Marketing Tactics

Washington, DC — Merchants at CVS, Smart & Final and Meijer have been named recipients of the 2013 Confectionery Leadership Awards by the National Confectioners Association.

MINNEAPOLIS — Target has teamed up with Bruno Mars to deliver an exclusive edition of the pop star’s sophomore album, “Unorthodox Jukebox.”

The album will be available at Target stores and online beginning Tuesday, December 11, and will feature five bonus tracks. Pre-orders are available now at Target.com/ExclusiveArtists.

Time is running out to submit entries in the 31st annual Chain Store Age Retail Store of the Year Design Competition.

Chicago -- A report on Wednesday from ShopperTrak showed that retail foot traffic increased 3.7% and sales increased 2.3% year-over-year for the week beginning Nov. 25, ending Dec. 1.

This represented a 28.8% decline in traffic and 22.4% decline in sales from the 2012 Black Friday shopping week.  

Reston, Va. -- Online holiday spending reached $21.4 billion for first 32 days of the November-December shopping season, up 14% year-over-year, according to comScore.

The most recent week saw three individual days eclipse $1 billion in spending, led by Cyber Monday, which became the heaviest online spending day on record at $1.46 billion. However, growth rates softened considerably in the wake of Cyber Monday and through the weekend.       

Portland, Maine -- CashStar found in its latest survey that nearly 56 million adult online Americans are likely to forget to buy a gift for their mail carriers and nearly 44 million are likely to forget to buy a gift for their neighbors.

The survey, conducted online nationwide by Harris Interactive on behalf of CashStar, examined when online American adults remember to buy gifts and who they end up forgetting.

Houston -- Francesca's Holdings Corp. reported Wednesday net income of $11 million, compared with $6.1 million in the year-ago period. Sales surged 44% to $72 million, driven by a 16.7% increase in same-store sales as well as 76 new boutique openings since the end of the third quarter last year.

New York -- As new CEO Ron Johnson works to transition the “old” J.C. Penney into a new era filled with shop-in-shops, he and his team have devised a way to keep the store looking fresh during the changeover: they use a lot of mannequins.

Read full story here.

ATLANTA — The Coca-Cola Company and Select Milk Producers have teamed up to acquire the newly created Fair Oaks Farms Brands, which owns and operates Core Power, a high protein milkshake.

With the Fair Oaks Farms Brands, the Coca-Cola Company and Select will expand an ever-growing portfolio of brands and products, which will now feature dairy.

FRAMINGHAM, Mass. — Staples and LinkedIn have teamed up to launch SUCCEED: Small Business Network, an online forum for small business professionals.