Nordstrom has conquered the urge to celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving. The retailer announced its decision to respect the calendar and common sense by hanging signs declaring that they will wait until the day after Thanksgiving, the earliest acceptable moment, to display their Christmas decorations. The vainglorious announcement is an important indicator that Nordstrom’s competitors have overdone the unseasonable cheerfulness schtick.
marketing
Store Says It Can Prove There Is Seaweed In Its Clothing
By 11.16.07
The New York Times recently tested some “Vitasea” seaweed clothing from athletic clothing store Lululemon Athletica and could not find any evidence that there was any actual seaweed in the fabric. Lululemon disagrees.
Beware "Newsvertising"
By 11.15.07
Strapped for cash and time, local news stations are turning to a quick fix to slap together news stories. They’re called VNRs or “video news releases.” Basically a PR firm puts together a package with background footage, interviews, and even helpful scripts. The package seeks to promote products, persons, or to massage public opinion on issues in ways favorable to corporations. All the local station has to do is have one of their reporters do a voice over and boom, you got yourself some news. The problem is that news is being shaped by a subjective entity with a commercial interest at stake, and there’s no disclosure to the viewers that they’re not watching independent reporting.
"Seaweed" Clothing Lacks Seaweed, Tests Show
By 11.14.07
Have you purchased sportswear at Lululemon Athletica? If you have, you’re not alone, the store is doing quite well selling “organic” sportswear made of odd materials with dubious heath benefits.
U.S. Online Advertising Is Booming
By 11.14.07
Thank the gods for Firefox+Adblock, because spending on web advertising in the U.S. hit a new high in the 3rd quarter of 2007, pushing the total for the first 9 months of this year to $15.2 billion, up more than 3 billion from the same period in 2006. Says an exec at Interactive Advertising Bureau, which helped prepare the report, “Marketers large and small have come to accept digital media as the fulcrum of any marketing strategy.”
Starbucks To Sue Small Michigan Coffee Shop For Trademark Infringement
By 11.12.07
Better not use a green circle for your coffee shop logo because Starbucks has lawyers and they’ll sue ya. Conga Coffee & Tea, a small two-store operation in Michigan, is being threatened with a lawsuit because their logo bears “striking resemblance” to Starbucks’ famous mermaid logo. At least that’s what Starbucks says.
Food Frauds: Special K Fruit & Yogurt And DanActive "Immunity" Drink
By 11.8.07
Food marketing is largely made up of lies, but everyone already knows that. The CSPI, however, likes to find foods that are especially fraudulent in their marketing claims. These made us laugh for some reason, so we thought we’d share them with you.
By 11.5.07
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Know that story about the guy who supposedly invented subliminal advertising, where they would flash secret messages faster than the eye could perceive and get you to buy more Coke and such? Besides being shown to be completely ineffective, the guy who “discovered” it actually made the whole thing up as a gimmick to get more business for his marketing research company. [WSJ] (subscription-free link)
MySpace Advertising To Become Much More Targeted
By 11.5.07
“We’re looking at everything people put into their profiles and what their friends are into,” said Arnie Gullov-Singh, a Fox Interactive vice president.
Retailing Consortium Launches PRISM To Collect Data On Shoppers' Behavior
By 11.3.07
A consortium of retailers and consumer suppliers are working with Nielsen Co., famous for its nonsensical television ratings system, to launch a large-scale study of consumer behavior in stores. The program is called PRISM, which stands for “Pioneering Research for an In-Store Metric,” and it uses infrared sensors and manual counting, as well as genetic clones of our loved ones, to monitor not just what we buy but how we go about buying it. “About 70% of final purchase decision are made at the shelf,” says a Procter & Gamble rep. “The store has always been important – we just didn’t know enough about it.”
Irrational Humans Trying To Be Rational Buyers
By 11.2.07
I was listening to one of personal productivity maven’ David Allen’s teleseminars and he said something incisive about the impulse to buy fancy stuff. People think they want to buy a sports car, Allen said, but maybe what they really want is the sense of freedom they think a sports car will give them. Advertisers understand this and use it to get you to buy stuff. It’s the principle of “selling the sizzle, not the steak.”
Secrets Of Why Direct Mail Works
By 11.1.07
Direct mail still works whether you want it to or not, which is why you’ll continue to get subscription requests, membership invitations, donation pleas, and coupons every day the mail runs. Here’s a list of tricks direct mail marketers use to increase the odds that their mailings will be opened. It’s written for marketers, but in the advertising arms race everything is fair game, so we felt it was worth showing Consumerist readers as well.
UPDATE: Taping Pre-Paid Business Reply Envelopes To Packages Does Not Work
By 11.1.07 — Updated: 2.28.14
Yesterday we told you that one way to get back at junk mailers is to tape their business reply envelopes (BRE) to heavy boxes and send them back, but it turns out this doesn’t work. It used to, up until the mid-90’s you could apparently tape a BRE to a coffin and the Post Office would mail it. Now, BRE’s can only be used the way junk mailers want them to be used, for the conduct of junk-mail related transactions. [More]
Circular Delivery Guys Are An Unstoppable Force
By 11.1.07
Every two weeks everyone on my block gets a bag full of coupons. It’s a bit annoying and certainly a waste of trees. I kick them right to the curb for recycling. One time I even tracked down the company and asked for them to stop delivering to building. They said, oh yeah sure, it may take a few weeks, but we’ll take you off the list. The coupons have never stopped.
AOL Announces It Will Let Users Block Targeted Ads
By 11.1.07
On the same day that consumer groups called for “Do Not Track” lists to preserve consumer privacy, AOL pre-emptively announced a new service that they say will let users opt out of receiving targeted ads. “Choosing to opt out sends a cookie to a user’s computer that blocks the ads from appearing. AOL’s system prevents the deletion of the opt-out cookie.”
Should There Be A "Do Not Track" List For Internet Users?
By 11.1.07
Several consumer groups have joined together to request that the FTC implement a “Do Not Track” list for online use, which would allow Internet users to request that they be told in advance any time their online patterns are being tracked for advertising purposes. They submitted a formal request today, before the FTC’s 2-day workshop begins tomorrow where it will “study the increasing use of tracking technology to target online ads.”
Junk Mail Revenge: Taping Pre-Paid Business Reply Envelopes To Packages Works?
By 10.31.07
This Instructable covers the time-honored art of sending refuse back to junk mailers in their own pre-paid business reply envelopes. What’s interesting, though, is in the comments on the Instructable one guy says that you can take the business reply envelopes and tape them to boxes and the post office will accept it! This greatly increases the scope, range, and weight of the objects that you can send back to junk mailers. Broken lightbulbs, bricks, this week’s trash, your imagination is the limit. (Don’t forget to visit optoutprescreen.com first to get yourself permanently off 95% of junk mail lists). [More]
