Retailer Campaigns

Chicago -- Shoppers visited more stores and spent more money across the days of Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday (Nov. 28 and 29) than they did last year, according to ShopperTrak.

When compared to Thanksgiving and Black Friday last year, brick-and-mortar shopper traffic increased 2.8%, to more than 1.07 billion store visits. Retail sales also increased by 2.3%, as shoppers spent an estimated total of $12.3 billion across the two days.

New York -- Online giant Amazon has opened a pop-up store in Westfield San Francisco Centre, San Francisco. The pop-up sells Kindle tablets and e-readers, as well as branded covers and power adapters from vending machines, according to The Wall Street Journal. It is one of a handful of pop-ups the company has opened in malls.

Citing one of the employees at the location, WSJ reported that the pop-up store would close after two weeks.

Chef Boyardee is driving sales by partnering with Microsoft to offer customers a chance to win the highly coveted Xbox One.

Five daily winners will be selected between now and Feb. 18, 2014. Participants must visit www.winwithchef.com and enter the eight-digit code found on specially marked cans and microwave cups of Chef Boyardee.

New York - Companies seeking to get closer to their customers simply need to remember and acknowledge their birthdays. A new online survey conducted by analytics and marketing technology provider Fulcrum finds that nearly three-out-of-four (74%) consumers who received birthday messages from a company they do business with thought more positively of the company afterward.

Irving, Texas -- Zale Corp. narrowed its first-quarter loss slightly and reported its 12th consecutive quarterly sales increase.

Zale reported a net loss of $27. 3 million in the quarter ended Oct. 31, compared to $28.3 million, a year ago. The prior year included a gain of $1.9 million from a settlement.

First-quarter sales increased 1.4% to $363 million, in line with expectations.

Same-store sales rose 4.4%. Zales Jewelers and Zales Outlet stores posted a same-store sales increase of 7.5%.

Early this week, Target began to generate traffic to its e-commerce site ahead of Cyber Week. They offered REDcard holders an exclusive online Black Friday preview sale, and Cartwheel app users Black Friday-like deals.

Cartwheel is the digital savings program that allows guests to choose in-store offers and claim savings directly from their smartphones, which Target began rolling out earlier this year.

Pedigree and the Broadway musical "Annie" worked together to promote awareness of dog adoption, and the partnership resulted in a $1 million donation to Pedigree Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to helping dogs find loving homes. A check was presented to the foundation after the matinee performance on Nov. 20.

Since its debut in 1977, "Annie" has featured a real-life shelter dog as Annie's companion Sandy, making the partnership between Pedigree brand and the Tony Award-winning musical even more special.

Los Angeles – A majority of the 348,235 tweets about Black Friday posted between Friday, Nov. 22 and Sunday, Nov. 24 were either positive or neutral in sentiment. According to analysis from social media research firm Fizziology, tweets about Black Sunday the weekend of Nov. 22-24 were 47% positive, 11% negative, 3% mixed and 39% neutral (from retailers/promotions).