While the US consumer watches gas prices rise, there may be a positive spin for the cataloger and other direct marketers who save consumers a shopping trip. Bloomberg reports that petroleum gasoline futures are at  $3.40 per gallon today and I’ve seen several reports that gas averages $4 a gallon at the pump.

Here’s some math: The average American commuter driving a sedan at 20 miles per gallon would use 1.36 gallons per 1-hour round trip to the mall.  At $4.00 per gallon, that’s a $5.44 savings. If you’re company’s shipping fees are lower than that, you’ve got some feel good savings to pass on to the customer.

But before you start rewriting all of your promotional copy, consider the true nature of costs and benefits. The carbon offsets and increased prices for delivery of products to individual homes will still have an environmental impact. In addition, according to a recent study by Connected Nation, it takes 50 orders that save the consumer an hour of driving, to make 1 cent of carbon offsets for each individual. Thanks to multiplication, this can eventually total to dollars of change.

I just finished up a special feature on promotional marketing — I got such a great response when I asked folks for examples. So many interesting promotions out there! It’ll run in next week’s issue of DMNews so check it out online or in print. I contacted Nowell Upham, EVP of promotional marketing at The Marketing Arm, for some insight into trends. I asked: Are marketers doing more of certain types of promotions? His response: “There’s more experimentation and the use of smaller initiatives threaded together or layered on top of each other. Marketers are giving consumers the option to navigate the brand experience in a horizontal or vertical manner.” You’ll see more of his comments in next week’s issue…

As the de facto manager of DMNews‘ always burgeoning lists@dmnews.com inbox, I have of course noted the amount of political lists that are available on the market. This year, like every Presidential election year, means that political awareness in the US is spiking and that political appeals will appear in nearly all media so as to capitalize on the amount of people going to the polls — I would imagine that the companies with political lists available are receiving multiple inquiries.

Which is why I found this article that Yahoo picked up from Politico so interesting. I think it does a good job of showing the importance of auditing data, segmentation and thinking outside the box when targeting. Here are some excerpts:

In the past two presidential cycles, the Republican national voter file allowed them to more efficiently locate, communicate with and galvanize voters. Democrats, by comparison, relied on a disjointed compilation of national and state party data files that varied widely in quality.

…[as] George W. Bush sought reelection, consumer data enabled the GOP to locate regular churchgoers who were not Republican, as well as identify a group of Hispanic mothers particularly supportive of the No Child Left Behind law.

Burns voters were also more likely to participate in outdoor activities, gardening, investing, to be religious contributors and to have an interest in golf. Tester voters were more interested in health products and more likely to have a retail credit card.

An article from Monday’s New York Times, “Online search ads faring better than expensive displays,” fit in perfectly to the work I’ve been doing wrapping up our upcoming Essential Guide to Search Engine Marketing, which will appear in the June 16th issue of DMNews. While search advertising remains strong, it said, growth in online advertising, particularly elaborate display ads, is slowing. That comes as no surprise, said Eduardo Llach, CMO and co-founder of SearchRev, when I spoke to him the other day. “I thought it was right on and I distributed it across the team,” he says. “We’re seeing more and more money coming into search.”

DMNews was recently given a peek at the the results of an anonymous survey on b-to-b business conditions done by MeritDirect. The core question asked of the 38 respondents: “What keeps you up at night?” It’s a question near and dear to this insomniac’s heart.

In addition to the usual suspects: innovation and cost-effective customer acquisition, a majority of executives at b-to-b companies cited the economic downturn, Standard Flat postal rate increases, reliable metrics and shrinking margins as enemies of a restful slumber.

More surprising to me was the issues that weren’t as troubling. A majority had minimal concern about the cost of implementing government regulations and raising capital to finance expansion. Perhaps this is because the majority of the respondents expect positive sales growth this year and in 2009.

As for what I’ll be losing sleep over this year, it’s about bringing you the latest news on these troubling issues. DMNews will have it’s eye on these issues as well as others raised in the survey: increase in raw materials and packaging, increased freight costs, competitive pricing, consolidation and understanding how to the dynamics of multichannel sales. As always, reach me at cara.wood@dmnews.com about how our coverage can help you dream up positive ROI strategies for you and your clients.

I was beaming on the subway this morning when I flipped open my New York Times Magazine and saw the subject of its weekly “Consumed” section was the Taser C2 Personal Protector — no, not because I’m a weaponry connoisseur, but because the DRTV push for that product was the subject for my first article for DMNews.

I was glad to see that Taser was reporting 23,000 sales (sure to spike after its inclusion in the Times this week as well), and to see the company’s representative in the article, Steve Tuttle, extol the virtues of the long-form infomercial. I was also interested to see that an Arizona woman had taken it upon herself to begin selling the product through “Tupperware parties for the Taser” — an interesting combination of event, word-of-mouth and viral marketing and, of course, direct sales.

This week saw two announcements from traditional marketing companies offering online expertise as well. Lighthouse List formed a new division for e-mail and SMS lists. And just today Direct Media Inc. announced that was launching an eMarketing Group to handle its online marketing services.

