Marketing Tactics

Washington, D.C. — A day after he gives his State of the Union speech, President Obama will follow up Wednesday with visits to a Costco store in Maryland and a steel plant in Pennsylvania, USA Today reported.

During his stop at the Costco in Lanham, which is located about 15 miles from the White House, Obama is expected to deliver remarks on the economy, the report said.

Target and international pop star Shakira are teaming up to release an exclusive deluxe edition of her latest album, “Shakira.” It’s Target’s first major artist collaboration of the year.

The exclusive deluxe edition will include three bonus tracks and is available for pre-order now at Target.com.

“There were three special songs I recorded for ‘Shakira’ that I decided to save for the version of the album available only at Target,” explained Shakira.

Following its fourth-quarter results, Kimberly-Clark plans to pursue targeted growth initiatives and support growth opportunities with increased advertising and research spending.

The company’s net sales of $5.3 billion were even with the year-ago period. Organic sales, which exclude the impact of changes in foreign currency exchange rates and lost sales as a result of European strategic changes and pulp and tissue restructuring actions, rose 5%, including an 11% increase in K-C International.  

New York — Covo Trattoria has leased restaurant space at 3660 Broadway at the intersection with West 151st Street, a prominent corner in the Hamilton Heights district of Upper Manhattan. The space includes 1,500 sq. ft. on the ground floor and a full basement. Covo Trattoria anticipates opening in the spring.

The eatery has two existing locations in West Harem. At the Hamilton Heights location, Covo Trattoria will join neighbors The Grange, The Chipped Cup, Harlem Public and The Heights Tavern.

Although Starbucks’ profit in the first quarter rose a better-than-expected 25% to $540.7 million from $432 million in the year-ago period, same-store sales missed Wall Street expectations.

Same-store sales rose 5%, beneath Wall Street expectations of 5.9%. Revenue for the quarter ended Dec. 29, 2013 rose 12% to $4.24 billion from $3.79 billion.

Same-store sales in the Americas region also rose 5%, while analysts had expected a 6.4% increase.

Chattanooga, Tenn. -- To increase control of its digital activities, SmartFurniture.com chose to implement a stable of proprietary and third-party analytics, campaign management, and optimization tools. However, the solutions lacked the functionality and flexibility necessary to capture, analyze, and transform data into actionable insights, so SmartFurniture.com expanded adoption of Adobe Marketing Cloud.

The Michigan Retailers Association (MRA) said that Michigan's retail industry had a poor holiday shopping season thanks to damaging winter storms and “outdated government policies that favor out-of-state online companies.”

Retailers posted only a 0.1% average increase over last holiday season, according to the Michigan Retail Index, a joint project of MRA and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

New York -- The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index, which tracks consumer cash flow as an indicator of future consumer spending, rose in December 2013. The Index, which comprises four components, tax burden, initial unemployment claims, real wages and real home prices, increased to 4.3 in December from 3.9 the prior month.