We recently spoke to Julie Krueger, the senior vice president of e-commerce and direct marketing at OfficeMax, about the company’s efforts to build relationships with busy working moms through chic merchandising, lifestyle presentations, social media, mobile, and more. Here’s a snippet from the full case study:

Ms. Krueger: In an industry that is rather utilitarian, we wanted to position the company differently, but not with “fu-fu” stuff. I’m talking about using a little color—besides manila—to decorate your office. While a few high-end niche companies offer fashion, traditional office supply vendors do not.

We approached many vendor partners and asked them to help us. There was not a lot of interest. So we started designing and sourcing the products ourselves. We created a proprietary brand that includes new designs of everyday items such as file folders and binders—and, as in apparel, we introduce new designs twice a year.

(Read more…)

Let’s be blunt. What the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been telling the online ad industry is simple:

Either you create and put into practice effective ways to regulate the use of consumer data and give the public tools to control the privacy of that data, or we – and probably Congress – will impose restrictive regulations and laws on your industry.

As reported yesterday by The New York Times, one segment of the online ad industry – the Future of Privacy Forum – has implemented a first step in this process: The I-Button. This little icon (see above) is designed to be added to online ads that use demographic and behavioral data for targeting, to inform Internet users why they’re seeing that ad.

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There are at least 3 points to consider about Yahoo!, which released its full year 2009 revenues on January 26th.

1) Compared with search advertising revenues, display advertising is becoming more important than ever to Yahoo! (which just reinforces the necessity of the Bing deal with Microsoft).

2) Yahoo!’s Q4 results indicate that brand spending is slowly coming back overall, not just for that company but in the overall US online ad market.

3) Back to search: Google is continuing to eat not only Yahoo!’s lunch, but its breakfast as well.

The backstory for those 3 points can be fleshed out by these 5 related spending trends, all US market only (which made up 73% of the company’s 2009 revenues): (Read more…)

Today, Apple will unveil the latest in a line of evolutionary moves to reinvent an existing product category. As detailed by Silicon Alley Insider, Apple has a steep hill to climb if it hopes to overcome a long history of failed attempts in tablet computing. Then again, with the iPod and iPhone, Apple has proven that it excels at polishing up a readily available product with superior design and a pleasing, intuitive user interface and then promoting it with the company’s trademark marketing prowess.

(Read more…)

January 26, 2010 should have been a red letter day for the UK. At last: The official announcement that the longest, deepest recession since the second world war was at an end. But the growth registered by the economy in the last quarter of 2009 was decidedly underwhelming, at 0.1%. Moreover, fears persist that the country may succumb to a “double dip” recession—and slide into negative growth again this year.

The continuing financial squeeze prolongs pressure on advertisers and marketers to watch every penny. In practice, that should reinforce the importance and momentum of online spending in the UK, while traditional media struggle. GroupM, for example, has forecast that only Internet and mobile ad spending will increase in 2010.

There are hopes that consumer confidence will rise as spring arrives, and help to ensure the recovery stays on track. Confidence levels climbed substantially between a record low in January 2009 and the end of the year, according to the Nationwide Building Society.  But expectations are still fragile, said Nationwide, and most consumers will need encouragement to spend.