This DMNews article titled "Savvy retailers turn to email to improve P&L in a down market" takes a look at marketers who are trading in direct mail for more cost-effective email.

However, there’s a crucial flaw in the piece: Retailers who are just now embracing email are hardly savvy. On the contrary, they’re painfully late to the game.

Wait let me double-check the date on the article. Nope: It says 2008, not 1998.

Takeaway for marketers: Imagine where a "savvy" marketer’s email program would be had it begun a decade ago. Are you laying a foundation for success five or 10 years from now?

One of the coolest things about the nine years I spent with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey was attending Winter Quarters, where each year’s new show was developed, fine-tuned and rehearsed. The minutiae of the creative process for a project of that scale is endlessly fascinating.

I was fortunate the other day to have a similar experience as I witnessed tech rehearsals for Judy Garland In Concert . It’s not a tribute show, it’s not a lookalike on stage — Running Subway Productions has brought Judy back on three giant screens. She’ll perform a full concert accompanied by none other than The Boston Pops.

With a week to go until the world premiere in Boston, it was fascinating to watch the creative team at work: Producer and Director Chris Giordano tweaking the presentation here and there, Musical Supervisor and Conductor Doug Katsaros making subtle but crucial adjustments to the score, Creative Supervisor John Fricke telling endlessly fascinating stories about Judy and her brobdingnagian talents.

Next week I’ll get to be in Boston for the first two performances of this cutting-edge form of entertainment. Having seen the tech rehearsals, I think this concert will be very much like a movie: When you see a great movie, you get involved and forget you’re in a theater. Similarly, I think the audiences in Symphony Hall will forget they’re seeing Judy on screen and get caught up in the music and the passionate way she delivers some of the most classic of classic standards in the American songbook.

Takeaway for marketers: Sometimes our jobs can be pretty cool. When you notice that’s the case, take a moment to step back and enjoy it.

AdAge runs some numbers on the search deal between Google and Yahoo! and determines that Google wins again … to the tune of about a billion dollars.

Takeaway for marketers: Brace yourself — this deal might mean higher costs for your paid search program.

Word of mouth is one thing. But when that word of mouth is analogous to the entire kindergarten schoolyard pointing at you and saying, "he’s a creep and he has cooties and stay away from him no matter what!" … well, that’s something else entirely. Clearly it’s a distinction that Spirit Airlines needs to learn.

Takeaway for marketers: It’s not just about creating buzz, it’s about creating the right kind of buzz. Duh.

There have been a few additions to the federal CAN-SPAM act. If you’re involved in email marketing on any level, you’ll want to read this Campaign Monitor blog post to see what those changes are.

Takeaway for marketers: CAN-SPAM matters. Just ask MySpace, who paid $234 million for running afoul of it.