Marketing

East Rutherford, N.J. -- Cushman & Wakefield’s retail team in New Jersey has taken on three new leasing assignments, with projects spanning the Northern New Jersey market, in Morris, Essex and Hudson counties.

Chain Store Age is excited to announce a partnership with Sunnyvale, California-based business accelerator Plug and Play. Plug and Play’s Retail Accelerator has joined forces with leading brands and retailers in order to foster the growth of retail-focused startups during a 12-week startup program in Silicon Valley. A round table of corporations, venture capitalists and industry experts guide the direction of the program.

San Francisco -- Piperlime, a division of Gap Inc., has enhanced its website to include streams of images filtered directly from Instagram providing customers with fashion. Shoppers will be able to click the images and shop the items to make these looks their own. Product pages will also feature styling ideas from bloggers and influencers, showing unique ways to style the same must-have pieces for each season.

New York -- Fred Segal will open The Fred Segal Collective, a multi-store retail experience, at SLS Las Vegas as part of the hotel’s opening on Aug. 23. In an unusual move, the brand will occupy all of the retail space in the resort.

The Collective will be integrated throughout the entire SLS experience, creating shopping opportunities from the pool to the casino and dining areas. It will encompass nearly 10,000 sq. ft., with seven individual stores, including She, He, Jeans, Shoes, Jewels, Play and Goods.
 

Indianapolis -- Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America launched a national campaign on Monday calling on Kroger Co. to prohibit the open carry of guns in its supermarkets. The gun control advocacy group was founded in response to the Sandy Hook school shooting and has partnered with billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Warren Buffett.

The Moms Demand Action campaign, which includes a petition to Kroger, follows similar actions aimed at Target, Chipotle, Sonic, Chii’s and Jack in the Box.

A new initiative at Books-A-Million called “The Write Stuff” will reveal whether book buyers value the opinions of the retailer’s merchants.

In the coming weeks, Books-A-Million will roll out its “The Write Stuff” program online and in stores. The program revolves around use of a Write Stuff logo next to different titles which signifies they were hand selected by the retailer’s buying staff.

The Quest for Texas Best competition is a project of H-E-B Primo Picks, a two-year old statewide program that aims to find the best food and beverage products that Texas has to offer.

Judges whittled nearly 600 submissions from across the Lone Star State to 25 finalists. Submissions came from 128 towns across the state, yielding a mix of jams, jellies, spices and meats. Entries spanned 74 categories including beer, butter, cookies and milk, muffins, Mexican pastries, pickles, sauces and teas.

As Little League Baseball and Softball turns 75, the Heinz has been named the league’s official condiment and will play a role in upcoming events.

Just a month and a half after Kroger announced plans to acquire e-commerce retailer Vitacost.com, the company completed the merger. According to Kroger, Vitacost.com's position in the nutrition and wellness products space, including its proprietary brands, complements its natural foods business and Simple Truth Organic and Simple Truth corporate brand offering.

Kroger purchased all outstanding shares of common stock of Vitacost.com for $8 per share in cash. The tender offer expired at 5 p.m., EDT, on August 15.

Nielsen, a leading global provider of information and insights into what consumers watch and buy, has appointed John Lewis as global president and Karen Fichuk as president, North America. Both executive leaders are based in Schaumburg, Illinois.