Gary S. Laben, Chairman, DMEF, CEO, KnowledgeBase Marketing, Inc. | A Message from DMEF's Newly Named Chairman Gary S. Laben and President Terri L. Bartlett
Dear Members of the Direct Marketing Community – Beginnings offer opportunities for reflection … aspiration … and vision. As the term for the new DMEF Chairman begins, we thought we would take advantage of this opportunity to do just that.
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 Terri L. Bartlett, President
| As a nonprofit organization committed to serving the direct/interactive marketing community, it is important to acknowledge achievements, especially those directly related to the service and contribution of individuals in this great field. |
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No one deserves more applause than outgoing DMEF Chairman Al Dyon. It’s impossible to detail all of the developments achieved under Al’s leadership, but perhaps the most visible and striking demonstration of Al’s chairmanship is the introduction of the DMEF’s new website – www.directworks.org.
While viewing the website, you’ll see some of the ways the DMEF has been revitalized during his tenure. Most notably, we’ve raised the bar on the level of our programs that serve our key audiences: educators, students, and corporations.
Aspirations are high throughout the DMEF. And the commitment to excel begins with our Board of Trustees. We are especially proud to introduce our 2008-2009 members, which includes 12 new professionals whose terms began on October 11 (List and photos provided below). These new members are stepping on the shoulders of outgoing trustees whose countless hours of expertise, service and generous contributions have enabled us to achieve great levels of success. But, our outgoing Trustees are not going far. As a testament to their commitment to the DMEF mission, each and every one of these individuals are involved in current and future programs and initiatives, so their influence and support will continue in the weeks and months ahead.
And, finally – our vision. At our meetings prior to DMA08, the DMEF and DMA Boards approved an expanded mission statement, which is supported by aggressive, aspirational, and yes, visionary goals for our future. Mark our words: We are committed to being the go-to source for education, research, career development and placement resources for workplace-ready talent entering the direct/interactive marketing field.
We’ve known it all along, and now the public is recognizing the direct/interactive marketing field as one of the most dynamic, sought after professions available. In order to continue to attract, educate and place world-class talent in this field, we need your continued support and involvement. To find out how, read below and visit our website where you’ll learn about the countless ways we’re working to
CONNECT, DEVELOP AND EXCEL! … so you have the best and brightest talent for years to come.
We look forward to serving you – and working with you – as we continue to deliver on our promise.
Sincerely,
Terri L. Bartlett Gary S. Laben, Chairman, DMEF
President, DMEF CEO, KnowledgeBase Marketing, Inc.
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2008-2009 DMEF Board of Trustees-Officers and New Members Introduced
As you noticed in our introduction letter, Gary S. Laben, chief executive officer, KnowledgeBase Marketing, was elected chairman of the DMEF, as a result of a unanimous vote by the DMEF Board on October 11. Officers joining Laben for the 2008-2009 term are: Craig Dempster, senior vice president, Merkle, Inc., as vice chairman/chairman-elect; DMA President & CEO John A. Greco, Jr., as vice chairman; Peg Kuman, chief executive officer, Telematch, Inc., as treasurer; Seth Radwell, president, eScholastic & Scholastic at Home, as secretary; and Terri L. Bartlett, president, Direct Marketing Educational Foundation.
At the same time, the DMEF Board approved the newest Trustees, including:
- Brad Bentley, Senior Vice President, Marketing and Direct Services, DIRECTV, Inc.
- Kelly Browning, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, American Institute of Cancer Research
- Ara Cinar, Executive Senior Vice President, Development and Diversification, Direct Group France, France Loisirs
- Bill Courtney, Director, PSG Americas Marketing Communications, Hewlett-Packard Company
- Alejandro DiPaola, Chairman, diPaola | WPP
- Marisa Edmund, Vice President, Marketing & Communications, Edmund Optics | America
- Marjorie Kalter, Ph.D., Clinical Professor, New York University
- Edward C. Malthouse, Ph.D., Professor, Northwestern University
- David Shepard, President, David Shepard Associates
- Michael Sherman, Senior Advisor, Peter J. Solomon Company
- Robert Stagno, General Manager, Central Marketing Group, Microsoft Corporation
- Daniel Stepanic, Marketing Director, C.TRAC information solutions
Click here for for bio information and photos of the entire DMEF Board of Trustees.
