Back to School: Trends to Watch

The calendar may only say July, but retailers are already promoting back-to-school.



Here are four promotional trends the folks at Market Track predict will play out this selling season:



• Retailers/e-retailers creating new mid-year “Black Friday” type events concurrent with Back to School. (e.g., Amazon's Prime Day, Target’s Black Friday in July, etc.)



Retailers are taking the excitement they bring to Black Friday and Cyber Monday and applying it to promotional events in the middle of summer, according to Market Track.



• Specific ad messaging to target back-to-school stakeholders (students, parents, teachers) will increase in 2015, following the start of the trend from last year.



The most successful advertisers recognize the importance of influencing multiple audiences across traditional and emerging media during back-to-school, says Market Track. Their primary audiences for this event are using different mechanisms to interact with messaging.



Just as Macy’s tailored their messaging to students with “The Text” campaign last year, or how Walmart and Office Depot advertised teacher appreciation, advertisers will look to open conversations with different segments of back-to-school shoppers to differentiate their message.”



• Retailers will provide early looks at their best back-to-school deals to win shopper attention before their competition



Market Track anticipates retailers will provide an early look at their top back-to-school deals this year, as Walmart did in 2014 with their back-to-school special savings deals which, in some cases , were over 30% off everyday prices.”



• Specific back-to-school in-store and online events will be used to create urgency among shoppers.



“Retailers go through the same struggles during back-to-school as they do during holiday but to a greater extent — how do you create urgency to buy now during a two-plus month shopping event? By creating events within Back-to-School that have a start and end date, retailers hope to create that urgency,” Market Track advised.