Digital Marketing

Just as retailers like Walmart and Target unveil their top toy lists ahead of the holiday shopping season, Toys“R”Us has revealed its 2014 Holiday Hot Toy List. The annual list of 36 items is determined by Toys“R”Us play experts and packed with a wide range of brand new toys and games.

New York - Mobile rich media advertising drives high expansion rates and secondary engagement for retail brands. According to internal retail industry mobile ad performance analyses conducted by predictive mobile advertising provider AdTheorent Inc. across its network during the second quarter of 2014, rich media drove a strong expansion rate across the retail category, delivering at a rate 125% higher than the industry average.

San Jose, Calif. – EBay Inc. is releasing the EBay Enterprise Commerce Marketing Platform, a new omnichannel engagement suite that will enable marketers to drive and optimize one-to-one commerce at scale. Designed and built from the ground up, in strategic partnership with FICO, a predictive analytics and decision management software company, the platform combines the commerce insights, demand generation delivery technologies and intellectual property of EBay Enterprise with FICO’s analytics technologies and products.

Research Triangle Park, N.C. – ChannelAdvisor Corp., a provider of cloud-based e-commerce solutions, has launched its 2014 Autumn Release, with new features and advancements added to the company’s platform. The 2014 Autumn Release offers enhanced EBay management with QuickStart and Custom options, new support for social sites Polyvore, Wanelo and mobile search engine Yahoo Gemini, as well as expanded global capabilities through support for marketplaces such as MeinPaket, Rakuten.de and Zalando.

San Francisco - Tapcentive has launched its NFC- and BLE-connected Touchpoint devices for use with its cloud-based Mobile Engagement Platform. Tapcentive Touchpoints offer marketers visible, interactive engagement technology for driving consumer awareness and influencing in-location behavior.

New York - While the majority of consumers prefer to both shop and spend their money in brick-and-mortar retail stores, more than 60% are increasing their online shopping activities, according to a survey of 1,515 consumers by digital marketing firm SmartFocus. This trend is most prevalent among women (71%) and Millennials.

Green Bay, Wis. – Shopko is running a six-week Facebook giveaway. Now through Oct. 11, customers can enter to win prize packages from some of Shopko's most popular brands.

To enter, customers can “like” Shopko on Facebook, and then watch for posts on the featured brand of the week with more information on how to sign up. One winner will be randomly selected every Friday and announced on the following Monday.

Collective Bias is rebranding its annual blogger conference in 2015 and taking the event on the road with a nationwide tour of 11 cities to facilitate increased participation by brands, bloggers and retailers.

Six of the nation’s largest food companies and the Walmart Foundation are appealing to Americans with an innovative digital campaign to direct $3.7 million in donations to food banks.

San Francisco – EBay Inc. reportedly plans to begin running advertisements within its mobile app during fourth quarter 2014. According to Reuters, the Geico insurance company will be one of the first advertisers.