Marketing

University of North Carolina freshmen are working for American Eagle on campus as “brand ambassadors” or “campus evangelists.” During movie-in day, they doled out American Eagle coupons, American Eagle water canisters and American Eagle pens.

The way parents and students approach back-to-school spending is changing. Many of the trusted rules that retailers apply to the back-to-school buying cycle are quickly going sideways due to the state of the economy combined with layaway, longer discount cycles and major couponing sites.

In a session at the recent eTail conference in Boston, Jim Moore, president and CEO of The PSNE Group, parent company of online footwear retailer Birkenstock Central, discussed how his company’s email program has leveraged customer lifecycle management techniques to increase revenue from the channel. Moore focused on three specific areas of Birkenstock Central’s email program: acquisition, triggered messaging and re-engagement campaigns.

It's back-to-school season, which means class is in session for all the related marketing efforts. More than ever before, brands seem to be leading with social media. Take Famous Footwear, which worked with Buddy Media to build a "Back to School" tab on its official Facebook Page. So far, more than 50,000 people have joined the Famous Footwear Facebook community.  

Terms like social commerce, Facebook commerce and social shopping are making headlines. Nearly every retailer is trying tap into the 750 million potential shoppers on Facebook. The one thing missing is what it really means to make your e-commerce efforts social.

Ikea has pledged to donate $62 million over three years to help people in the Daadab refugee camp in Kenya, whose population has swollen after drought and famine in the Horn of Africa. The money from the Ikea Foundation will be used to expand emergency relief and assistance for up to 120,000 people.

With today's consumers more likely than ever to be involved with some aspect of environmental, health and humanitarian issues, cause marketing has become a win-win for retailers. Getting behind a worthy cause (e.g., donating to relief efforts after Japan's tsunami, supporting cancer awareness or raising money for animal shelters) can help retailers raise a substantial amount of money for charity while at the same time improve their own brand reputation and, ultimately, grow sales

Zales is teaming up with celebrity Jessica Simpson on an exclusive collection of diamond fashion jewelry. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Simpson has become quite successful in the fashion world. Her Jessica Simpson Collection, which sells shoes, clothing, fragrances and other goods, is said to be worth about $1 billion.

Continuing the list of the 10 most common shopping personalities as identified by SteelHouse, here are numbers six through 10 (part 1 of this series contains one through five):

Ikea U.K. is hinting at how cool it would be for it to scrape your social network profile in order to customize products. In a new campaign on YouTube, the furniture maker invites you to link to your Facebook account. Then it asks "Who is in your bedroom?" (you, spouse, child). It then starts building a place where you will "go happy to bed," including an animation that builds walls out of the names in your social graph and phrases from your wall.