Marketing Tactics

Welch's Fruit Snacks have launched Welch's PB&J Snacks, which combines peanut butter and jelly in one treat.

The bite-size snacks have a chewy center made with real fruit, which is surrounded by a peanut butter coating, according to the company. Snackers can choose from four varieties: Concord Grape or Strawberry center and creamy or crunch peanut butter outside.

Princeton, N.J. -- Heartland Payment Systems has filed a federal lawsuit against Mercury Payment Systems, charging the company with false advertising, unfair competition, intentional interference with contractual relations, and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division, alleges that Mercury is illegally competing against Heartland with deceptive trade practices.

Retailer and CPG companies’ usage of Facebook to engage with customers helped propel the 10-year-old social media platform to record levels of usage, sales and profitability in the fourth quarter.

Facebook said its daily active users increased 22% to 757 million while mobile daily active users increased 49% to 556 million. Those who used Facebook on a monthly basis increased 16% to 1.23 billion and those who did so monthly via a mobile device totaled 945 million.

Herman G. Rowland Sr., Chairman of the Board for Jelly Belly Candy Co., is the recipient of the first ISM Lifetime Achievement Award.

ISM, a trade show of confectionery and snack products, honored Rowland with the show's first award to kick off this year's show.

Plans for the fragrance division of Marc Jacobs to open a pop-up in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood are not terribly unusual. But the type of currency the shop will accept is.

The Daisy Marc Jacobs Tweet Shop, which will be open during New York Fashion Week, from Feb. 7 to 9, will trade in social currency instead of money.

Washington, D.C. -- Retailers overwhelmingly agree mobile must be the number one priority for their digital business in 2014, according to the 2014 Shop.org/Forrester Research Inc. State of Retailing Online survey. More than half (53%) marked mobile efforts as a top priority, identifying responsive design, mobile site optimization, and tablet redesign among key focus areas.

Kozy Shack, a 50-year-old pudding brand, is hiring a spokes-grandma to represent the brand nationally in online, broadcast and print advertisements.

The call for applications has been put out coast-to-coast: Pudding-loving grandmas can submit their applications at KozyShack.me/Grandma now through Jan. 31. More information can be found in job postings on Monster, Careerbuilder and LinkedIn.

Most mobile shoppers redeemed a coupon directly from their mobile device last year, according to a recent study from shopping app Key Ring, which is part of G/O Digital, a Gannett company.

The survey, conducted by Key Ring, examined more than 25,000 mobile shoppers and found that 75% redeemed a coupon from their mobile device in 2013, up more than 5% year-over-year. The study also showed that 80% of shoppers said their perception of a retailer would change for the positive if the retailer offered mobile deals and coupons.