Marketing

Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo recently took over Pinterest to promote its new line of shirts. Teaming up with creative agency FirstBorn, Uniqlo utilized the power of Pinterest’s scrolling to create giant animated blocks that were featured in key Pinterest categories – men’s apparel, women’s apparel, geek, fitness and sports. The agency used hundreds of shell accounts on Pinterest to pin images simultaneously for the Uniqlo Dry Mesh Project campaign. Pinterest users scrolled through to see images of Dry T-shirts on colorful mosaics.

Crafting queen Jo Pearson, creative expert for Michaels Stores, will hold court as one of three judges on TLC's new competition series, "Craft Wars." The show, hosted and executive produced by celebrity crafter Tori Spelling, premieres June 26. Pearson's 25-plus years of experience creating thousands of projects for North America's largest arts and crafts specialty retailer landed her the ultimate crafting gig. 

Given current economic conditions, attracting new customers remains a top challenge for small to midsize retailers, with more than 50 percent citing it as their No. 1 concern, according to a recent Dydacomp survey.

The Dick's Sporting Goods Foundation, quarterback Drew Brees and imPACT for PACE (Protecting Athletes through Concussion Education) have joined forces to help educate athletes at all levels of the dangers of concussions. Parents, coaches and school officials can visit www.DicksSportingGoods.com/PACE to sign up eligible middle, high school and youth athletic organizations to receive free ImPACT (Immediate Post-Concussion Assessment and Cognitive Testing) testing software licenses, which provide baseline tests for up to 300 young athletes free of charge for one year ($500 value). 

A new survey finds that consumers rate Target, Safeway, Subway, Best Buy, J.C. Penney, Walgreens, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless as being the best retail and restaurant brands when it comes to using social media to communicate with customers.

Amazon.com wants to deliver your shaving cream to you before you run out. Or before you even realize you need more. The U.S. Patent Office recently approved Amazon's automatic replenishment system that would estimate when you will run out of your shaving cream and send you a message asking if you'd like to order it again. Obviously this goes beyond shaving cream, and could be applied to anything customers would order over and over from Amazon.

The Black Keys aren't shilling power tools or pizza, the band said in copyright infringement lawsuits against The Home Depot and Pizza Hut. The "Lonely Boy" band filed the federal lawsuits last Thursday, claiming Home Depot didn't have permission to use elements of the hit song in an ad promoting power tools and that Pizza Hut misused "Gold on the Ceiling" in a recent ad. Both songs appeared on the rock group's seventh album, El Camino, which was released last year and has sold nearly 840,000 copies. The Black Keys are comprised of Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney.

A recent study showed living near a Wal-Mart store was good for property values, while last week we learned that it will also make you fat. At least that’s according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health that explored the correlation between access to retail stores, low prices and obesity rates. The study, “Obesity and Supermarket Access: Proximity or Price?” concluded that obesity prevalence among shoppers in higher-price supermarkets was 9 percent, or less than half of the 20.5 percent rate evident in the King County, Washington area where the research was conducted. 

Patagonia, a leading designer of outdoor, surf and sport-related apparel, announced the launch of its Vote the Environment campaign. The campaign asks customers to register to vote, learn about candidates’ environmental records and vote for the world they want to live in. Patagonia is one of the only for-profit businesses to engage in a public campaign that aims to sway its customers’ voting towards the most environmentally minded candidates.

German sports apparel maker Adidas withdrew its plans to sell a controversial sneaker featuring affixed rubber shackles after the company generated significant criticism when advertising the shoe on its Facebook page. The high-top sneakers, dubbed the JS Roundhouse Mids, were expected to release in August, according to the Adidas Originals Facebook page. “Got a sneaker game so hot you lock your kicks to your ankles?” a caption below a photo of the sneakers read.