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DMEF's New Website is Live: www.directworks.org
We’ve been touting the many changes taking place at the DMEF for the past two years … and nothing portrays those changes more dramatically and visually than the newly introduced website: www.directworks.org. The site was officially launched on October 11, to coincide with the kick off of DMA08.
The launch has generated much buzz about the Foundation, including an article in the DMA08 trade show daily titled: The New Face of DM Education; DMEF unveils a new logo and website designed to connect the DM world. It went on to say, “While content is presented via three sections – for students, professors and corporations – the information and opportunities often intersect, demonstrating the interdependence of the players.
Take a moment and see for yourself! For instance, check out the new Virtual Marketing Club, a social networking site that allows students to have a community with other marketing students from campus to campus. This program offers companies an opportunity to provide marketing challenges, and gather creative submissions from students near and far. Or, check out The Job Bank … an online site where companies can post intern and entry-level positions perfect for students interested in positions in this field.
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2008 Annual Awards Dinner Honors...You!
Hundreds of industry leaders and direct marketing professionals gathered to celebrate at the DMEF’s premier event – the 2008 Annual Awards Dinner at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas.
The evening kicked off with the DMEF’s new chairman – Gary S. Laben – welcoming the more than 300 guests, including leaders from the business and academic worlds as they converged together for DMA08.
Professionals and Professors - Kent Johnson of Highlights for Children; Steve McNeely of Tantara Partners, LLC and Professor Joe Phelps of University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa - mingled during the cocktail party.
Cathy and Markus Wilhelm (left) joined John and Mary Temple to catch up as the festive evening got started.
Little did Joan Litle know she would walk away with
the coveted diamond estate bracelet, one of the unique auction packages
presented during the evening. Beth Smith of Smith Browning Direct (right) entices as part of the cocktail party festivities.
Friends had a chance to catch up as well, as seen here with Debbie Megee, David Shepard Associates; Vernon Tirey, Customer Development Solutions; and Craig Wood of The Clarity Group.
Long-time supporters of the DMEF – Henry Hoke of Hoke Communications, Ralph Stevens of Ralph Stevens Associates and Betty Anne Cooper of MRM Gillespie had an opportunity to toast to the evening and the conference.
It was the perfect opportunity to pay tribute to the DMEF’s 2008 honorees, including:
Edward N. Mayer, Jr. Education Leadership Award to Jon Roska, founder, CEO, and CCO of Roska Direct Advertising
Surrounded by two of his fans, Jon Roska, Roska Direct Advertising (center) accepted the award, as Gary S. Laben, KnowledgeBase Marketing and DMEF Chairman (left) with Al Dyon, DMRA and outgoing DMEF Chairman (right) helped him celebrate.
Corporate Leadership Award going to Scholastic, with Seth Radwell, president of eScholastic and Scholastic at Home accepting the award.
Appearing on behalf of Scholastic, Seth Radwell enthusiastically accepts the award presented by John Greco of DMA.
A special tribute was made to Edward C. Malthouse, Ph.D., professor of Integrated Marketing Communications at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, who received the Robert B. Clarke Outstanding Educator Award at the luncheon ceremony at the DMEF’s Research Summit the following day.
A special activity of this dinner is the annual Program & Scholarship Auction, which involved countless individuals and corporations stepping up to pledge their support for the DMEF. In spite of stunning reports of economic crisis that filled the news during the previous week, loyal supporters – old and new – expressed their support of the DMEF, resulting in close to $200,000 raised during the Auction program.
