News

San Francisco -- Gap is launching the inaugural GapKids Class of 2014, a social media contest inviting parents to submit photos of their kids for the chance to be featured in a 2015 GapKids marketing campaign. This is Gap's next generation of Casting Call, a marketing program that lasted six years.

Austin, Texas -- Market Basket Grocery Stores, a privately-owned grocer with 34 full-service supermarkets in the East Texas and Louisiana region, has renewed and expanded their agreement for Revionics Life Cycle Pricing Optimization. They expanded the agreement to also include Revionics Advanced Analytics services, such as the Key Value Item (KVI) Analysis, which will enable them to leverage science to better align their KVIs with shopper behavior and the competitive landscape.

Retail trade event organizer Efficient Collaborative Retail Marketing (ECRM) name media veteran Joseph Tarnowski to the newly created position of chief content officer.

Tarnowski will lead the development of ECRM’s content platform to deliver actionable information and insights to retail buyers and suppliers such as original research and insights from ECRM Data, the company’s business intelligence division.

San Jose, California – U.S. shopping trends showed some improvement in July 2014, although not all metrics experienced positive change, compared to the same month a year earlier. According to the RetailNext Insights Report of more than 13 million shopping trips in July 2014, sales per shopper increased 3.5% from July 2013.

McCormick’s VP, general counsel and corporate secretary W. Geoffrey Carpenter plans to retire January 1, 2015. Carpenter has been with McCormick for more than 30 years and has served there as an executive officer since his appointment to his current position in 2008.

North Bergen, N.J. - The Vitamin Shoppe will host its latest "Share the Health" expo on Aug. 16, in more than 600 stores nationwide. As part of this event, each store will offer its own specialized festivities, such as free product samples and consultations with local wellness partners.

This marks the ninth Share the Health Expo hosted by the Vitamin Shoppe since 2012. The Vitamin Shoppe stores will host wellness partners from their communities throughout the day, ranging from local gyms and spas to chiropractors and product representatives.

A new partnership with Hendrick Motorsports has 3M off to the races. The company has signed a three-year contract to become the primary sponsor of NASCASR driver Jeff Gordon’s No. 24 car, starting in 2015.
 
The brand will use its sponsorship — which includes 11 Sprint Cup races every year — in product launches and promotions.
 

Eden Prairie, Minn. – Supervalu Inc. is hosting the company’s first-ever national sales expo, a three-day trade event, in St. Paul, Minnesota. The expo will feature more than 20 educational sessions and more than 330 expo booths, providing more than 3,900 independent grocery retailers from more 1,250 stores the opportunity to gain insights, merchandising ideas and grocery retail solutions from industry experts.