Retailer Campaigns

Irving, Texas – The Michaels Companies Inc. is launching its annual “Trick Your Pumpkin” Instagram contest Saturday, Oct. 4. Every Friday Oct. 10 - 31, Michaels will award a $250 Michaels gift card and gift basket to a randomly selected customer who creates a pumpkin craft.

Spartanburg, S.C. - Denny’s and Stoopid Buddy Stoodios have partnered to create a new animated Web series, “The Grand Slams.” Starring a cast of characters, Egg, Pancake, Sausage and Bacon, based on the brand’s dish, The Grand Slam, the series launches an exclusive online trailer Oct. 1 and debuts its first episode Oct. 15.

Ann Arbor, Mich. -- Shoppers are planning to spend less money and purchase gifts for fewer people this holiday season compared to last year, while also maximizing their budgets through Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales and online cost comparison, according to the CFI Group 2014 Holiday Retail Spending Report: Black Friday is Back.  

New Orleans - Smoothie King Franchises Inc. has signed a five-store development agreement for Missouri with new franchisee Jackie Floyd. The smoothie chain currently has 21 locations in the state, including more than a dozen in the St. Louis area, with three additional stores planned to open in the market in 2014.

San Francisco - Only one-in-nine marketers use advanced cross-channel attribution methods, and among those using attribution, 28% still use single click methods. According to a new survey of 106 advertisers, agencies, and analytics professionals in the U.S. and Europe performed by Forrester Consulting for predictive marketing software provider Kenshoo, advanced marketers use sophisticated multi-touch attribution models to inform a broad array of strategic and tactical decisions in more detail and with more speed.

Amazon’s new “Wish List” deal with Twitter continues the evolution of Twitter from a channel for passive promotion to a channel for interactive customer engagement. By allowing consumers to directly add items they see in tweets to their Amazon Wish Lists without leaving Twitter, the arrangement both turns Twitter into an active platform for peer-to-peer, unpaid marketing and also helps keep Twitter users on Twitter for longer periods of time by extending its functionality.

Dublin, Calif. - Ross Dress for Less will open a new store in Hawthorne, California, in Los Angeles County, on Oct. 11. The store is located in the Hawthorne Town Plaza.

This new opening is part of the retailer’s 2014 expansion program, totaling approximately 75 new locations during the year.