TPMA and Hawkeye Announce Formation of the High-Tech TPM Council

PARSIPPANY, NJ, Jul 22 (MARKET WIRE) --
Trade Promotion Management Associates (TPMA) and Hawkeye Channel Practice
announced today that the High-Tech TPM Council has been formed to focus
on Understanding Best Practices for Trade Promotion Optimization in
High-tech Emerging Channels.

"As the case has been in traditional brick and mortar retail, emerging
high-tech channels focusing on consumers and small business have
experienced escalating trade spend (partner program) costs with few
documented means by which to justify this investment. While the
administrative costs of these programs are significant and growing, the
complexity and number of initiatives is making it increasingly more
difficult to understand which are effectively and profitably driving
sales," said Mike Kantor, managing director of TPMA.

The TPMA High-Tech Council will define and publicize best practices for
maximizing ROI of trade promotion in high-tech emerging channels. This
includes brick and mortar/on-line retailers, pure on-line retailers, and
direct marketers. The council will address issues such as inconsistent
planning, creation and tracking; claims/deductions processing; settlement
timing; measurement; and development of key performance indicators to
support trade program effectiveness.

"Hawkeye Channel Practice is excited to co-chair this council with TPMA.
We look forward to working with the council members from leading
technology companies on generating practical guidelines to improve
channel spend efficiencies in emerging high-tech channels," said William
Gilsing, vice president of global channel strategies at Hawkeye Channel
Practice.

TPMA with Hawkeye is creating the structure to establish areas of focus,
which are based on collaborative discussions among TPMA and its Council's
members. This will provide a roadmap for trading partners to help them
achieve success. Best practices will be publicized through various TPMA
vehicles.

The Council's first set of findings will be presented at the TPMA Annual
Conference at the Camelback Inn, Scottsdale, AZ, from November 9-12, 2008.
For information on the event, visit www.tradepromo.org.

About TPMA

The Trade Promotion Management Associates (TPMA) is a trade association
for professionals and trading partner organizations involved with trade
promotion. TPMA provides members with information, education and research
on the dynamic world of trade promotion, including co-op advertising,
market development funds, slotting fees, off-invoice deductions, channel
promotions and more.

With the recent enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley, and accounting changes issued
by the Financial Accounting Standards Board, trade promotion professionals
need a resource to keep them abreast of new legislation, changing industry
trends and information on how other organizations are dealing with these
changes. TPMA membership is open to any organization dealing with trade
promotion, whether manufacturer, retailer, media representative or service
provider. For more information, contact Mike Kantor, Managing Director at
mkantor@tradepromo.org. Visit www.tradepromo.org.

About Hawkeye Channel Practice

Hawkeye Channel Practice is a division of Hawkeye, a leading independent
communications agency with a long list of blue chip clients including HP,
Microsoft, Cisco, and Capital One. Hawkeye's Channel Practice provides
strategic consulting services, channel programs, partner relationship
management platforms and applications to the top twenty-five technology
companies. Hawkeye's Channel Practice has offices in North America,
Europe, and Asia with application deployments in 16 languages and 116
countries. For more information, contact William Gilsing, VP Global
Channel Strategies at wgilsing@hawkeyeww.com.

Contact:
Mike Kantor
Managing Director
Trade Promotion Management Associates
1055 Parsippany Blvd., Suite 405
Parsippany, NJ 07054
Phone: 1.646.442.3703
mkantor@tpcww.com

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