Artificial Intelligence

LOS ANGELES — Virtual Piggy has appointed Ivo Weevers as the company’s creative director of mobile design. Weevers will be charged with leading and managing the mobile consumer experience team.

Weevers has 15 years of experience in creating mobile, web, device and desktop products across multiple platforms. He has directed design work and lead international design teams in the telecom, device, social media, banking, travel, entertainment, medical automotive industries.

Sunnyvale, Calif. – David’s Cookies competes in a crowded marketplace and even encounters issues resulting from its own brand fragmentation. Trying to locate and convert leads around the world is understandably a huge marketing expense typically involving lots of time and travel. But since implementing the Ariba Discovery trading platform last year, David’s Cookies has found dozens of new clients with much less time, travel and expense.

SAINT LOUIS — Aisle411, developer of a mobile in-store navigation platform for retail stores, has bolstered its advisory board with some Google muscle. Don Dodge’s appointment helps to round out the company's executive management team.

Retailers share online insights

Speakers at the recent Internet Retailer Conference & Exposition in Chicago discussed how the retail industry is using a number of digital technologies to assist performance in areas such as CRM, marketing, driving customer traffic and converting sales. Following are a few brief highlights:

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — When one thinks of space exploration and space travel, Paypal is hardly the first thing that comes to mind. But the eBay company is spearheading an initiative that is paving the way for space commerce.

With the help of the SETI Institute and the Space Tourism Society, PayPal Galactic aims to make universal space payments a reality. Paypal president David Marcus was joined by astronaut and author Buzz Aldrin to announce the initiative’s launch. 

Bentonville, Ark. - Mike Duke, president and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, released the following statement in response to President Obama’s renewable energy address on Tuesday:

Many socioeconomic pundits have bemoaned the trend in modern education and childrearing toward creating an artificially level playing field where everyone gets a participant ribbon for everything they do, regardless of how much effort they put in or how good (or bad) the results are.

London – Omni-channel global fashion brand Burberry is taking a pioneering step into the realm of digital customer engagement with a new program called Burberry Kisses. Partnering with the Google Art, Copy & Code project that presents itself as a “series of experiments to re-imagine advertising,” Burberry is allowing consumers to send online letters which are sealed with digital replicas of their kisses, complete with their choice of Burberry lipstick shade.

By Shelley E. Kohan, [email protected]

Retail’s four walls are the most valuable marketing assets out there today. The brick-and-mortar stores that know how to optimize their physical locations for maximum productivity will be the ones who come out on top this year. Here are the top five trends that will distinguish the leaders from the laggards, and will define retail’s future for years to come:

1. The in-store experience

By Bill Leber, Swisslog

E-commerce is fundamentally changing the nature of the retail supply chain. As online shopping continues to compete with and, in many instances, overtake brick-and-mortar retail, traditional retailers are looking for more and more ways to expand their multichannel operations.