Marketing

Aquent, a global staffing organization dedicated to marketing, creative and digital professionals, yesterday announced the results of its study, Planning for Mobile Marketing Success Through Smart Staffing, commissioned with Forrester Research. The study found that demonstrating the return on investment of mobile marketing is the top concern of marketers planning to grow marketing programs. In addition, marketers indicated a struggle with accurately staffing for mobile campaigns. In fact, few organizations have a full-time employee dedicated to driving mobile marketing initiatives.

Target is dangling JT and some swimsuits to get its sexy back. Sunday night's Grammy Awards wasn't just the return of Justin Timberlake. The buzz from the "SexyBack" singer also rubbed off on Target, which rolled out a commercial during the awards touting an exclusive version of JT's first album in six years, "The 20/20 Experience." The retailer also will announce Tuesday that it's teaming with Sports Illustrated to present six pages of ads in this year's swimsuit issue. Target also launched an exclusive spring design collection from Prabal Gurung over the weekend.

Profit is no longer solely defined by products, services, warranties or credit card interest gains. Today, profit pools are inclusive to downloads of apps, widgets, movies, music, games, etc. Digitalization, miniaturization, cloud access and wireless mobility are driving dramatic and dynamic change in profit opportunities. Intensive predatory competition is also leading to dangerous commoditization of our consumer electronics market place, pressurizing margins, destroying slow moving products, morphing market dreams into painful market risk. The entire CE industry stands at a technology crossroads. 

I've been an enthusiastic and vocal supporter of Penney's "no sale" strategy for almost a year now, sticking with the brand even as its marketing fell on deaf ears with consumers and investors. The stock was up last month and its website was reportedly a favorite visit during the holidays, but there's every reason to expect it will report dismal fourth quarter results (expertly obfuscated with stats on eyeballs, awareness and whatever). I now believe the company is doomed. We should stop holding our collective breath waiting for success, and start looking for lessons to learn from its failure.

The often-overlooked week between Christmas and New Year's is still a busy one for retailers-and Macy's is staking its claim. The retailer has dubbed the period from today through Jan. 1 its "Week of Wonderful," with plans for special promotions and deliveries of new merchandise. Consumers, often on vacation, flood malls to return gifts and use gift cards. In recent years, as gift cards have become increasingly popular, retailers have sought to stock fresh merchandise, rather than leave shoppers to pick over discounted holiday items. 

Retailers are making every effort to stand out to consumers this hectic holiday season. The focus is on the most competitive and profitable days of the year; Black Friday and Cyber Monday are now behind us, but they represent only the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Here are some tips for retailers to get those last-minute sales this holiday season:

American Apparel Email Margaret Bogenrief is a partner with ACM Partners. Recent Posts 3 Reasons Why Kohl's Is Sinking Black Friday Belies Darker Economy As we push into the final shopping week before that retail holy grail of Christmas, its time for...

The shift from analog to digitally influenced shopping at brick-and-mortar stores is the most important change in shopper behavior that marketers need to act on today. Ryan Partnership surveyed over 8,000 consumers this year to find out which digital tools they use, and which are really driving impulse purchases, increased spending and choice of retailer. Ryan's proprietary Impact Score uses that information to measure each tool's influence on shopping behavior. The results provide guidance on the best ways for retailers to use digital tools this holiday season. Here are five of those tips:

Target launched a new blend of entertainment and shopping this past October with a three-part series short film that simultaneously merchandises the complete outfit each actor is wearing. The user interface features the main target.com menu, a video player screen, the merchandised product list on the right side of the video and shopping cart favorites at the bottom of the video.

For some, it's the season of giving. For Bing, it's the season of attacking … Google that is. Bing has premiered a new TV commercial that calls out Google for recent changes it made to the Google Shopping section of its search engine, which essentially makes the section a pay-to-play zone. In the ad, a woman warns a friend who just bought a new pan he found on Google not to get "Scroogled."