Marketing Tactics

Saturday Night Live alum and “Parks and Recreation” star Amy Poehler will appear in commercials for Old Navy following last year’s involvement with Best Buy.

Ad Age is reporting that along with starring in the commercials, Poehler will help write and direct them. The first ad, said Ad Age, features Poehler as an executive at a law firm interviewing a job candidate but getting distracted by the woman's outfit from Old Navy.

Nike's store in University Village, Seattle, was created as a sanctuary for athletes. The goal is present in every detail in the 6,247-sq.-ft. store, including this quote from company co-founder Bill Bowerman that is painted onto the bleacher board behind the cash wrap: "There's no such thing as bad weather, just soft people."

Google Capital has invested $50 million in Auction.com, the world’s largest online real estate marketplace. As part of the investment, one representative from Google Capital will join the company’s board of directors and another will take a board observer position.

Thief River Falls, Minn. – Powersports brand Arctic Cat has expanded its e-commerce business by launching an EBay store using the Shopatron Marketplace ship-from-store application. The SaaS solution provides EBay customers with access to a range of official Arctic Cat gear and merchandise and expands inventory to include goods located in stores.

Livonia, Mich. – A large majority of consumers consider themselves value seekers, and they are increasingly using the Internet, social media and mobile devices to obtain value. According to the new Valassis Shopper Marketing Report, nearly eight in 10 consumers consider themselves value seekers, self-described as promotion sensitive or price conscious.

Connecting brands with influential voices via social media is the premise on which Collective Bias was founded. This week the firm strengthened that proposition with several new initiatives to increase the effectiveness of brand’s social shopper marketing efforts.

New York -- Walgreens will share learnings, insights and real-time performance data gained from building and operating the retail industry’s first net zero-energy store at Chain Store Age’s 50th annual SPECS Conference, March 9 -12, Gaylord Texan Hotel,  Grapevine, Texas.  
 

Uniqlo has enlisted musician and music producer Pharrell Williams as a collaborator and spokesperson for the UT 2014 spring-summer collection. Launched in 2003, Uniqlo’s UT T-shirt brand is getting a fresh start this year, as “The New Model T,” a collection produced by its creative director and street fashion icon Nigo.