In what looks like a shrewd move, Brookstone is saying it will offer a discount to consumers who bring a Sharper Image gift card into any of its stores and relinquish it to a store associate. Sharper Image said last week that it would no longer redeem gift cards that had already been issued after announcing it had filed for bankruptcy.

Brookstone is offering an instant 25% savings on purchases of many items it carries, regardless of the value of the gift card, gift certificate or merchandise certificate. The offer isn’t valid for Sony, Celestron, Bose, Panasonic and Tempur-Pedic products.

For the sheer good will alone that this will generate with Sharper Image customers, the move sounds like a good one. Plus, with the rising cost of new customer acquisitions, this looks like a smart way for Brookstone to invest some of that money into acquiring consumers it already knows are interested in products similar to what it carries.

–Chantal Todé

Since joining DMNews in November, I’ve already worked on two of our “Essential Guide” supplements – and quickly realized what a great resource they are in terms of learning about the industry, whether you’re been in the direct marketing business for years or are just getting started. With dozens of top industry experts contributing to various sector topics (our Essential Guide to Lists, Databases and Data Management ran in our 1/28  issue and the Essential Guide to Multichannel Retail will be in our 2/25 issue), I don’t believe you can read through an entire Essential Guide and not learn a tremendous amount.
 
Right now I’m in the thick of gathering submissions for DMDeliver, or the Essential Guide to Direct Mail, which will run in our 3/10 issue. We already have experts from all around the worlds of direct mail, postal and printing/production preparing contributions to the supplement – but of course I’m looking for more! With so many important industry issues on the table, from changing postal regulations and mail legislation to advances in printing technologies and data services, it’s more important than ever to share your opinions and best practices. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions about how to be a part of this exciting issue. 
 

While marketers are increasingly looking to engage consumers, agencies often fall short of being able to provide the skills necessary to accomplish this, according to a new report from Forrester Research called The Connected Agency. Some of the trends noted by report include: the talent and processes in creative and media agencies are still focused on delivering work with large audiences and large budgets; as new media grows, requiring agility and speed, agencies aren’t always up to the challenge; digital agencies have started to compete and win traditional work, however the wins stand out as the exception to the rule; new specialist agencies are emerging with a focus on word-of-mouth marketing, and marketers are increasingly looking to new advisors, such as consultancies like McKinsey & Company and Accenture or technology vendors like Unica and Interwove, to fill skills gaps at traditional agencies.

According to the report , approximately 55% of marketers think their agency is well-equipped to help with Internet advertising while 95% of agency executives believe they have a handle on these skills.

For more on how marketers and agencies are navigating these waters, check out this article.

This week’s Gloves Off debate  tackled the payment card industry standards and their ability to protect retailers from consumer data leaks.

In addition to speaking with Robert Russo, GM at PCI Security Standards Council and David Taylor, President at PCI Alliance, I spoke to other experts about the best way retailers and marketers can protect their data.

Prat Moghe, the founder & CTO of Tizor Systems, said there are several misconceptions in data security today. “One popular misconception is that majority of data losses happen by e-mail,” he said. “In reality, less than 5% of data losses happen by e-mail. Laptops and databases are the top 2 sources of data losses. They account for 40% and 50% of data losses respectively.”

He said that while the PCI standards provide a basic map of security defense layers that can reduce data risk, the best way to protect data and assure it is being accessed properly is through data activity monitoring.

Wes Trochill, president of Effective Database Management LLC, said, “The greatest risk of breach is actually the human element, either malicious or accidental…The best way to ensure protection is to have rules and business processes in place for how data is managed. For example, no personal data should be loaded on laptops or other mobile devices.”

He went on to say that any easy mistake to make to assume that data breach would not effect your business.

“Anyone who does business online, or stores personal data on their computers, is at risk of that data being compromised, whether accidentally or maliciously. All organizations need to have processes and procedures in place to minimize the possibility of a major data breach.”

 Click here to learn more about the current PCI Standards.

To schedule an interview and become part of the PCI Knowledge Base’s compliance survey, click here.

To propose your own topic of debate for Gloves Off, please e-mail me at cara.wood@dmnews.com.