The retail industry had an exciting month this September, highlighted by the launch of NRF’s “Retail Means Jobs” campaign. The year-long campaign will work to educate lawmakers, consumers and the general public about the jobs, innovation and value retail brings to America. At the heart of the campaign is the study commissioned by NRF and conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which found that retail supports one-in-four American jobs and accounts for nearly 20% of U.S. GDP. Additionally, last month saw digital retail’s “most influential event,” Shop.org’s Annual Summit, come to pass in a big way with more than 4,000 attendees in Boston, MA. Now, let’s take a closer look at what was hot in retail for the month of September.
NRF information:
- September 11, 2011 marked the ten-year anniversary of one of the most devastating tragedies in U.S. history. NRF memorialized the events of September 11th by examining how retail security has evolved over the past decade and by profiling retailers who commemorate the day through charity and giving back to their community.
- Shop.org’s Annual Summit was hugely successful, due in large part to the number of “firsts” for the conference: its first time in Boston, first conference-specific mobile app, first live-streaming keynote session and first (but surely not the last) time hosting over 4,000 attendees. The content-rich keynotes and sessions yielded tons of quality blog coverage and happy attendees, which in turn makes NRF and Shop.org happy.
- The aforementioned “Retail Means Jobs” campaign, and its website: RetailMeansJobs.com, launched mid-September. The campaign is intended to promote an agenda for “Jobs, Innovation and Consumer Value” on behalf of the retail industry. The launch was buttressed by a media briefing, extensive ad buys across Washington, D.C. and subsequent significant media coverage.
- NRF’s President and CEO, Matthew Shay, spoke with Neil Cavuto about the desperate need for corporate tax reform. NRF is one of several prominent associations and companies who comprise the RATE coalition, a group seeking to lower the corporate tax rate. Shay and CEOs from AT&T, Boeing, FedEx, Lockheed Martin, Time Warner Cable, UPS, Verizon and Walt Disney sent a letter to President Obama and Members of Congress calling for reform to the federal tax system.
- Halloween is fast approaching and it appears the year’s scariest holiday is more popular than ever in 2011. According to NRF’s 2011 Halloween Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey conducted by BIGresearch, seven in 10 Americans (68.6%) plan to celebrate Halloween, up from 63.8 percent last year and the most in NRF’s nine-year survey history. Those celebrating are expected to spend slightly more too; the average person will shell out $72.31 on decorations, costumes and candy, up from $66.28 last year. Total Halloween spending is expected to reach $6.86 billion.
Top blog posts from Retail’s BIG Blog and Shop.org Blog:
- Columbia Sportswear: Reinventing its brand, one jacket (and boot) at a time
- Matthew Shay tells Neil Cavuto: Corporate tax code is “badly broken”
- Experts offer tips on reducing cart abandonment
- Retailers remember 9/11 through charity and volunteering
- Executives share why email still matters in a social media world
Top retail news stories in NRF SmartBrief: