Holiday Marketing 2015

[CCarter]

JCPenny seems to be in the same boat as Macys with no affiliate program. The only thing which came up with going to Google was that suspect FlexOffers site so if they do have one it's well hidden, guess it makes it easier for their affiliate team to not work too hard.

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JC Penny isn't going all in with the holiday season just yet. I think it's smart for their brand to be honest:

Their homepage is pretty on point, and I signed up for the email sign up in the footer, opened a nice pop-up to confirm I was added to their email list then I also had the option of creating an account from there. It was extremely slick and well done (Similar setup to Home Depot):

There is a gift section on their home page that I like. In fact it has a scroller which is pretty slick. It organizes potential gifts by price ($5 and up, $25, $50, and $100), then slides right and the next option is by category (women, men, kids, etc). It then has a "Gift Finder" which I might explore later on, and then the last scroll is for Gift Cards:

Fun Fact: Over $45 billion in Gift Cards have not been redeemed since 2005. (source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...in-gift-cards-havent-been-redeemed-since-2005) Meaning people are paying for $25 or $100 gift cards, wasting money, and the receiver doesn't even bother spending that money. Basically that shit is just easy money for brands. Give a real gift people or give cash, gift cards are a scam, but don't let consumers know that, we're marketers here so create a gift card program for your brand and get that extra free cash.

I'm really feeling JC Penny's Gift Section, I love the categorization, and it's an easy way to funnel people as a consumer. I'm thinking they are #1 right now for me in terms of the on-site holiday experience. Amazon is a beast and is still #1 with their marketing effort though.

 

[CCarter]

And now the king... ToysRUs. Why are they the king? Cause they are the first institution that indoctrinates kids and gets them into the "want, want, want" mentality. They start grooming the youths of america into the consumer mindset that stays with them through adolescents and adulthood. The wants may change - but the "wanting" never really does.

Its interesting since the human brain's mind does most of it's development through out childhood and up until about 25 years of age. Starting off this early in the stage of development with wanting pretty much imprints children to consume. Whenever I visit the colonies and my driver drives me pass a ToysRus, I still get that urge to look through the damn Toys R Us Catalog Book for the latest toys, cause I was imprinted this way. Even though I now only visit the colonies to handle some of my investment affairs, the savagery is still embedded within me. It's like as soon as the jet lands the savage consumerism takes over, beasts I tell you, beasts of the machine.

Let's take a look at the king's setup for the holiday seasons.

^^ Classic upfront and center the ToysRus Toy Catalog book, these savages' kids must be salavating for that sucker. I notice they are pushing Halo 5. It's interesting cause Halo 5 is the first Halo to no longer be rated "MA for mature", but now rated "T for Teen", so I guess ToysRus can greenlight it all day. They've got a nice slider at the top, and one slide talks about their free shipping on items $19 and over:

^^ Free shipping is always a plus. Now inside they got a nice breakdown of the different categories in a kid friendly whimsical style. I like the setup, can't argue; they got the latest toys, and interesting enough Darth Vadar comes onto the scene. At the bottom all you see is "free" this and "free" that, so they know the buttons to push:

I will note when I signed up for an account, then went to change my email preferences just to see what's up, it logged me out and I couldn't log back in with the credentials I JUST setup. LOL, wow. I was just in, then it booted me out and told me they have no idea who I am... Sears level idiocy:

They do have an affiliate program with ImpactRadius.com, who I personally have never heard of and rather not create any more accounts with affiliate programs.

I'll keep my eye on these folks, and maybe their system will figure it out and let me back in, I haven't received a confirmation email yet, so that might be it, but it's been over 20 mins, unless... it's in junk mail.

 

[backwoods]

Impact Radius is legit. They created and co-founded Commission Junction.

 

[contract]

Impact Radius is legit. They created and co-founded Commission Junction.

Impact Radius took over Bodybuilding.com's affiliate program awhile back.

They fucked over a lot of people/affiliates in the process. It was a mess.

Other way around, CJ 1998 > IR in 2008.

 

[CCarter]

I was having a conversation with @tim2963 about why Amazon took the #1 spot away from Walmart a little while back and the reason Walmart is NEVER going to be able to take that spot back, unless they change.

It comes down to being willing to do what the competition is unwilling to do. Let that sink in.

Amazon's little dirty secret is they sell hundreds of thousands of sex toys worldwide, where-as Walmart is unwilling to do that. Online shopping with discreet shipping is the perfect way to get sex toys which ordinarily is looked down upon by society.