Proceeds from the dinner and auction totaled close to $400,000, which will be used to support for our world-class programs, such as:
- Direct/Interactive Marketing Research Summit –a two-day cutting-edge academic research and educational conference. (Read details below.)
- Data Set Library – Data sets are made available to approved educators for use within academic situations, classes, and independent study or research projects.
- Speakers Bureau -- Dynamic speakers from the field of direct are invited to volunteer to be a guest speaker at local colleges and universities and help professors enhance their classroom lessons.
- The Job Bank -- exciting entry-level jobs and internships are posted by leading companies in the direct/interactive marketing field. These jobs are highly promoted to students at colleges and universities visiting the site.
- College Day – students from area colleges and universities gather for an informative panel discussion on the numerous opportunities in the field of direct /interactive marketing. As part of the program, attendees receive admission for one day at DMA’s Annual Conference.
For more information about these exciting programs, and many more, please visit: www.directworks.org.
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Direct Marketing Leadership Development Program Associates Step Up To Support The DMEF
The Program & Scholarship Auction at the DMEF’s Annual Awards Dinner is always exciting and inspiring, but nothing compared to the demonstration of support and generosity from the seven associates who have participated in the Direct Marketing Leadership Development pilot program.
Hopefully you have read about the program, specifically the outstanding associates who have been placed in the DMEF’s Direct Marketing Leadership Development Program. In 2007 we placed four outstanding recent college graduates in the rotating residency program. After a slight revision in year II, three individuals were placed in 2008. All seven individuals attended the event and when given the opportunity, each one pledged funding support for the DMEF – as a show of gratitude and appreciation both to the DMEF and the direct marketing community at large. You could have heard a pin drop as each one stood up to announce their pledge.
Nothing demonstrates the power and potential of DMEF and the substantive programs designed to place the best and brightest students in this field. I assure you – each of these seven individuals demonstrated true leadership and generosity … and they serve as examples for all of us to follow. We can be very proud to know that these professionals are among us.
Seated left to right: Magda Losonczy, Jessica Young, Kara Daddario, all of whom are Year II DMLDP Associates, and Kelly Lewis a Year I Associate); Standing: Terri L. Bartlett of DMEF, Francisco Alberini of Year I; Marie Adolphe and Prisca Rabetafika also of DMEF, along with Nicole Lomabrdo and Andrea Derricks, both Year I Associates.
A Weekend of Firsts at the 2008 Direct/Interactive Marketing Research Summit in Las Vegas
2008 marked a new direction for the Direct/interactive Research Summit. In fact, it was a weekend of firsts. For the first time ever, we featured two distinct tracks over two full days - October 11 and 12th. Attendees were treated to a wealth of current research in both our new Education Track and our expanded Research Track.
In addition to adding a new track and an additional day of presentations; we exceeded our previous attendance with a record 108 attendees. We also presented the first-ever Shankar-Spiegel Best Dissertation Proposal in Direct/interactive Marketing Award and awarded the winners of our first-ever Lifetime Value and Customer Equity Modeling Competition co-sponsored by the DMEF Don Kuhn Fund for Education and Research.
The summit remains unique among conferences for its ability to attract both top academics and practitioners in the field of direct/interactive marketing. This year’s summit continued the tradition, attracting renowned researchers from universities such as Dartmouth, Harvard and University of Pennsylvania and practitioners from cutting edge companies such as Google and Hewlett Packard Labs.
The weekend ended on a high note with the presentation of The DMEF Robert B. Clarke Outstanding Educator Award to
Edward C. Malthouse, Sills Professor of Integrated Marketing Communications the Medill School at Northwestern University, a prominent direct/interactive marketing educator in the US and worldwide.
(front row) Blowden Tarter, Golden Gate University receives the 2nd Place Best Case Writers Award for "Haagen-Dazs Loves Honey Bees".
