Printer gets new digs

Last month, St. Joseph Corp. began construction of a new state-of-the-art printing facility in Ottawa. The 175,000-square-foot building, scheduled to open next spring, will bring some of St. Joseph’s existing Ottawa area businesses – including Graphic Display Canada, St. Joseph Ottawa/Hull, St. Joseph M.O.M. Printing and ePrint it – under one roof. The expansion is estimated at $25 million.

Loyalty swapping

In response to research that showed customers want more rewards, faster, Sears Canada and Petro-Canada loyalty programs have teamed up to allow members to trade off their points in either program for Petro-Points or Sears Club rewards. Members wishing to swap points must call a toll-free number.

Engage Canada shuts its doors

The Canadian subsidiary of Andover, Mass.-based online advertising company Engage has closed. In August, Engage announced it was withdrawing from the online advertising business to focus entirely on content management solutions for multichannel marketing. It discontinued the rest of its media operations late last month – it ceased serving ads on its advertising network after Sept. 23, and shut down its entire media business worldwide Sept. 28. The company cited the ‘dramatic downturn in the advertising industry’ as a reason for the shutdown.

New path for ICOM

SEAT Pagine Gialle’s U.S. information marketing subsidiary, NetCreations, has purchased a 40% stake in Toronto-based ICOM Information and Communications, provider of direct-to-consumer and database marketing solutions. For now, ICOM’s founding partners, Alan Levine, Harvey Beck and Doug McCormick, will continue to hold the majority share of ICOM. Levine will continue as CEO, and all three will sit on the board of directors.