Opinons

I can’t believe the uproar over the creative used in an email J. Crew sent to customers last week. J. Crew president and esteemed creative director Jenna Lyons shared a few of her favorite products in the email feature titled “Saturday With Jenna.”

One of those things is a hot-pink Essie nail polish, which Lyons’ young son Beckett is sporting in the photo. Horrors!

People seemed particularly upset by the photo’s caption, which reads, “Lucky for me I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.” more

The Direct Marketing Association is about to break what sure feels like an uncomfortable proactive silence on the Epsilon data breach. Without mentioning the company by name, on Thursday April 14 the DMA is scheduled to send a letter to its members from Senny Boone, the organization’s SVP of corporate responsibility.

The letter will mark the most public, if oblique, comments the DMA has made on the Epsilon matter without being solicited by reporters. The breach was first reported more than a week and a half ago.

Within the letter, Boone urges members to review a posted checklist for data-breach planning (which predates the Epsilon event). The checklist is available here. more

I bought this t-shirt last night from CafePress. It’s one I designed for the foundation I started to honor my brother, a retired firefighter who died unexpectedly in August at the age of 55. Though I have a free CafePress store for the foundation, I designed this one with the soul purpose of wearing it when I play for our office softball team (which wears green) so I can hopefully spread awareness for the cause.

After I checked out, a window popped up asking me if I’d like to tell all my Facebook friends about my purchase. Earlier in the day, I just happened to stumble upon this press release from ShopSocially, which announced the general availability of its social commerce suite Social Connect for online retailers.

Should social shopping start at the checkout? Let’s look at the pros and cons of social shopping. more

The shoulda, coulda, woulda handwringing directed at Epsilon over its security breach isn’t going to abate anytime soon. But focusing on Epsilon alone will do little good in the long run, and if the conversation doesn’t change it will do neither marketers nor consumers any good at all.

Legislators can enact all the data breach notification laws they want. The National Conference of State Legislatures maintains a database of ‘em passed and pending, on the state level. And the federal government has a patchwork quilt of laws and regulations, which cover a variety of contingencies.

Notification laws, however, do little to alleviate potential damage to consumers, or to offer ways in which consumers can protect themselves once a breach occurs. Organizations such as the Better Business Bureau have attempted to fill the breach, but even their efforts miss a key element in consumer protection. more

Yesterday was one of those days-of-scrambling in the Multichannel Merchant newsroom. Harry & David filed Chapter 11 (we could have treated that one like a New York Times obit and written it up months in advance, but posted it when word of Chapter 11 hit), and that really wasn’t the big story.

Consumer publications are starting to open its eyes and understand the magnitude of eBay’s $2.4 million purchase of GSI Commerce. eBay sees the writing on the wall: the online auction space is not going to thrive forever, and there’s a lot of competition in the online marketplace space. With GSI Commerce’s platform, expertise and customer base, they can drive the ecommerce space instead of just being a participant. more

I have penned on this blog and in other articles on the pros and cons of having a celebrity spokesperson. The issue was raised again this week as the voice, errr, Quack of the Aflac duck was canned over his comments on Japan and its recent double whammy earthquake/tsunami.

Here are the details courtesy of the New York Times.

Use celebrity talent at your own peril.

This could be your big break, as now “Aflac is conducting a nationwide search for a new actor to play its beloved duck.”

Get quacking.