The June issue of Response has been available online since early last week. Hopefully, if you’re one of our readers, you’ve taken a look at it, but — if not — here’s some back story on the cover feature on Meda Consumer Healthcare and Blake Hawley, as well as a number of the other key pieces in the issue:

• June marks the third consecutive issue that our cover feature subject harkens from the pharmaceutical/supplements business — and also the third consecutive issue featuring a speaker from Response Expo 2013, as Blake Hawley and the team at Meda Consumer Healthcare are in the spotlight. Hawley spoke on a panel (with our May cover boy, Vitaquest’s Charles Mooney) at our event in early April, following an introduction from long-time Response Advisory Board member Mike Medico of E+M Advertising in New York. Her efforts in bringing legacy supplement brand Vivarin back into the market spotlight via a DRTV drive-to-Web and drive-to-retail couponing campaign are a great example of the power direct response can have in this vertical category. And Meda’s trusting Hawley to do much the same this summer for a brand that any TV viewer from the 1950s-1980s remembers well: Geritol. Here’s the link again, if you missed it above: Wake Up!
• June also marks the return of an annual feature: our look at the home shopping space. As technology grows, the leaders in the space, such as QVC and HSN, are seeing their business become much more of a Web-based, data-driven, customer relationship model. At the same time, the success of the medium has drawn a new level of marketer to these networks in recent years, including Disney and Coca-Cola. It’s an intriguing read on a business that’s bursting at the seams. If you missed the link above, here it is: Home Shopping Comes of Age
• The online edition of the June issue features a pair of Web Exclusive columns that did not appear in the print edition: Peter Koeppel of Koeppel Direct muses on second-screen research and the possibilities presented by the expansion of smartphone and tablet use, while Dial800‘s Scott Richards writes about the challenges — and some solutions — of the ever-expanding field of legal services advertisers in the local short-form DR space.
• Our latest analysis of the DR industry’s quarterly media billings results circles back to DR radio billings’ 4Q 2012 results. Unlike both long-form and short-form DRTV results, both of which celebrated banner years, DR radio essentially broke even with 2011 when all was said and done. The fourth quarter’s 3.1 percent drop left total billings for the year off by less than 1 percent total. For a full look at all the categorical and outlet results, here’s the link: DR Radio Media Billings Slide 3.1 Percent in 4Q 2012
• Finally, my Editor’s Note reflects on the growing power of direct, digital and data-driven marketing in the pharmaceutical and supplement space. With June marking our third consecutive month featuring a marketer from this space on the cover, it’s worth considering how the powerful combination of direct response, online and retail is pushing the vertical to new heights. If you missed the link to my the column above, here it is once again: Pharma/Supplement Marketers Provide Incredible Response Solutions

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