Marketing

Fathead Turns Crisis Into Opportunity
June 10, 2013

A Fathead mistake turned into an opportunity for the brand. And for Reddit. Last week, a Reddit user posted an image of a Tim Tebow Fathead poster he'd purchased online. The thing is, the user ordered a Tom Brady Fathead. Naturally, he went to Reddit to complain. The post had 2,624 upvotes (the Reddit equivalent of a Facebook like) and 675 comments. It's the kind of attention a brand doesn't want to see when it screws up. 

J.C. Penney Caught Marking Up Prices, Only to Lower Them
June 7, 2013

After a disastrous rollout of an everyday low pricing model, J.C. Penney is now facing more controversy as it changes its prices yet again. The company is defending its return to coupons and discounts, saying they're popular with consumers. Yet the Plano, Texas-based retailer has been caught putting more expensive price tags on top of cheaper ones. "That's awful," shopper Sue Jackson said when News 8 showed her a men's shirt with a $50 sticker hiding a $30 price. "I never thought they would do that, especially after all the trouble they just had."

eBay to Make True Window Shopping a Reality With New NYC Virtual Retail Stores
June 5, 2013

eBay is debuting new "shoppable window" virtual stores over the course of this month and next to help retailer Fifth & Pacific Companies sell its new line of Kate Spade Saturday clothing on window display screens measuring 9 feet by 2 feet, which cover the windows of closed stores and allow passersby to browse and order a catalog of 30 items for same-day delivery.

Back-to-School Shopping Campaigns Already?
May 31, 2013

Although tens of millions of children haven't finished the school year, Madison Avenue is already feverishly getting ready for the next one. Such front-running of seasonal milestones should no longer be surprising, given how marketers, retailers and media companies have been time-shifting the calendar to stimulate business related to holidays both official (Christmas) and unofficial (Super Bowl Sunday). Still, it may startle students when they see advertising asking them to buy clothing, school supplies and other merchandise for 2013-14 while they await final grades for 2012-13.

Exhuming J.C. Penney’s Failed Marketing Makeover for Leadership Lessons We Can All Use
May 24, 2013

In a sweeping move to right the ship after former CEO Ron Johnson's failed attempt to reinvent the J.C. Penney brand and inject new life into the business, the company has adopted a bold new marketing strategy — hire its retired former CEO, whom Johnson replaced just about two years earlier, and quickly return to the deep discounts and doorbuster deals that originally got the brand into this mess. Wait. What?

Wal-Mart Plasters Stores With Green Dots to Stay Stocked
May 24, 2013

Wal-Mart is turning up the pressure to keep its shelves adequately stocked by proposing to tie executive compensation to the issue — and has asked an outside auditor to alert workers which items to focus on by plastering U.S. stores with neon green dots. Earlier this year, Bloomberg News reported that Wal-Mart had trouble keeping its stores stocked as it cut back on workers per store. That has cost sales and driven away frustrated shoppers.

Retailers Often Underutilize Customer Data, According to Study
May 21, 2013

A.T. Kearney released the 2013 Achieving Excellence in Retail Operations (AERO) Study, a research project that looks at how companies approach store operations and provides retail executives with tools to better adapt to the fast-changing, technology-driven market. The study revealed that there are many underutilized sources of customer data. While leading retailers were gaining from the use of customer data sources, less than half of the retailers in the study collected social network data from third party domains, and just 8 percent thought it made an important contribution to generating insights.

6 Tips to Capture Every Site Visitor
May 21, 2013

One of the universal truths I see is a lack of understanding by many marketers, from newbie to experienced, of what their website is really for. I know, I know, marketers always say the right thing: It's about conversion. When I look at their website and ask them what their site conversion rate is, I hear them proudly state, "I convert 2 percent, look how good I'm doing!" (And of course some marketers don't even know what their site conversion rate is.)

Tech-Savvy Gen Yers Still Flock to Brick-and-Mortar Stores, Report Finds
May 20, 2013

Despite being far more tech-savvy than previous generations, Generation Y, the 80 million strong cohort of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35, hasn't forsaken shopping in stores for online purchasing — as long as retailers keep their offerings "fresh" and interesting, says a new report from the Urban Land Institute (ULI).

Abercrombie CEO Tries to Stem Backlash
May 17, 2013

After days of silence during which long-held resentment toward Abercrombie & Fitch began to boil over, Chief Executive Michael S. Jeffries tried to stem a backlash against the teen-focused retailer. Jeffries, in a statement Thursday, discussed criticism that the company lacks women's XL and XXL sizes in favor of catering toward young, good-looking customers.