Sanchez and Percy-Dove will run Blitz in a partnership that provides a winning combination of strong creative and strategic leadership, says Brett Marchand, executive vice-president and Managing Director of Cossette, Toronto.

“The shared focus of a creative vision and solid strategic thinking will give Blitz the foundation it needs to further develop into a best-of-breed practitioner in its discipline,” says Marchand.

Sanchez and Percy-Dove say they are poised to begin a new era at Blitz, which reflects a new way of thinking about direct response marketing. They call it ‘Action Marketing.’

“Direct response marketing pioneered the practice of targeting customers and of communicating with consumers on a one-to-one basis,” says Sanchez, Blitz creative director and a noted creative talent within the industry.

“The core of our offering is not about a tactic or a media channel,” says Sanchez. “Our expertise is in getting people to act – and being accountable for delivering that action. That is the fundamental principle that underlines the direct response industry, and that is why we prefer to describe what we do as ‘Action Marketing'.”

Percy-Dove, who also has direct response and data base marketing experience as a former client, says it’s time for the direct response industry to reassert itself as the marketing discipline that gets people to act, regardless of the medium.

“Our expertise is needed more now than ever before,” says Percy-Dove. “The challenge of reaching your customer has never been more complicated.

“At the same time, measuring effectiveness and demonstrating return-on-investment has also become increasingly important, and more complex, in a world filled with so many means to communicate, whether by RSS, blogging, Twitter, direct marketing, in-store, on-pack, customized events … never mind the full array of traditional media that are still at our disposal. Clients today are rightly demanding a better accounting of how their marketing investments are contributing to their overall business objectives.

“And let us not forget that the changes in our world have not just been restricted to new technologies and media distribution systems. The consumer has also changed – profoundly – and we must recognize and adapt to those changes to be able to engage new consumers in ways that are relevant to them.”

Established for over 25 years, Blitz is a leading direct response, promotion, CRM and data management services agency. Clients include such marketers as: Bell Canada, BMO Bank of Montreal, McDonald’s Restaurants, Shoppers Drug Mart, Procter & Gamble, Grey Power and Cryptologic.