Marketing

NEW YORK — Macy's has added chef, restaurateur, author and television star Stephanie Izard to its Culinary Council, an exclusive team of the country's finest chefs who serve to inspire the way Macy's customers shop, cook and eat at home. A James Beard Award nominee, Food & Wine "Best New Chef" and winner of Bravo's "Top Chef" (Season Four), Izard will serve as an ambassador for Macy's Home department alongside fellow Macy's Culinary Council chefs including Rick Bayless, Cat Cora, Nancy Silverton, Ming Tsai and Wolfgang Puck. 

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — Lifetime Brands, maker of houseware and kitchen products under such brand names as Kitchenaid, Farberware and Cuisineart, reported that consolidated net sales for the fourth quarter were $154.8 million, an increase of 12.5%, as compared with consolidated net sales of $137.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2011.

Net income was $15.2 million, or $1.19 per diluted share, in the 2012 period, as compared with $5.4 million, or 43 cents per diluted share, in the prior-year period.

ARMONK, N.Y. — IBM has opened its Customer Experience Lab in New York with the goal of helping business leaders transform the way customers experience their products, services and brands through the use of mobile, social, cloud and advanced analytics technologies. 

 IBM scientists and business consultants will co-create with clients to deliver systems that learn and personalize the experiences of each individual customer, identify patterns, preferences and create context from Big Data, and drive scale economics. 

New York -- Google came out on top, followed by Amazon and Apple, in a new survey by market research company Ipsos called “The Most Influential Brands in the United States 2013.” The survey, which asked U.S. consumers to rate 100 leading brands on a wide variety of attributes, determined that the dimensions or factors that drive a brand’s influence are: engagement; trustworthy; leading edge; corporate citizenship; and, presence.

First quarter same store sales are expected to increase in the high teens at Cabela’s and drive earnings substantially higher than analysts’ estimates, the retailer said late Tuesday in advance of an investor conference today.

Cabela’s reported a firearms and ammunition driven 12% same store sales increase for its fourth quarter ended December 29, 2012. When those results were released a month ago the company said the favorable trends seen in the fourth quarter had accelerated into the first quarter.

Houston -- Brixmor Property Group said that Petco will open a new 12,150-sq.-ft. store at Merchants Park, in Houston.

Brixmor, based in New York City, is the owner of Merchants Park.

Phoenix -- Leslie’s Poolmart will celebrate the grand opening of 13 new locations throughout the United States on March 15.

In total, Leslie's plans to open 48 stores this year, between March and May. With these new stores and its recent acquisition of 24 Warehouse Pool Supply stores in the Houston area, Leslie's will bring its total store count to more than 800 stores nationwide.

PHILADELPHIA — Sparks, a maker of custom retail fixtures, has appointed two new executives to their business development team.  Ilicia Manger and Jeffery Buttson bring a combined total of 35 years of retail fixture industry experience to the Sparks executive team.