Marketing is one of the largest and most variable investments on a brand’s P&L. Yet finance often has less confidence in the numbers behind it than almost any other major area of spend. That gap is getting harder to defend. Retail CFOs are under pressure to improve forecast accuracy, protect margins and allocate capital with…

It's a Tuesday in October, and a shopper has a wedding on Saturday. She's found the dress twice — once at the boutique label she's been following on Instagram for months, once at Amazon.com, for the same price. A few years ago that wouldn't have been much of a choice at all. Today it's the…

Each year, marketers have the same question: Did the holiday shopping season start earlier? Seasonal merchandise begins to appear in the summer, promotions creep further into the fall, and by September, it can feel like the holiday marketing train is already packed. However, for marketers that aren’t advertising Halloween in July or Christmas in August,…

Toys R Us is launching its biggest U.S. expansion in years, with 120 new standalone stores set to open in time for the holiday shopping season, reports Fox Business. The retailer announced last week that it will open the new standalone stores across the U.S. this holiday season through a partnership with Go! Retail Group,…

Over the past few years, the holiday shopping season — and holiday marketing, in turn — has undergone a massive shift. Cyber Five, traditionally seen as the unofficial kickoff of the holiday shopping season, has long played an important role in driving sales, with spending often concentrated in the final few weeks of the year.…