STORES Magazine - July 2008 - (Page 14)

trEnDS COMPILED BY STORES EDITORS No Dearth of Retail Creativity There’s no question that discretionary spending isn’t what it was a year ago. But that hasn’t stopped retailers and CPG manufacturers from pulling out all the stops when it comes to developing creative marketing campaigns. IKEA North America promoted the opening of the first fullscale store in the five boroughs of the Big Apple by building familiar New York scenes entirely out of IKEA boxes. John Hobbs, the Brooklyn artist who took on the project, assembled four sets: a 96-ft.-long, 16-ft.-high replica of the Brooklyn Bridge; the Empire State Building; a water tower rooftop set; and the Red Hook and Lower Manhattan scene showing the new IKEA. The box buildings were used in local TV commercials, billboards and were on display at the new store during the opening days. International House of Pancakes (IHOP) has teamed with Minor League Baseball to celebrate its 50th birthday via a cross-country tour. An IHOP-branded recreation vehicle is hitting the road this summer to visit 61 baseball games nationwide. The chain will offer giveaways, including branded baseball cards featuring its nine new pancake flavors, each with a buy one/get one coupon. Unilever launched a 360degree campaign for Pond’s, brokering a deal to be the exclusive skin care sponsor of “MAMMA MIA! The Movie,” set for release this month. Wal-Mart will be hosting a movie ticket booth and giving consumers the opportunity to sample the products; other retail partners with in-store activities include Costco, CVS, Rite-Aid, Walgreen and H.E.B. Pond’s has invited groups of women to perform their fa14 STORES / JULY 2008 sk any retailer to share his keys to success and most will tell you that a keen understanding of the customer tops the list. Knowing who shops in your store, what’s important to that shopper and how her spending is impacted by economic forces has a ripple effect across all aspects of running a retail business. Case in point: Family Dollar, the Matthews, N.C.-based discount operation featured on page 26. Executives at that store are so in sync with their customer and how she shops that they’ve recently overhauled their food strategy and re-merchandised the store with an eye toward facilitating quick, efficient shopping trips. Data compiled by BIGresearch for its monthly Consumer Intentions and Actions survey shows that 77 percent of Family Dollar shoppers say that familiar labels are not important to them when buying apparel. Nearly as many (73 percent) describe fashion as “less important than value and comfort,” and 34 percent of Family Dollar shoppers report that they only buy clothing when it’s on sale. Those findings dovetail with the merchant’s approach to apparel, which consists primarily of basic and seasonal items. Family Dollar is quick to acknowledge that its customers are feeling the pinch of rising gas prices. The June CIA survey found that just over half (51 percent) reported spending less on groceries, compared with 28 percent of all adults, and 69 percent were spending less on clothing (compared with 40 percent of all adults). Family Dollar shoppers also indicate that they’re buying more store brand/generic products, shopping closer to home, looking for sales more often, making fewer shopping trips and using public transportation more often than the general population. The survey indicated that Family Dollar shoppers were more likely than others to focus on “what they need rather than what they want” (74 percent vs. 54 percent). They describe themselves as more budget-conscious and more inclined to shop at free-standing stores than enclosed shopping malls. A vorite Abba song on camera for a chance to win a luxury trip to London for the film’s world premiere, and People inserted the first-ever recordable advertisement in a June issue, allowing readers to dub their own voices singing a favorite Abba song over a pre-recorded track.➔ WWW.STORES.ORG http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - July 2008

STORES Magazine - July 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Dearth of Retail Creativity What Shoppers Think Wow, Is That a Wawa? 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Merchandising Strategy Concept2Watch Point of Sale Outsourcing Human Resources Top 100 Retailers Store Design RFID IT Operations Systems Managements LP Vantage Point Newsbeat Cover Story Emergency Response Systems Background Checks LOEB Retail Letter Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - July 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.