Marketing Tactics

ECRM compared retail circular advertising in February 2013 versus February 2014 and noted trends occurring across top retail chains. The home improvement retailers have continued to reverse trends from 2013. Home Depot doubled its page count and slightly decreased ads per page, leading to longer, slightly less dense circulars. Despite this, Home Depot still ran less than a quarter of the number of pages that Lowe’s ran, largely due to Lowe’s running three circulars to Home Depot’s one.

Founded as a “cook your own steak” restaurant in an abandoned gas station in 1974, Quaker Steak & Lube has evolved into one of the nation’s most up-and-coming casual-dining chains, renowned for its award-winning chicken wings and flavorful — make that hot — sauces. But as much as the food offerings have changed at “The Lube,” the brand remains true to its gas station and vintage car-loving roots.

As a category of shopping center, open-air centers have been evolving ever since the days they were called lifestyle centers. New categories of tenants have evolved, along with new ways of creating compelling tenant mixes and environments. We asked three open-air owners to tell us about current and possible future directions that evolution may take.

The companies are San Diego-based American Assets Trust; Irvine Co. Retail Properties in Irvine, Calif.; and Columbus, Ohio-based Glimcher Realty Trust. Here’s what they had to say.

The South by Southwest interactive/music/lifestyle event held each year in Austin, Texas, will see leading workwear brand Dickies team up with Amazon to host a lineup of leading musical acts.

The companies have created The Dickie’s Roadhouse presented by Amazon at the iconic Austin establishment known as Banger’s on Rainey Street near the convention center. Headliners at the event include Ludacris and Until the Ribbon Breaks.

Fort Worth, Texas -- RadioShack Corp. said it plans to close up to 1,100 stores, approximately one-fifth of its total, and also announced a disappointing holiday season and a wider quarterly loss. The shutterings will leave the chain, whose turnaround appears to be still far off, with over 4,000 locations, including more than 900 dealer franchise locations.

General Mills Big G cereals now include four collectible comic books featuring DC Comics' Justice League characters, on shelves now through April 2014.

Four specialty issues created exclusively for General Mills, in partnership with DC Entertainment (DCE) and Warner Bros. Consumer Products (WBCP), can be found in grocery retailers nationwide, with a bonus fifth issue available only in select boxes of Cheerios at Target.

A survey of 87 retailers conducted by Pacific Gas & Electric found many are unhappy with their lighting and are considering LED lighting to save energy. But, at the same time, they lack sufficient information to evaluate products.

As I have previously expressed in this column, I am a Bitcoin skeptic. The recent news that major global Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox suddenly disappeared, possibly due to losing as much as $350 million to fraud allowed by a computer glitch, reinforced my reservations about Bitcoin and similar electronic currencies. In theory, independent electronic currencies are promising, but in practice, relying on third-party payment methods which are not backed by the full faith and credit of a stable government is a risky proposition.