Not pictured are 1st place winners Lisa Spiller, Christopher Newport University and Carol Scovotti, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater for Peninsula SPCA, and 3rd place winners Ralitza Nikolaeva, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Eunsang Yoon, University of Massachusetts-Lowell, and Ella Carter, Howard University for Direct Mail Marketing at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Team Zhang, consisting of Zainab Jamal and Alex Zhang of Hewlett Packard among the winners in the Phase One of the Don Kuhn Fund's Lifetime Value and Customer Equity Competition - which asked competitors to predict donor behavior against actual 2-year data that was donated by a nonprofit company.
John Cronin (3rd from left) receives the Best Player Award in the Summit's Education Track for Upgrading to Web 2.0: An Experiential Project to Build a Direct Marketing Wiki from (l-r) Education Track Vice Chairs Joseph Phelps, University of Alabama; John Schibrowsky, University of Nevada Las Vegas Cronin, and Education Track Chair James Peltier, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater (right).
Edward C. Malthouse (left), Northwestern University receives the Robert B. Clarke Outstanding Educator Award from past recipient Venkatesh "Venky" Shankar, Texas A&M University.
Faculty Advisor V. Kumar, Georgia State University (center) flanked by Ted Spiegel, President, Ted Spiegel Associates (left) and Venky Shankar, Texas A&M University (right) accepts the first Shankar-Spiegel Best Dissertation Award on behalf of Anita Mann Luo, University of Connecticut.
Collegiate ECHO Winners Feted at International ECHO CeremonyComedian and TV late night talk show host Jay Leno awarded the winners of the 2008 DMEF Collegiate ECHO Awards: The University of Northern Colorado (undergraduate team) garnered Collegiate ECHO Gold at the October 14 DMA International ECHO Awards ceremony and gala. The 2008 competition, sponsored by Pitney Bowes — an internationally recognized, leading provider of mailstream technology solutions — was conducted during the Fall 2007 and Spring 2008 semesters and attracted entries from colleges nationwide. Litle & Co. sponsored the cash prizes for each winning team. In addition, team member Maria Jerez presented the winning campaign during DMA08 at an ECHO Winning Case session at the invitation of the DMA International ECHO Committee’s Suzy Ridenour, President, Ridenour & Associates.
With an emphasis on using multichannel direct marketing, creativity, and technology such as blogs, social networking, and email this year’s competition was exceptionally valuable for students as they gained real-world business experience while still in the classroom. This year’s Collegiate ECHO challenge was to create a $4 million innovative and integrated direct marketing campaign, targeting small businesses, establishing the Pitney Bowes’ Stamp Expressions™ Printer. This desktop printer lets customers print USPS ® approved postage designed through the Internet. The UNC team’s campaign targeted nonprofit companies with a multichannel campaign titled, “Spice Up Your Mail.”
To help enhance the overall learning experience for the students, DMEF partnered with NextMark to provide the competing teams with free access to NextMark's List Research System. This system, used by practitioners and major businesses, is a list selection tool that is used for direct marketing campaigns.
“Students, faculty and sponsors are all winners in the Collegiate ECHO Challenge,” said DMEF President Terri L. Bartlett. “Our sponsor had dozens of mini-agencies of future marketers generating new ideas under the supervision of business, communications, marketing, or
advertising professors. These faculty advisors provided their teams with the opportunity to create a real-world marketing plan — and the entire direct marketing community benefits by having workplace-ready graduates. DMEF is very appreciative of Pitney Bowes’ sponsorship,
and we thank Litle & Co., the generous sponsors of this year’s cash prizes to both the undergraduate and graduate teams.”
The UNC team consisted of
Maria Jerez,
Francis Matturi,
William Dozier; their faculty advisor was Professor
James Reardon.
