The shortlist for a major awards event suggests that direct marketing continues to be an effective form of promotion.

Eight out of the 16 finalists in this year’s Institute of Practitioners in Advertising Effectiveness Awards used direct marketing in their entries.

Waitrose has launched a direct marketing campaign to promote ‘Essential Waitrose‘, its new range of more than 1,400 competitively priced everyday products.

‘Essential Waitrose’ will cover a selection of everyday grocery, bakery, fresh, frozen, dry ambient and non-food line at affordable prices.

The latest issue of CorpComms states that Fresh and Easy, Tesco’s American convenience store chain which opened in November 2007, is using the text-based messaging service Twitter to communicate with customers.

This is following in the footsteps of PepsiCo, Starbucks, Home Depot and Jet Blue, which already use the service to construct small messages to send customers.

We have seen it before, celebrities entering rehab or getting into the tabloid headlines conveniently before something they worked on is due to be released. It may be a mere coincidence, but the hardened cynics amongst us just see their actions as part of a grand marketing scheme to promote themselves and what they’ve been working on.

Even negative news can work in the favour of celebrities. Just look at Amy Winehouse; a troubled woman who has been in the tabloids on a regular basis for the past year, but look at her record sales – in the millions! The latest celebrity who appears to be losing it before the public eye is Joaquin Phoenix after a bizarre appearance on the David Letterman show in America.

Vauxhall have developed an innovative, consumer-facing campaign that is enabling them to capture details on second and third vehicle users.

Originally conceived as an offline prize draw activity, the promotion is now being jointly managed via a microsite.