Marketing

The Dick's Sporting Goods Foundation, quarterback Drew Brees and imPACT for PACE (Protecting Athletes through Concussion Education) have joined forces to help educate athletes at all levels of the dangers of concussions. Parents, coaches and school officials can visit www.DicksSportingGoods.com/PACE to sign up eligible middle, high school and youth athletic organizations to receive free ImPACT (Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing) testing software licenses, which provide baseline tests for up to 300 young athletes free of charge for one year ($500 value). 

Amazon.com wants to deliver your shaving cream to you before you run out. Or before you even realize you need more. The U.S. Patent Office recently approved Amazon's automatic replenishment system that would estimate when you will run out of your shaving cream and send you a message asking if you'd like to order it again. Obviously this goes beyond shaving cream, and could be applied to anything customers would order over and over from Amazon.

The Black Keys aren't shilling power tools or pizza, the band said in copyright infringement lawsuits against The Home Depot and Pizza Hut. The "Lonely Boy" band filed the federal lawsuits last Thursday, claiming Home Depot didn't have permission to use elements of the hit song in an ad promoting power tools and that Pizza Hut misused "Gold on the Ceiling" in a recent ad. Both songs appeared on the rock group's seventh album, El Camino, which was released last year and has sold nearly 840,000 copies. The Black Keys are comprised of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney.

A recent study showed living near a Wal-Mart store was good for property values, while last week we learned that it will also make you fat. At least that’s according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health that explored the correlation between access to retail stores, low prices and obesity rates. The study, “Obesity and Supermarket Access: Proximity or Price?” concluded that obesity prevalence among shoppers in higher-price supermarkets was 9 percent, or less than half of the 20.5 percent rate evident in the King County, Washington area where the research was conducted. 

A new survey finds that consumers rate Target, Safeway, Subway, Best Buy, J.C. Penney, Walgreens, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless as being the best retail and restaurant brands when it comes to using social media to communicate with customers.

Patagonia, a leading designer of outdoor, surf and sport-related apparel, announced the launch of its Vote the Environment campaign. The campaign asks customers to register to vote, learn about candidates’ environmental records and vote for the world they want to live in. Patagonia is one of the only for-profit businesses to engage in a public campaign that aims to sway its customers’ voting towards the most environmentally minded candidates.

German sports apparel maker Adidas withdrew its plans to sell a controversial sneaker featuring affixed rubber shackles after the company generated significant criticism when advertising the shoe on its Facebook page. The high-top sneakers, dubbed the JS Roundhouse Mids, were expected to release in August, according to the Adidas Originals Facebook page. “Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?” a caption below a photo of the sneakers read. 

With its IPO out of the way, attention has turned to how Facebook will make money to appease its new shareholders. Many retailers are using the free tools available on Facebook rather than paying to advertise on the site. While retailers are very happy with the returns they're seeing from Facebook, many are doing so for free. A prime example is luxury retailer Melrose.com, which has seen its sales rise 25 percent over the last two years. Melrose.com spent just $1,500 on Facebook ads in that time, with most of its activity focused on managing its (free) page.

Empathica, a global provider of customer experience management solutions, announced that its Consumer Insights Panel survey of more than 6,500 U.S. consumers found that despite a high desire to provide feedback, consumers are disenchanted by brands’ lack of responsiveness. Survey results showed that 85 percent of consumers have provided some form of feedback to big-box retailers, yet only 46 percent of respondents believe that brands actually use this feedback to make constructive changes to the customer experience. 

Ubiquitous connectivity allows consumers to easily check prices and buy on the go, which should worry (not terrify) traditional retailers in competitive categories. This "showrooming effect," which has been encouraged by Amazon, would enable web retailers to snatch some sales from the hands of their brick-and-mortar competition. A majority of sales are still happening offline, so the fear of showrooming - that most people are finding screaming deals online - is exaggerated. In fact, the majority of transactions still happen in stores, even when shoppers research online (yes, even when they've got their mobile devices in hand in a store