Increasingly traditional marketers have told me that the online world has everything to gain from traditional direct marketers using the channel. Perhaps one of the latest campaign examples of this is Valassis using its new RedPlum channel to deploy a classic sweepstakes. The Dooney & Bourke purse giveaway, done in partnership with Macys.com, allows visitors the chance to win Dooney & Bourke Chiara handbag, and Dooney & Bourke wristlets for up to 10 friends.

It’s lead generation; it’s viral; it’s a compelling offer from a well known brand. But perhaps most interestingly it’s one of the best known co-op marketers making good on its promise to be an online marketer as well.

Is your company putting traditional know-how to use on the Web? Tell me about it! I’m at cara.wood@dmnews.com

At this morning’s Rock the Digital World summit, hosted by Avenue A | Razorfish and its clients, I got a chance to see what Coors Brewing Company is up to in its marketing efforts. CMO Andy England gave a presentation spelling out how the brand has evolved over the past few years and made some observations as to how TV and digital advertising is changing.

One interesting point England made was that with one exception, there is no “appointment TV” anymore, meaning with the onslaught of DVRs, there are very few occasions to reschedule personal plans to be sure to catch a program live. The one exception, namely with Coors’s young male target demographic, is live sports. Therefore, the value of those time slots goes up for advertisers.

Coors has numerous campaigns running simultaneously including cable, banner, TV, social networking and viral video. They even have a female-targeted online campaign boasting that Coors Light has only 102 calories. Coors is also the official beer of the NFL and NASCAR.

The viral video on YouTube, which featured a 20-something man pouring the perfect glass of beer from unlikely heights can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQD8Lk3ies. England noted that it had nearly 200,000 hits. A “response” video posted by a Coors Light fan has garnered over 63,000 hits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jfwnFRQfjE&feature=related.

He also went on to say that you shouldn’t assume that your offline work doesn’t lead to online activity. Coors created numerous television ads integrating old footage of pro football coaches during press conferences spliced to look as if they’re answering questions about the beer. The most popular was with Jim Mora, former coach of the Indianapolis Colts which has received 495,000 hits on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdUr5hF0yGc. Amazingly, a college student’s response video using Mike Gundy, coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys, has gotten 528,000 hits, far surpassing Coors’s own advertisement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTQUWEKx0o&feature=related.

England ended by saying that Draftfcb currently does Coors’s offline marketing, but wonders if an evolution toward “one-stop shop” agencies is coming soon.

About 1,000 people crammed into a function room at the Sheraton New York and Towers today for Avenue A | Razorfish’s 8th annual client summit. The summit’s theme was “rock the digital world” and that morning’s hot topic was the power of social media.

Charlene Li, VP and principal analyst for Forrester Research, touched upon a number of recent social media success stories including Tampax and Always’ girl power site, Beinggirl.com. The content-rich Web site has since launched in dozens of countries and assisted the brand in approaching a somewhat awkward subject for many young teens.

A post on the USA site by “cutieofnc” reads, “I am happy the marketing agent helped create this website it helps girls with there [sic] problems and periods and girl problems girls need the advice!”

Enough said.

Megan O’Connor, senior manager of internet marketing for Levi’s, later took the stage to talk about the company’s recent success with its Project 501 Design Challenge. The contest launched during an episode of “Project Runway.” The winner–a designer named “jehan”–will have his/her design (a jean jacket) produced and sold on levi.com. According to O’Connor, the contest helped the San Francisco-based jeans company tap into its target market: women ages 18-25.

The line up for day two of the summit includes presentations from the Coors Brewing Company, CNN and Microsoft.

…is probably through some combination of her stomach and her pocketbook. At least, that’s what it seems Dunkin’ Donuts is banking on. Just a month after its “free donut on tax day” promotion (which I almost blogged angrily about because I didn’t find out about it in time), the coffee and donuts chain is holding its second national Free Iced Coffee Day on May 15.

DD expects to hand out nearly 4 million cups of iced coffee tomorrow, and I’m sure it’s betting on seeing happy customers return for more. I admit to already being a won-over DD coffee fan, but even with the already-loyal, free iced coffee can help boost customer feelings about the brand (aw, they care!), cross-sell opportunities (now I have $1.50 to spend on a muffin!), and word of mouth promotions (our editorial assistant, knowing my coffee habits, sent the announcement to me this morning, and, hey, look, now I’m blogging about it!). For the non-fans, it can do everything listed above and, if it works the way it’s supposed to, win over some new converts.

I think the iced coffee is a particularly clever promotion: with the summer heat (finally) cranking up, the hot coffee for which the chain is better-known may lose some of its allure. Iced coffee also carries with it the sense of being a little more special or exotic than your everyday cup o’ joe, so consumers may feel like they’re getting extra-good treatment — for about the same price to the store as a cheap-o cup of the hot stuff.

If they’re particularly lucky, Dunkin’ may also be able to edge in on the same prospects that Starbucks is currently wooing with its free coffee promotion — happening every Wednesday this month. I’m not entirely sure how valuable the “we’ll go anywhere for free coffee” demographic is, but maybe for those undecided, it’s a good chance to let the taste speak for itself.