Digital Marketing

WASHINGTON — If NRF's predictions come true, moms will be in for an especially good Mother's Day this year. According to NRF’s 2012 Mother’s Day consumer spending survey conducted by BIGinsight, the average person celebrating the holiday is expected to spend $152.52 on gifts, up from $140.73 last year. Total spending is expected to reach $18.6 billion.

It’s an intriguing scenario: This summer, a weekend soccer player will enter Adidas’ store in downtown Manhattan to buy a pair of top-of-the-line F50s. He will turn down offers of help and saunter to the right of checkout where four 46-in. touch-screens are stacked. He will tap the play button on a video showing two pros putting the $270 shoe through its paces on the pitch and then removing the digital MiCoach tracking device in the sole and plugging it into a computer to review their performances.

New York -- Kate Spade New York has chosen ConcretePlatform to enhance its international and domestic trading capabilities. Offered as a subscription-based cloud service, ConcretePlatform contains a number of flexible applications – accessed via a browser - that allow brands to trade with their partners across the wholesale, franchise and wholly owned markets, as well as the vast supply network that supports today’s retail community, the company said.

New York -- Pompei A.D. announced that Vanessa Rose has been promoted to chief marketing officer.

Previously, Rose was executive director of business development at Pompei A.D. As CMO, she will be responsible for overseeing the firm’s current expansion in the United States including Hawaii, as well as globally in Dubai and throughout Asia.
 

CINCINNATI — Ahead of Earth Day, a number of retailers have been touting their sustainable efforts. The latest example is Kroger, which has released a video highlighting some of its accomplishments and showcasing some of its future goals.

The video features both store associates and customers who speak about how much Kroger has already done--from reducing waste and plastic bag use--and what the company can do more of--from making it easier to find organic products to donating more fresh produce to charity.

Atlanta -- The Coca-Cola Retailing Research Council has published the final installment of its five-part report on social media, which suggested that grocery marketers significantly can leverage any social media participation by simply responding to tweets on Twitter and exploring the potential of professional networking site LinkedIn.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — HSN has named Anne Martin-Vachon chief merchandising officer, effective May 14. Martin-Vachon will oversee HSN's merchandising and planning teams and report directly to Mindy Grossman, CEO of HSNi.

Los Altos, Calif. -- Survey results released Thursday by catalog shopping app Catalog Spree showed that 89.8% of American shoppers would prefer to receive their catalogs digitally and would opt out of the paper versions if they could receive a digital copy instead.

The survey also revealed that more than half (55.1%) of respondents would prefer all of their catalogs in digital form. Today, some 19 billion catalogs are mailed in the United States each year.