Branding

PVH Corp. will open 600 Izod shops inside J.C. Penney department stores in September, Women’s Wear Daily reported. The new in-store-shops will range from 600 sqare feet to 1,000 square feet in size.

Zappos.com left San Francisco way back in 2004. Since then it's become closely associated with its new home in Nevada. In fact, CEO Tony Hsieh is working to revitalize downtown Las Vegas, in part by turning it into a startup hub. At the same time, the Amazon.com-owned online retailer hasn't entirely severed its connection to the Bay Area. In 2010, it reopened an office in San Francisco, one that's focused on experimenting with cool new ideas.

New York-based Oscar de la Renta is expanding the retail side of its business, according to Women's Wear Daily. This fall, its Madison Avenue flagship will double in size to 4,000 sq. ft., and the company will open its first-ever location in London. Additionally, after the success of the designer’s compact boutique format in the Dominican Republic’s Punta Cana, the company is considering using a similar concept in more locales. Oscar de la Renta also is considering a retail presence in airports, and perhaps a stand-alone bridal store. Currently, the company operates 13 retail locations.

Samsung recently announced that it will open retail stores in Canada. Although Samsung has not announced an aggressive retail strategy yet, this is a sign that they are testing the markets to see if it is a viable option. Samsung expects the location in Burnaby, British Columbia, to offer hands-on training with products and demonstrations of product features.

Jones Group Inc. announced that it is deepening its partnership with world renowned designer Brian Atwood through the acquisition of the Brian Atwood brand. The transaction will bring Brian Atwood's existing and future collections, inclusive of his luxury shoe collections, into the Company's portfolio and furthers Jones' strategy of acquiring and nurturing the world's best creative talents and designer brands to infuse a strong design-driven perspective in the Company's portfolio. 

Everything you do, everything you say, everything you are — and I mean everything — is a direct reflection of your brand. All of these things need to be managed and controlled, but in a way that doesn't seem managed and controlled. Sound difficult? It is. That's why so few brands actually do it well.

Neiman Marcus is rebranding its contemporary departments within each of the 42 Neiman Marcus stores as Cusp shop-in-shops. Neiman Marcus first launched the Cusp brand in 2006 with two freestanding stores that offered consumers a contemporary assortment including apparel, shoes, handbags and accessories in a boutique environment. The brand has grown over time and now includes a total of six Cusp stores and Cusp.com. 

Online spending may be increasing, but the venerable catalog is doing anything but fading away. In fact, it's still an important part of business for retailers. “It’s basically a marketing tool,” said retail analyst Eric Beder, a managing director at Brean Murray, Carret & Co. “The beauty of a catalog is that you don’t have to go online to see it, so you can use it anywhere.” More than 12.5 billion catalogs were mailed out to homes in the U.S. last year, according to the Direct Marketing Association, the largest global association for the marketing community.

You'll be hard-pressed to find an uglier quarterly report out of the retail sector than what J.C. Penney (JCP) delivered on Tuesday night. Investors figured that new CEO Ron Johnson's "Fair and Square" pricing strategy wouldn't be a hit right away, but no one assumed that the recently remodeled department store chain would be this earnings season's biggest disaster.

The dynamic mobile landscape offers many opportunities, but it will take a smart retailer to cut through the noise, capture consumers’ attention and drive action. Branding through excellent ad experiences, connecting consumers to deals, and targeting critical ad times will enable retailers to place themselves where the consumer is already browsing and keep their brand relevant.