With Athleta launch, will Gap Inc. learn from Piperlime missteps?

The Retail Email Blog monitors the email marketing campaigns of more than 100 top online retailers. Here are highlights from my inbox this morning:Banana Republic, 4/22 — Introducing Athleta, the newest member of the Gap Inc. family.Gap Inc. formally introduces their new brand, Athleta, to their Banana Republic subscribers. It will be interesting to see if they apply the lessons learned from their Piperlime launch. For instance, they don’t incentivize email sign-ups for the new brand—or even mention that you can sign-up for Athleta emails—like they recently did for Piperlime (see Apr. 20 AM Inbox). However, they did add a separate opt-out for Athleta to this email, which is something they eventually did for Piperlime after months of sending Piperlime emails to their other brand subscribers (see Apr. 4, 2008 AM Inbox). I’ll be curious to see if they cross-promote merchandise in an integrated fashion, pairing Athleta products with products from other Gap Inc. brands, as they did in a Banana Republic email back in 2007 (see Mar. 7, 2007 AM Inbox).Spiegel, 4/23 — Celebrate "Bring Our Daughters to Work Day" with 25% OFF ALL Washed Linen!‏This is one of the most delightful creatives I’ve seen all year—plus Spiegel deftly ties this dress-up session into their Style Quiz segmentation program. Simple and brilliant.TigerDirect, 4/22 — Earth Day Deals: LG 50" HDTV $999...22" LCD $149...4gb Dell Laptop $649...Go Green, Save Green‏TigerDirect’s Earth Day email is a nice mix of Energy Star-certified products, refurbished and recertified products, RoHS-compliant products, and reduced power consumption products. They even have a list of 5 things to do to be green…however, many subscribers will probably never see the list because it’s out past the 680-pixel mark, pushing the design out to more than 900 pixels wide. As we mention in the Soon Even More Emails Won’t Be Optimized for Width reportlet, a width of 600 to 700 pixels is recommended.SUBJECTIVITY SCANNER: Select noteworthy subject linesSports Authority, 4/22 — Celebrate Earth Day - 15% Off Your Order - Today Only!‏Petco, 4/22 — PETCO Celebrate Earth Day with 10% Off and Eco-Friendly Products!‏Bluefly, 4/22 — Extra 10% Off Everything - Celebrate Earth Day!‏Norm Thompson, 4/22 — $10 off Earth and Ecco shoes + ALL SHOES SHIP FREE!SmartBargains, 4/22 — Extra 22% Off & Free Shipping for Earth DayRalph Lauren, 4/22 — Celebrate Mom On May 10 With The Gift Of Style‏Cabela’s 4/22 — Mother's Day Favorites @ Cabelas.com‏Wal-Mart, 4/23 — Mom Will Love the Gift. You’ll Love the Price.Tiffany & Co., 4/22 — Make It a Brilliant Mother's Day‏Barnes & Noble, 4/22 — 40% Off One Book in Our Mother's Day Gift Guide‏RedEnvelope, 4/23 — Valued Customer, It's time to celebrate Mom - 25% OffFTD, 4/23 — Gifts Starting at $19.99 -- Mother's Day Preview Sale!‏Lane Bryant, 4/22 — Today's Shopping Report: Heavy Traffic In Graphics‏