Author Archives: Sarah Rand, Director, NRF

Sarah Rand

Read more about Sarah at the NRF.com website.

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Mar04

Creative guru Robert Raible elected to Advertising Hall of Fame

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 4, 2010

Since legendary marketer Clyde Bedell was awarded the first RAMA Hall of Fame Award in 1955, each year has brought a new, deserving addition to the elite group. Last night at the Racies, Sears’ VP of Brand Integration Robert Raible was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame by the RAMA Board.
Robert has made his mark on [...]

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Posted in: Events | Marketing | Video Tagged Innovate 10, Racie awards, Retail Hall of Fame, Robert Raible, Sears Holdings Corp |

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Mar04

Express organizes for ease of business

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 4, 2010

Posted in Education | Events | Marketing | eCommerce

Lisa Gavales was upfront about her message. She told the audience that her point of view would be controversial. Many of the retailers in the room undoubtedly agreed with her.
As the EVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Express, Gavales says retailers are more successful if they are organized for the customer, not by channel.
She means it too: [...]

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Posted in: Education | Events | Marketing | eCommerce Tagged Express, Innovate 10, Lisa Gavales |

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Mar04

3 digital trends for 2010

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 4, 2010

Posted in Education | Events | Retail Trends | Video | eCommerce

Covering 10 digital trends for 2010 in less than 20 minutes isn’t easy, but Resource Interactive’s Dan Shust managed to do just that yesterday afternoon.
I’m going to be a real tease this morning and share only three of them with you – in no particular order, but don’t worry, I’ll include a video below so you [...]

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Mar04

Moosejaw entertains – and educates – Innovate audience

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 4, 2010

Posted in Education | Events | Marketing | Video

Gary Wohlfeill, Creative Director at Moosejaw, had Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference attendees laughing from his introduction asking for feedback on his new haircut, examples from their “pantless” back-to-school campaign, and the company’s success with an SMS program. Watch a few of these moments below and read more about this session.

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Posted in: Education | Events | Marketing | Video Tagged Gary Wohlfeill, Innovate 10, Moosejaw |

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Mar03

The best customer is the engaged customer (especially if he’s laughing)

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 3, 2010

What’s the difference between a net promoter score of 56% and 74% for Moosejaw? Engagement.
Moosejaw has also found that 40% of actively engaged customers have purchased four or more times, while only 15% of customers that aren’t actively engaged have purchased four or more times.
Considering they have the statistics, it’s not a surprise that engaging [...]

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Mar03

Williams-Sonoma CMO offers advice to retail execs

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 3, 2010

If you haven’t read Ellen Davis’ detailed account of Williams-Sonoma CMO Pat Connolly’s session today – where he discussed the economy, branding, the importance of creating a community, and more – you should.
And if you have, you may appreciate even more the video of Connolly’s closing remarks from his keynote at today’s Retail Innovation & [...]

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Mar03

Five things you need to know about engaging your customers

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 3, 2010

Posted in Education | Events | Marketing | Retail Companies | Retail Trends

In a world of what Marketspace’s Jeffrey Rayport calls Meet Customers 3.0, where customers are specifying the kind of relationships they have with brands, we have moved from CRM to CMR – Customer Relationship Management to Customer Managed Relationship.
During his keynote at today’s Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference, Rayport discussed the implications that the [...]

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Posted in: Education | Events | Marketing | Retail Companies | Retail Trends Tagged Customer Managed Relationship, customer ratings, Facebook, Gilt, Honda, Innovate 10, iPhone app, Jeffrey Rayport, Marketspace, Nespresso, Netflix, Scion, Threadless, Toyota, twitter |

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Mar03

All the buzz at Innovate: The MingleStick

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 3, 2010

Posted in Events | Technology

How many business cards do you share and collect during a typical conference? Ten? A few dozen? A hundred? If Innovate attendees brought business cards to exchange this year, they might as well leave them in the hotel room because this year, we have gone digital.
Thanks to Certona, each attendee can [...]

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Posted in: Events | Technology Tagged Anthony Capizzano, business contacts, Certona, consumer transaction, Innovate 10, MingleStick |

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Mar02

Seven tips for building and deploying effective mobile sites

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 2, 2010

Posted in Education | Events | Retail Companies | Retail Trends | Technology

On multiple occasions at today’s Mobile Boot Camp, mobile retailing was referred to as the “wild, wild west.” Here are seven tips Sitemini’s Marci Troutman and the expert panelists from Wet Seal, Netbiscuits, Digby, and Zumobi shared to help attendees navigate (and thrive) the newly-charted territory.
1. Customers are expecting a rich experience, so retailers need [...]

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Posted in: Education | Events | Retail Companies | Retail Trends | Technology Tagged business analytics, Digby, Innovate 10, Marci Troutman, mobile applications, Mobile Boot Camp, mobile retailing, mobile strategy, Netbiscuits, Ran Farmer, Siteminis, Wet Seal, Zumobi |

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Mar02

How two retailers used SMS to increase sales

By Sarah Rand, Director, NRF | Published: March 2, 2010

Posted in Events

In a session this afternoon on creating a text messaging program with the end goal of increasing sales, speakers agreed that the first step is building a database. Ric Hattabaugh from mobileStorm shared two case studies of retailers who built an SMS database and achieved an incredible, measurable ROI.
Ashley Furniture HomeStores used incentives to build [...]

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Posted in: Events Tagged Ashely Furniture HomeStores, Innovate 10, mobileStorm, Planet Funk |

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