IAR Bits and Bytes

MarketWatch.com Taps NetCreations

Double opt-in email marketer NetCreations will handle work for CBS MarketWatch.com, through terms of a deal announced Thursday.

NetCreations is charged with building and managing an opt-in list of site visitors interested in receiving email offers.

CBS MarketWatch.com joins NetCreations’ PostMasterDirect.com Network, which includes more than 420 Web sites and over 33 million double opt-in email addresses.

CBS MarketWatch.com has been busily updating its advertising offerings; in recent months, the company unveiled larger banner and “tower” ad sizes, support for rich media creative, and also “background” ads for advertisers including Budweiser.

Digitas Wins Williams-Sonoma

Boston-based i-shop Digitas will handle e-commerce and Web work for Williams-Sonoma.

The effort, which will include a redesign of the Williams-Sonoma and Pottery Barn Web sites, also requires the development of new e-commerce opportunities on the sites. One such new initiative will be a wedding and gift registry.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts Turns to MessageMedia

Louisville, Colo.-based online direct marketer MessageMedia will handle email promotions for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, as part of a 14-month agreement with the company.

The emails will go to an opt-in list of customers and to members of its Starwood Preferred Guest loyalty program.

As part of Starwood’s email marketing efforts, MessageMedia builds and delivers monthly eStatements for Starwood Preferred Guest members. Each eStatement contains account details including point balance and a line-by-line transaction history for the previous month.

This week’s agreement emerged from earlier work for Starwood — which owns such brands as Sheraton — that executives said produced “very positive results.”

EMA Unveils Web-Enabled Promotional Tool

Interactive design and production studio EMA Multimedia released its Digital Trading Card product this week. The Century City, Calif.-based EMA positions DTCs as rich-media advertising platform, connecting companies to customers via wireless, offline and online technologies.

In short, when a user put a DTC-enhanced compact disc or DVD into her PC, the disc contacts a server and begins streaming or downloading information.

Because content is delivered on the fly, creative can be dynamically generated and hence, personalized. Because most creative can reside on the DVD or CD, download times are relatively small.

EMA imagines movie studios, for instance, using the product on DVDs to promote other movies in their collections. The company said it’s now pitching specific DTC promotions to several studios, and expects to sign its first customers for the product in weeks ahead.