Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Retail data: Americans remained cautious in July

NEW YORK - Worried about the stalling economic recovery, Americans remained reluctant to spend at stores in July, especially on pricier items like jewelry, though they let go of some money for travel, according to data released Wednesday.

posted: 10:51 AM 08/04/10
See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/95LU7t

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

A Smooth Move...Extreme Measures...Designed To Glide Toward The Target!

Selling a premium shaving experience to cost-conscious consumers in a challenging economy requires extreme measures. Witness efforts from Procter & Gamble and Target this week to generate trial use of the Gillette's Fusion ProGlide razor. In addition to a stunning point-of-purchase merchandising display, complete with motion and light, positioned on an endcap, Target also featured the new razor on the front page of its circular this week for $8.99. To sweeten the offer, a bonus $5 gift card was offered to shoppers who purchase two ProGlide razors or cartridges.

Timberlake Fashion Line Set To Launch at Target This Winter

Target announced that William Rast, the fashion line by celebrity Justin Timberlake and his childhood friend Trace Ayala, will debut at Target in December, and the line will be available for a month.

The typical William Rast look is casual, with an emphasis on jeans and leather jackets. The fall runway collection, presented earlier this year at New York Fashion Week, was dubbed "New America" and inspired by road trips between the Mississippi River and the West Coast, according to Timberlake.

Paper Supplier Receives "Bullseye" Award

NewPage Corp. announced that it recently received a "Best of the Bullseye" award from Target. This highly coveted award is presented to creative agencies, production and paper partners as well as individuals who exceed Target's expectations in one of four award categories: Effectiveness, Innovation, Leadership and Collaboration. NewPage received the award for Effectiveness in being a valued paper supplier.

NewPage, the largest coated paper manufacturer in North America, has been supplying the paper for Target weekly circulars from its Duluth, Minn., mill for more than 20 years.

"In order to operate in a lean manner, Target does not carry paper inventory -- and Target has been able to trust NewPage to deliver high quality paper products in a timely way," noted Chuck Herrig, VP marketing for Target Stores. "Reliability from our suppliers is critical. As a retailer, our stores are very dependent upon the circular to be a reflection of our stores and drive consumers through our doors. NewPage has demonstrated superior reliability, quality and a true dedication to us as customers which can be pretty rare in this industry."

Smooth moves indeed by Target...Creston's comment, "KUDOS!"

Sunday, July 25, 2010

The Blogger Generation Still Dominates Blogging by Jack Loechner

According to Sysomos.com, after an analysis of more than 100 million blog posts, not surprisingly, the most active bloggers are younger people who have grown up during the blogging "revolution", which started about seven years ago. Bloggers in the 21-to-35 year-old demographic group account for 53.3% of the total blogging population.

This group is followed by the generation just behind them - people 20-years-old or under are 20.2% of the blogging landscape:

* ≤ 20 years (20.2%)
* 21-35 yrs (53.3)
* 36-50 yrs (19.4)
* ≥51 yrs (7.1)
* Source: sysomos.com, June 2010

The difference between genders in the blogosphere is balanced with women making up 50.9% and males 49.1% of bloggers. This suggests the Internet is a gender neutral environment.

Friday, July 23, 2010

One Third of Consumers Turn to Facebook, Twitter to Engage Brands Online

A new study released today by ExactTarget finds nearly 40 percent of consumers turning to Facebook and Twitter to supplement the news, information or deals they receive via email marketing.

Featured in ExactTarget’s Social Profile report, the survey of more than 1,500 consumers identified 12 distinct personas for how consumers interact with brands online by studying the levels of social media creation and consumption across all ages and income levels.

“Consumers don’t silo their engagement with brands to a single channel, instead they tend to ‘layer’ marketing channels on top of one another to meet their different objectives,” said Morgan Stewart, principal, ExactTarget’s research and education group. “The things that motivate consumers to go online initially dictate where and how they choose to engage with brands – whether that be email, Facebook or Twitter.”

Key findings of the research include:

# More than 90 percent of consumers that are a fan of, or “like,” at least one brand on Facebook also receive at least one permission-based marketing email per day.

# More than 75 percent of consumers that follow at least one brand on Twitter subscribe to at least one brand’s email marketing.

# Nearly half of consumers who engage with brands via Twitter do so silently, regularly reading tweets even though they do not have their own Twitter account.

# 45 percent of mothers with children living in the home identify themselves as ‘Deal Seekers’ and on average are a fan of 10 brands on Facebook, follow 10 companies on Twitter and receive 14 permission-based marketing emails daily.

# 33 percent of consumers identify themselves as Info Seekers, influenced most heavily by product reviews and other forms of user-generated content.

# While 28 percent of consumers under the age of 25 identify themselves as “social butterflies” and fan the most brands on Facebook, they are more likely to buy from companies that send them permission-based email.

“Simply understanding demographics of a customer group is no longer enough,” said Tim Kopp, ExactTarget’s chief marketing officer. “By bridging the gap between demographics and consumer motivations, the Social Profile research identifies unique personas that give marketers an entirely new level of understanding of consumer behavior.”

ExactTarget’s Social Profile study is the third research brief in ExactTarget’s six-part Subscribers, Fans & Followers research series set for release through September. The series provides marketers exclusive insight into how U.S. consumers’ interact with brands online based on a series of focus groups, interviews and surveys conducted in March and April. For more information about the study, to access an interactive application of the Subscribers, Fans & Followers data or to subscribe to receive future research briefs delivered via email, visit www.ExactTarget.com/sff.