At the ECHO Awards Gala, (standing left to right) Dr. James Reardon, faculty advisor to the Gold-Collegiate-ECHO-winning University of Northern Colorado team, Jeff Nesler, DMEF Senior Program Manager, John Schloff, VP Global Strategy and Business Development from 2008 sponsor Pitney Bowes, and winner Francis Matturi; as well as winners Maria Jerez, William Dozier, with DMEF President Terri Bartlett and Marc Haskelson, VP of Business Development, Litle & Co., the 2008 cash awards sponsor.
College Day Attendance Triples
Co-sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association and the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, 2008 College Day’s attendance tripled over the previous year’s with more than 90 attendees. College Day provided a special DMEF seminar for students and their faculty advisors hailing from University of Nevada-Las Vegas and University of California at Fresno. The unique program featured a keynote address by as well as a panel discussion on careers in direct/interactive and database marketing with speakers representing vast experience in either general or travel/hospitality database marketing. The session gave students sound, practical advice on job hunting and the types of D/I marketing jobs that are out there. The group also attended the opening day of the DMA08 Conference & Exhibition. Special thanks go to those pictured directly below (left) for sharing their time-tested knowledge and wisdom with tomorrow's future leaders.
A lively panel discussion on careers in direct/interactive marketing, with Q&A from the assembled audience, involved College Day panelists (seated left to right) George Orme, Senior Consultant, David Shepard Associates; Dan Ruderman, Direct Mail Manager, Ameristar Casinos; Patrick Durkin, Director of Loyalty Marketing at Harrah’s Corporate Office; Kathi Kulesza, Executive Director of Loyalty Marketing at MGM Mirage;and database marketing expert Paul Bowman, President, Bowman & Associates (who also delivered an electrifying keynote address). At the lectern, moderator Dr. John “Jack” Schibrowsky, Professor of Marketing, University of Nevada Las Vegas.
More than 90 college students and their faculty advisors gathered for the special College Day session in Las Vegas, held on Opening Day during the DMA08 Annual Conference & Exhibition.
End-of-Year Giving
You’ve read about the dramatic innovations made at the DMEF, demonstrated by the groundbreaking programs and initiatives designed to deliver on our promise to establish the DMEF as the go-to source for education, research, career development resources and placement of workplace-ready talent entering the field of direct/interactive marketing.
For a field as dynamic as ours, we have to move quickly and decisively in order to meet the needs of the marketplace. We thank you for your ongoing support. We need you more than ever now. We are at a critical point in our plan to revitalize and reposition the DMEF, with plans to continue to overhaul and introduce programs to deliver on our mission.
Please join us as we close the gap on our fundraising goals for the year, and set the stage for a continued growth of the DMEF in 2009.
Your contributions have never been more critical. To continue funding our programs for 2008 and 2009, we need your participation. Please make your year-end contribution now … whether it’s $25, $100, $1,000 or more, we welcome your support as we work together to help students interested in joining this field.
Click here to make your donation online
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Make a Donation
Do you want to support a scholarship … and further DMEF’s programs and activities at colleges and universities nationwide? You can!
Annual Giving is vital to the health and continued growth of our Foundation; it ensures continuity and the ability to administer our programs on an ongoing basis which in turn benefit the entire direct/interactive community.
Every gift makes a difference! Click here to make your donation online
Mail or fax in your donation - just download this form and mail or fax to:
Direct Marketing Educational Foundation
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036
fax: 212.790.1561
To make a donation or pledge by phone, contact Jeannette Monaco, Director of Development at 212.768.7288, ext. 1371 or via email at
jmonaco@the-dma.org.
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Contact Us
If you have any questions about the Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, contact us at
dmef@the-dma.org.
Please feel free to forward the DMEF E-Update to other interested parties. If a friend has passed this newsletter on to you, and you’d like to subscribe, send us an e-mail at
dmef@the-dma.org with your contact information in the body of the e-mail.
If your e-mail address has changed, please contact us with your updated information:
Direct Marketing Educational Foundation
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-6700
Fax: 212.790.1561
Email:
dmef@the-dma.org
Direct Marketing Educational Foundation
1120 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10036-6700
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