurious economic statistics. For instance, according to anti-marketing groups repetitive stress injuries resulting from citizens standing over their wastebaskets and throwing away “junk mail” will single-handedly bankrupt our healthcare system by 2045. ...

Loose Cannon: Dullards At Sharper Image
Mar 16, 2008 11:47 PM, By Richard H. Levey
You read it here first, folks: Last week, Sharper Image Corp. unofficially started moving from its current state of Chapter 11 bankruptcy (restructuring) to Chapter 7 bankruptcy (liquidation). Now, Sharper Image management will tell you differently. The Powers That Be at the nation’s most notorious retailer of Ionic Breeze air purifiers are making halfhearted efforts to keep the company an ongoing concern, and as far as I know no formal dissolution plans have been announced, nor has a petition for liquidation been filed. ...

Loose Cannon: Cold Call
Mar 9, 2008 10:01 PM, By Richard H. Levey
For reasons that will soon be obvious, I’m hiding the subject of this column behind the name “Susan Donym”. On the evening of Jan. 2, Sue received a phone call at her home. The unidentified male caller knew a fair amount of Sue’s personal information, including her name, her address and her apartment number. And that last bit was especially disturbing because the caller threatened to rape her. ...

Loose Cannon: Google Knows Best
Mar 2, 2008 10:41 PM, By Richard H. Levey
When it comes to assigning additional search terms, does Google really know what's best for its clients? Not necessarily, according to Loose Cannon columnist Richard H. Levey. For his take on what correspondence between a marketer and a Google representative over this issue might look like, click the title, above. ...

Loose Cannon: It’s Not Brain Surgery
Feb 24, 2008 10:10 PM, By Richard H. Levey
News Item: A new research system measures consumers’ reactions to advertising. Test subjects wear a wired-up baseball cap containing microsensors that track changes in brain response, eye movement and the subjects’ skin, 2000 times a second as the consumers are exposed to marketing materials… Lord love a scientist. Or a labful of them, as the case may be. They’ve finally overcome a concern that has plagued generations of researchers attempting to link brain activity and marketing. ...

Loose Cannon: The Day Andi Emerson Made Me A Man
Feb 18, 2008 9:26 PM, By Richard H. Levey
Roughly a decade ago, I underwent a rite of passage necessary to becoming a full-fledged direct marketing reporter. This rite occurred at the hands of Andi Emerson, the DM doyenne who died last week. Andi suffered no fools, and early in my career at Direct I must have screwed up the name of the organization she founded, the John Caples International Awards. Her reaction was quick and to the point: “You’re a ...

Loose Cannon: Better Game, Worse Ads
Feb 10, 2008 11:13 PM, By Richard H. Levey
True direct marketing ads were in short supply during this year’s Super Bowl. Yes, a number of spots featured all-too-fleeting URLs without offering any good reason to log onto the Web sites. And yes, some dot-coms (CareerBuilders.com; Cars.com; E*Trade.com; and Overstock.com, to name a few) attempted to be edgy. And the effort showed. Often, so did the strain. ...

Perish the Thought
Feb 1, 2008 12:00 PM, RICHARD H. LEVEY
There are some things that should never be purchased from clearance sales. Shark repellent, for one. Heart medication, perhaps. Mail-order brides. Dinner ...

Letters to the Editor
Jan 30, 2008 8:07 AM
Well done! Seems like the DMA doesn't find much value in targeted conferences anymore (unless of course there are extra member dues to be collected). ...

Loose Cannon: Conference Calls
Jan 28, 2008 7:32 AM, By Richard H. Levey
Direct reporter Jim Emerson recently wrote about the Direct Marketing Association's plan to merge its Direct Marketing Days/New York Conference, Directo Days (Hispanic marketing) Conference, International Day and List Day/Fast Forward events (DMA Will Merge Smaller Events With DM Days New York). ...

Loose Cannon Will Return Jan. 29
Jan 22, 2008 8:19 AM
Loose Cannon will not appear this week, as its writer is recovering from excessive indulgence in a weekend filled with emotion-laced vicious competitions. We leave it to readers to determine whether we refer to the NFL playoffs or to presidential primary and caucus coverage, but here's a hint: It was absolutely, positively the more dignified and less cartoonish of the two... ...

Loose Cannon: E-Mail Metrics: A Destructuralist View
Jan 14, 2008 8:06 AM, By Richard H. Levey
Early in the New Year, a marketing research firm declared Wednesday the best day for e-mailers to send out their messages. This contradicted late-2007 research, which stated the choicest days were either Tuesday or Thursday. That finding, in turn, had refuted mid-year research that conclusively proved Saturday was the one day every e-mail marketer should embrace. ...

Loose Cannon: Pushing the Envelopes
Jan 7, 2008 7:39 AM, By Richard H. Levey
Forgive me if my sympathy for retailers' complaints about lagging holiday sales is somewhat muted. This is what happens when marketers en masse downplay the biggest present category of the season: gift cards. ...

Tidings of the Post-Holiday Season
Jan 1, 2008 12:00 PM, RICHARD H. LEVEY
Jan. 1, 2008 To: All Employees From: J. Fred Muggs, Merchandise Coordinator, B.S. Pulley Department Stores Re: Reducing merchandise returns Thank you ...

Loose Cannon: Bluffs and Raises for DMers
Dec 10, 2007 7:40 AM, By Richard H. Levey
It's mid-December. Direct marketers are reaping the rewards of the Christmas catalogs they started mailing last January. An unfortunate few are planning the final panicked e-mail blasts for the holiday 2007 season. ...

Void and Without Form
Dec 1, 2007 12:00 PM, RICHARD H. LEVEY
The Direct Marketing Association's press releases reveal its penchant for approaching industry developments with a mixture of cautiousness and corporate-speak. ...

Loose Cannon: There Will Always Be A Data Breach
Nov 26, 2007 7:57 AM, By Richard H. Levey
This past week, Americans celebrated Thanksgiving, a holiday that indirectly commemorates one of the earliest splits between England and what would eventually become the United States. ...

Loose Cannon: Nobody, In Particular
Nov 19, 2007 7:45 AM, By Richard H. Levey
Nearly 120 years ago, W.S. Gilbert penned the line "When everyone is somebody, no one's anybody." Facebook Ads, a new scheme from online community Facebook, could potentially create an entire community of somebodies. ...

Loose Cannon: How We Lost Moscow
Nov 11, 2007 11:12 PM, By Richard H. Levey
The fact that the free flow of information in Moscow is limited shouldn’t come as a surprise. But it might startle readers to know that this particular Moscow is in the United States – and the restrictions being placed don’t bode well for direct mailers. Come Jan. 1, bulk solicitations sent into the University of Idaho’s Moscow campus’s mail system will be unceremoniously dumped into recycling bins, according to a new policy. ...

Loose Cannon: Seven Days in November
Nov 5, 2007 8:02 AM, By Richard H. Levey
The "week in advance" calendar is a government-and-industry-publication staple. These listings are written with an earnestness which is almost endearing, given that most of the events offer all the thrills of a PowerPoint presentation on quarterly soybean production levels. What follow are several DM-related events that may have been overlooked by listings compilers. ...