Sales & Marketing

Ensuring the roughly nine billion people who are estimated to inhabit the planet by 2050 have enough to eat is a big challenge. That’s why Land O’Lakes has introduced new program to fund big ideas from future food leaders.

Seattle -- Starbucks Coffee Company continues to extend its mobile offerings. The coffee giant will launch mobile ordering in its locations in the Portland, Ore., area by year end, with a full rollout nationwide in 2015.    The mobile-order app will enable customers to place orders in advance of their visit and pick them up at their selected Starbucks location.   

Global branded play leader Hasbro, Inc. today announced the promotion of John Frascotti to the newly-created position of president, Hasbro Brands, effective immediately.

In this new role, Frascotti assumes the additional responsibilities of worldwide product development and now oversees all of the company’s global marketing and design and development teams.  By combining the teams, the company will continue to drive strong innovation, maximize operational efficiency, facilitate greater collaboration and streamline decision-making.

Boston -- Powerhouse Dynamics, creator of the SiteSage enterprise energy and asset management system, is beefing up its mobile app with a series of control and reporting enhancements to provide facility  managers with complete facility energy and equipment operations management.   

Retail advertising solutions provider Bonial International, parent company of Retale, has placed several executives in key roles as it looks to disrupt the traditional retail advertising universe.

Dan Cripe was name chief technology officer and Andrea Francesco Domeneghini was named chief marketing officer at Bonial and will be based in the company’s Berlin headquarters.

Philadelphia -- Destination Maternity Corp. will expand into Israel through an international franchise agreement with Israeli fashion retail chain H&O Fashion Ltd. (H&O). Through this relationship, Destination Maternity will introduce its Motherhood Maternity, A Pea in the Pod, and Destination Maternity brands into Israel, with the first franchise locations expected to open in spring 2015.    

Washington, D.C. -- The average person celebrating Christmas, Kwanza and/or Hanukkah will spend $804.42, up nearly 5% from 2013’s actual $767.27, according to the National Retail Federation’s 13th annual Holiday Consumer Spending Survey, conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. In other results, the average shopper plans to do 44% of their holiday shopping online, the most in the survey’s history.  

The holidays will be a little more joyous this year for some of the 14.7 million U.S. children living in poverty.