Envision

Rite Aid, the big pharmacy chain, agreed on Wednesday to acquire a top pharmacy benefit manager, Envision Pharmaceutical Services, for $2 billion in cash and stock. Envision Pharmaceutical Services, known as EnvisionRx, is owned by the private equity firm TPG, making this one of the year's early successful exits for a buyout firm. Rite Aid will pay TPG about $1.8 billion in cash and $200 million in stock for EnvisionRx. The value of the deal also includes an expected future tax benefit of $275 million.

You may remember the scene in the movie "The Minority Report" when Tom Cruise's character enters a Gap store and is greeted by a hologram of a store associate who welcomes him back to the store and asks how his last purchase — assorted tank tops — worked out for him. When this movie was released in 2002, this personalized in-store experience seemed far into the future, but it's now almost upon us.

The strongest promotion in this spotlight comes from Ray-Ban, in large part due to its branding. Ray-Ban is hosting "Envision the Possibilities," encouraging consumers around the world to contribute their visions to the #EnvisionSeries gallery. Ray-Ban has two Facebook apps working for the promotion. The first app is for "Never Hide Films," which right now is featuring "insanely talented people who are changing the way we view creativity in social media." The second, called "Social Visionaries," scans public Facebook data to create personalized videos: "The Social Brilliance of [Facebook Username]."

Envision your customer receiving a package from their most recent online shopping spree with you and included with their order are free samples and valuable offers from chosen partners. The samples and offers are a means of thanking your customer for their business. Meanwhile, the chosen partners reach consumers when they're receptive to ads in a noncompetitive, uncluttered environment and you, as the one sending the package, generate revenue by charging those partners a media rate.