News

CINCINNATI — Procter & Gamble’s Always feminine care brand has announced the launch of its “Give a Girl a Break” initiative that aims to turn filmmaking passions into careers for a group of aspiring young women.

Three Scotts Miracle-Gro board members resigned following the delivery of a unanimously supported reprimand of CEO Jim Hagedorn that stemmed from the use of inappropriate language. 

Hagedorn apologized in a statement.

"While I have a tendency to use colorful language, I recognize my comments in this case were inappropriate and I apologize," Hagedorn said. "I, along with the rest of our board members, consider the matter resolved and I have made a personal commitment to prevent a future recurrence."

WEST CHESTER, Pa. — QVC, a global leader in video and e-commerce retail, has appointed former Hershey’s executive Ted Jastrzebski as the company’s new CFO. Jastrzebski will oversee QVC's financial operations, and will report to president and CEO Mike George.

BOCA RATON, Fla. — Office Depot has reached an agreement to sell its 50% stake in Office Depot de Mexico S.A. de C.V. to its joint venture partner Grupo Gigante, S.A.B. de C.V. for roughly $690 million in cash.

Office Depot de Mexico, which was founded in 1994 as a joint partnership between Office Depot and Grupo Gigante, has more than 248 stores throughout Mexico and Central America and more than $1.1 billion in annual sales.

NEW YORK — Sociomantic Labs, digital advertising solutions provider for e-commerce marketers, has hired Charles Pitzer as the company’s VP of sales for North America.  

Pitzer has more than 25 years of sales experience, 14 of which have been concentrated in media with a focus on online advertising. He joins Sociomantic from Criteo. Previously Pitzer held positions at Specific Media, Advertising.com and IDG Communications.

MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. — Kohl’s has renewed its partnership with Junior Achievement of Wisconsin and donated to the organization $1.5 million throughout a three-year period to support and expand the JA Kohl’s Education Center. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Agriculture has launched the Food Waste Challenge to encourage people to reduce, recover and recycle food waste. 

The Food Waste Reduction Alliance, made up of leading food retail, food manufacturing and foodservice companies, issued the following statement:

Los Angeles -- Sport Chalet is using technology to reach out to high school teams and their fans. A new portal on the sporting goods and apparel retailer’s e-commerce site is specifically designed to allow the creation of team-focused online retail hubs. Schools can create their own logo design to brand each individual hub and also offer customized goods and shipping options, including direct shipment to customer homes as well as pick-up at a local Sport Chalet store or at the school. The portal is built on the KitOrder specialty team e-commerce platform.

Chicago -- Online shopping cart recovery provider SeeWhy announced that The Land of Nod – a Crate & Barrel multichannel banner that sells children’s furniture, bedding, and accessories – has deployed SeeWhy’s Conversion Manager Software as a Service (SaaS).  

The turnkey e-commerce solution automates remarketing, boosts conversion and maximizes ROI by triggering personal marketing campaigns in real time based on a shopper’s everyday website browsing behavior.

Charlotte, N.C. -- Training consultant Tortal said that it has forged a test agreement with Bojangles Restaurants to create a point-of-sale training program to support the new POS rollout for its company and franchise restaurants.
 
The training program, said Tortal, is intended to strengthen the restaurant chain’s existing training processes.

The launch of the new online training program is slated for summer 2013.