Publisher’s Clearing House, which I recently wrote about for its launch of PCHtv.com, is back in the news. Promo reported that the company has alerted its members about fake sweepstakes mailings that claim to be from PCH, Oprah Winfrey and O Magazine.

The mailings include seemingly real checks that are, in fact, counterfeit. Consumers are led to believe the checks are an advance on a large cash prize and that they should cash the check and wire money back to an address to receive the remainder of the winnings. This address turned out to be false.

Everyone has received spam e-mail claiming to be making the recipient a millionaire, but direct mail seems to be one of the less obvious places for fraud as printing costs and mail’s tangible nature seem to be an easy target for law enforcement.

While all companies need to be wary of fraud and identity theft, I’m curious about the actual printing aspect of the crime. Not that printers would in any way be responsible for the incident, but do printers have some sort of code of ethics? For example if I were to walk into a printer and ask to have these mailings printed, would I need to show any identification that I was actually working with the company mentioned in the mailing? I’m still doing some research on the topic, but in mean time feel free to leave comments.

More to follow…

The news today that Target has settled a class-action lawsuit from the National Federation of the Blind comes as a victory not only for the vision impaired, but for others who have difficulty accessing the Web due to mobility issues.  A California court has mandated that Target use specific technology and site design elements to make its e-commerce site more accessible.

Target will establish a $6 million settlement fund from which litigants in the California lawsuit can make claims. In addition, Target and the federation also have agreed to a three-year relationship during which the National Federation of the Blind will perform accessibility testing of Target.com.

Accessibility standards for the disabled have been set by Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act, World Wide Web Consortium and the Americans with Disabilities Act. While some may raise legal questions about which organizations should be mandated to meet these standards, clearly marketers who don’t pursue accessibility for the broadest range of shoppers risk disenfranchising many, many more.

Just before heading out for the long weekend, I received a great promo e-mail from Newcastle Brown Ale.

No, they aren’t sending me free beer, but they could potentially send me, for free, to the Glastonbury Music Festival next June. The imported British ale is launching an in-store supermarket sweepstakes in the US, where 4 grand prize winners (and one guest each) will be sent on an all-expenses-paid trip to Glastonbury, where they can rock out in a muddy field, surrounded by ultra-hip music-type people (Jay-Z, Amy Winehouse and Leonard Cohen played last year, along with a billion others that I would give my left arm to see).

Tear-off, mail-in entry forms will be placed in grocery stores nationwide through November 15 of this year.

I will try to follow up on this story next week, so stay tuned for more details — and please take me if you win!

The US Postal Service has provided forms and instructions online designed to help mailers apply for their Mailer ID, a field within the Intelligent Mail barcode.

Mailers can apply for an ID at their Business Mail Entry Unit (BMEU) or through their local Mailpiece Design Analyst (MDA).

To find the nearest office, mailers can use a postal locator tool at pe.usps.com (click on “postal locator” in the left-hand navigation bar).

Anytime I see chocolate in the news it tends to grab my attention, but a recent AP story about TCHO, a  company founded by a former NASA software developer that features chocolate enhanced on a molecular level, got me thinking about more than just my sweet tooth.

The candy maker is solely Web-based and actually uses YouTube and social networks to attract most of its traffic, according to reports. Licensing and retail sending may come further down the road, but so far this unique chocolate has done well enough gathering an audience in the digital world.

“Opt-in is the future of how we as marketers will communicate with customers.”

Those were the words of Eric Holmen president of SmartReply, during a Webinar on changes to how all pre-recorded voice marketing messages are delivered to consumers.

The FTC last week ruled that starting December 2008, all pre-recorded voice marketing calls will require an automated opt-out feature, giving consumers a choice to opt-out of marketing calls, and future alerts and messages. Then, on September 1, 2009, all pre-recorded voice calls will move to full express consent. This second phase requires additional consent measures, in the form of E-Sign, digital or written consent from the consumer to opt-in to receive voice marketing calls.

Holman spoke of the “preference marketing era” where marketing offers will be 100% opt-in.

“Express consent will change the industry, in a positive way, for good,” he said.

What do you think?

Gander Mountain’s first catalog in 12 years has begun limited distribution to customers. And it’s a big one, coming in at 244 pages. This follows the launch of the Web site GanderMtn.com in early August.

Gander Mountain set the stage for its return to direct marketing earlier this year when it was featured in the Overton’s catalog, a business Gander Mountain acquired last year.

Earlier this year, DMNews chronicled how the brand lost the right to market its name in the first place and its plans for easing itself back into the world of direct marketing.

Companies usually depend on campaigns to create buzz, but in the case of Major League Baseball’s “There’s Only One October” campaign, MLB is hoping teams can create their own buzz on the field and strengthen the overall message being presented in the campaign: that playoff baseball is too exciting to miss.

The commercials will evolve as the races evolve, featuring more prominentaly players that are having a greater impact on their team’s chances of reaching the postseason.

The $65 million push - the most expensive ever by MLB, $15 million more than last year’s playoff campaign - debuted yesterday and includes stars from FOX and TBS, both of which will air playoff games, and plays up both historical playoff moments as well as the excitement of this year’s pennant races.

Last year’s campaign of the same name featured Dane Cook, but MLB and the networks decided to cross promote the playoffs with network personalities this year. Stars from the networks such as Randy Jackson, Jeff Foxworthy, Frank Caliendo and Bill Engvall are seen blogging about the excitement of October because “Blogging is kind of the high currency in the interactive space right now,” according to Tim Brosnan, MLB’s executive vice president for business.

The campaign, created by McCann Erickson with the support of MLB Productions, will be supported by online, print and radio supplements.

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) has published a white paper on mobile search. The white paper contains an overview of search on the mobile Internet and lays out how it is different from a traditional Web search. It was developed by the MMA’s Mobile Search Task Force to look at the needs of consumers and the opportunities for marketers.

This white paper can be downloaded from http://www.mmaglobal.com/mobilesearchintro.pdf.

Presidential candidate and Senator John McCain has taken some blows lately–what with Paris Hilton calling him a “wrinkly white-haired dude” and the media criticizing him for not knowing how many houses he owns (well, how many his wife owns).

But when it comes to search marketing McCain —or at least his staffers—are landing the blows instead of taking them.

According to a Wall Street Journal article published today, McCain is “outsmarting” Senator Barack Obama with this savvy search marketing tactics.

According to the article, on Wednesday a Google query for “Joe Biden” and “Biden” yielded pay-per-click ads linking to McCain’s Web site where people could watch a video showing Senator Joe Biden criticizing Obama during the primaries.

The article’s authors note that Obama also bid on the same keyterms, but his ads appeared below McCain’s.