Today was a landmark day for me – I was the victim of some misused personal information! Hooray!

I am joking about the “hooray” part, of course. Data privacy is no laughing matter, and if the information that was exposed to me today had been more significant, I would be pretty angry right now. As it so happens, it was not, so I feel comfortable sharing it with you all in the hope that we can all learn a bit by others’ foibles.

So at around noon today, I received a phone call from a representative at a home improvement ratings & reviews service that I am a happy member of. Unlike most review services, this one is a pay system that works on a subscription model, so it is not that strange that they would be contacting me with account or service information. However, after a moment of basic customer satisfaction survey-type questions, the conversation moved into some uncomfortable territory.

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Worn out by the amount of debate, downsizing, and anguish going on regarding the global economic woes, I’ve decided that now is a good time to take a break from the downturn and look at one of the bright spots in marketing today: Direct-to-consumer TV advertising.

The prevailing thinking among email marketers for many years was that email could become more like mainstream media by incorporating elements such as streaming video and other rich media into their messages. As it turns out, the exchange seems to be working the other way around; TV advertising is becoming more like email, and it might be a trend here to stay.

Skipping right past Bob Garfield’s latest marketing doomsday prophecy (because we’re staying positive, people!), Ad Age has a great profile on the success of Direct-to-Consumer TV spots, with newcomers such as the “PedEgg,” “Rosetta Stone,” and “ShamWow” raking in dollars and almost single-handedly keeping the TV advertising model afloat. Jeck Neff’s article explains:

While many traditional TV advertisers pull back significantly amid the sharp downturn, short-form direct-response advertisers have been quick to take their place. And some, in fact, would say the PedEgg, Snuggie and Loud ‘N Clear could yet save an economy where consumers have largely lost their will to buy.

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Although the number of Americans watching March Madness (15%) ranks behind the NFL’s Super Bowl (38%) and MLB’s World Series (22%), the sport has quite a distinct following. Firstly, college basketball fans tend to be slightly older. In fact, Americans in the 18-24 year old age bracket are 4% less likely to be very or somewhat interested in college basketball than those 45 years of age and older. Read on for more statistics and trends pertaining to those most likely to be following March Madness this month.

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Can you guess which brand added this sophisticated imagery to their email newsletter header to provide a fresh brand experience? Please vote below and click Read More to find out the answer.

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You might not realize it, but simple acts of neglect rank among the most important aspects of our daily lives as marketers and consumers.

Consider the process of checking your email inbox first thing in the morning – you scroll right by email after email, neglecting the very messages that you’ve specifically requested from your favorite businesses.

But is it really neglect? To the marketer focused solely on open rates and clickthroughs, sure it is. No clicks, no love, right? Think again. There’s a lot to be said for those emails – some opened, many not, a few previewed and then passed by – that sit stoically in our inboxes, relatively untouched. After all, these messages are accomplishing the one fundamental task that every marketer requires from their communications: reminding the customer that they’re there.

And therein lies an unsung power of email: the potential to supercharge the rest of your marketing channels through a simple reminder that stares customers in the face.

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Every day it seems that another once well-respected sector of the business world finds itself under fire from the economic downturn. For whatever reason, many analysts seem eager to add email marketing to the list of soon-to-be casualties of the recession. Tweets, texts, and pokes – oh my! (or is it OMG?!)

My advice to the pundits: don’t call the coroner. Even better, you can un-friend him on Facebook because he won’t be visiting us anytime soon.

Now, I realize that I have covered this topic on our site before, but there have been some over-reaching statements made recently regarding the viability of the email industry that require a response. Let’s have a look at what’s being said about email right now and think about what’s really going on.

From ReadWriteWeb, responding to a Nielsen report showing that more adults are now on Facebook:

Our take away from these findings? People prefer the clean, controlled, multimedia and publicly social experience of social networking communication over the relatively open, individualistic and spammy medium of email. The fact that there is effectively no data portability allowing communication archives to be ported from one social network to another as there is with email doesn’t appear to be bothering people in the short term.

While the Nielsen numbers do confirm that adults have definitely warmed to social networks, they do not indicate what people “prefer” or how they interact with them. To suggest that MySpace became popular because it provides a “clean” experience is patently absurd to anyone with two functioning eyeballs. To suggest that the 15 Zombie/Vampire War requests I have in my Facebook account or the now-famous “work from home” Facebook ad scams are not “spammy” is equally ridiculous. For the record, I would also point out that there’s a difference between being private and “individualistic” – I would consider my email account private, while my tally of Twitter followers skews more towards the realm of “individualistic” and ego-serving.

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I just loved this email I recently received from Urban Outfitters, and thought I’d share some of my thoughts about it with you all.

Scrolling through my inbox, the main image of the Urban Outfitter “Where to?” campaign grabbed my attention above all the others. For those of us on the East Coast, it’s been a long winter. Nevertheless, spring is in the air, and Urban Outfitter’s image of the ocean popped out at me. The creative inspired me to open the email and daydream a little about being on a beach where I could forget about the economy and relax.

The “Where to?” campaign is a great example of using attractive photography and creative marketing to engage your subscribers to open your emails.

Because I took the time to look at the picture, I saw that Urban was advertising friends’ top picks for the season based on their travel plans. Their approach of using friends’ favorite items was a clever take on viral marketing, used in this instance to market a number of different products. Even if the recipient does not have any trips planned, the items fit different personalities as much as they fit the destinations selected.

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