News From New York

Click play >> to view this month's video welcome(47 seconds) from NYC
The annual NRF convention at the Javitz Center was abuzz with new technology that will make running a retail organization more efficient with state-of-the-art systems and programs. The exhibits floor was full of representatives and retailers and as many high tech sounding names. Hopefully, these innovations will save the companies enough money to offset the loss of revenue most stores experienced in the past couple months of holiday sales.. With a lousy December (-0.4%) and an overall disappointing two-month holiday period (3% vs. a prediction of +4%), there were many reasons given for the poor performance in the trade articles that followed today’s release of December figures. The old stand-by “bad weather” and over-used “tentative consumer” were cited most often. Nobody, however, said that their marketing efforts were off the mark.

I won’t dwell on that again in fear of sounding redundant from last month’s article. However, it was interesting that most of the program at this year’s convention failed to address the key issues of marketing and branding. About the only sign of the “B-Word” was on one of the displays at the NRF bookstore where 4-5 books promised the key to better branding. (Unfortunately, my book isn’t quite finished in time to hit the shelves!) In talking with several of my retail counterparts at the convention, we all were in agreement that this year’s holiday marketing efforts were about as exciting as the 30 re-runs of the clay-mation version of “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer”. It just seemed that those who did advertise had nothing to say other than another “lowest prices” sale in ads that looked so similar; one had to yawn whenever we opened the daily newspaper (those of us who still get the paper, that is.),

Looking for answers, maybe these disappointed retailers should have been sitting in church with me when our pastor used a quote that seemed to “hit the nail on the head” -
“The bitterness of poor quality lingers on long after the sweetness of a cheap price fades away.” Sure, we all have to have a great price image to survive in today’s marketplace. However, whatever happened to giving customers a really great shopping experience (especially at the holidays)? With lousy service, jam-packed clearance round racks, and with advertising that seemed dull and redundant, retailers have lost the value part of the proposition. It’s interesting to look at the December comp’s, that the ones with the worst performance were also the ones with the dullest advertising and store presentation. I won’t list them here, but the December results are available online so you’ll know who I mean.

It’s interesting that Wal-Mart broke with some really good ads that communicated their value statement while at the same time they broke with blockbuster pricing. The turnaround in sales also reflected a much better shopping experience in the remodeled stores that I visited. Costco’s results continue to be amazing in view of their lack of any advertising. The store experience says it all. Flat screen TV’s were the hot items and these stores had displays that rivaled the big electronics stores and were a lot less confusing to shop.

Macy’s announced that while it now had its logo on hundreds of stores in every market (which produce lousy sales), they were expanding their San Francisco web offices due to increases in their online business. The amount of gift card sales only punctuates our customers’ lack of enthusiasm to shop for actual gifts and other traditional holiday items.

The time to start building Holiday 2008 sales is now. Stores need to take a look at their marketing efforts and research their brand position and start NOW to provide a reason for customers to shop them now and on an ongoing basis. It’s the only way to build a better business all year.

RAC CHICAGO---A GOOD PLACE TO START.
To get inspired and re-energize your branding efforts, start out by attending this year’s Retail Advertising Conference in Chicago on February 6-8. The program promises to be one of the best in helping you make your marketing message “stick” with your customers. Click this link to get all the information about this year’s program and registration.