Amazon has not drawn attention to the expansion of its sex business, which went largely unnoticed until Mark Morford, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote a column this month praising the retailer for "merely folding the toys into their massive array of general offerings". (Sauce: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9119263/n...times/t/amazon-quietly-cashes-sex-toy-market/)​

Link to the article by Mark Morfold: Quality Sex-Toys Save The World / Revealed! The glorious location of the world's largest adult goods store you never knew existed

Some LULZ:

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Stats on the types of sex toys sold, one of the source being Amazon.com of course: Sex Toy Statistics

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Major health-products retailers are jumping into the adult toy business under the guise of offering healthcare products. Walmart and CVS are representative of this trend, both featuring products from Durex and Trojan. However, Amazon remains the largest purveyor of adult toys, offering an estimated 60,000 items.

(Sauce: http://www.alternet.org/sex-amp-rel...x-toy-industry-tells-us-about-sexuality-today)​

What's really ironic is in the USA, sex is considered dirty, filthy, and vile - yet it is the ONLY thing which can create new life - you can't get a baby without the act of sex (minus any technological advances) - yet that baby's creation process is seen as filthy - Why? cause of religion. These savage's religion has them in unnatural monogamous relationships and have confused them to the point they have to expand their sexual desires pass what even wild animals would consider "normal".

Enter the sex toys, which aren't cheating and allow these savages to have a new experience in their sexually frustrated lives. Let's look at Walmart's "dildo" selection versus Amazon's, tell me what you think:

^^ 2 actual toys along with 2 books, for a grand total of 4 items. And taking a look at Amazon using the same keyword 'dildo':

^^ 15,223 items in Amazon's selection. What's the lesson to take away from this?

Sex is the reason why men buy things they really don't need to show potential female mates they are financially well off and can take care of them. This primal instinct is the reason females flock to rich men in droves - NO MATTER how un-attractive they are or how they make them feel emotionally. That wealth trumps all of that since it provides "safety", knowing they don't have to worry about where their next meal will come from and knowing any potential offspring will be taken care of. Don't get mad at women for this - everyone craves safety at some level, but I just clued you males out there on how to get almost any woman which you desire.

But this post isn't about sex, it's about Amazon being willing to do what Walmart is unwilling to do, and profit handsomely for it. The amount of sex toys Amazon sells trumps ANY OTHER CATEGORY. PERIOD. FULL STOP.

So what's the real take away, if you are going up against serious competition and need to overcome major obstacles in order to get to your goal, then be willing to do what others, especially your competition, are un-willing to do.

And now to really break the internetz:

I'll be in my bunk...

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Oh and I got some stuff on Sears... oh man, it's just so sad I've been trying to hold off on it... But I have to keep you kids informed.

 

[CCarter]

JCPenny's welcome email, extremely bland, don't even know why they bothered sending it to be honest:

^^ Tons of missed opportunities to upsell me, even talking about some generic items not needing to be holiday specific would be "SOMETHING", versus this nothingness.

 

[CCarter]

This is the difference between incompetent executives and competent managers that disregard what knuckleheads executive in the USA are doing and do things properly:

This is Sears.com (USA's email):

And this is their counterparts in Canada. Note the spam score is actually negative! -3.9, that's lower then Facebook's -0.7 or Twitter's 0.9 score:

^ How? How can your team in Canada literally outshine your main organization, and are even able to out do Facebook and Twitter in the lowest-spam score? It's mind boggling how the incompetent executives are screwing up Sears.com, yet their Canadian counterparts are extremely on point.

Unfucking believable.

 

[CCarter]

I searched my emails and found this from Best Buy, their welcome email, which I didn't post yet - completely uninspiring (But I do like they have a Spanish version of their site smart move):

Whereas Lands End is phenomenal:

^^ They've got a couple of discount specials, similar to Macy's 15% for creating an account, and they've got their refer a friend program right in there, this is perfect for consumers that like getting extras for referring people. Affiliate programs work folks, especially ones where you don't have to pay out money, and instead can give discounts out for referring.

"Refer A Friend and you can EACH get $25 off of $75", nice...

I'm also thinking they have the opportunity to take it another step further and use seasonal images since this is a welcome email. Just remember they just got out of the grips of Sears' incompetent executives so it'll take them a bit to get their footing, but for now, they are on pace with being one of the best welcome emails so far. (Anyone interested their spam score is 1.4).

 

[animalstyle]

What are you using to measure the spam score?

 

[CCarter]

What are you using to measure the spam score?

Every email you get has a spam score inside the header at some level. Viewing the header information of an email is a bit tricky cause it contains alot of, what would seem, gibberish to normal users so you'll need to fiddle around with your view options within your own email program/client to view it.

 

[animalstyle]

@CCarter Thanks very much for the info and this thread.

 

[CCarter]

@CCarter Thanks very much for the info and this thread.

Thanks. I got a ton of updates coming - Lands' End, Tiger Direct, and Sears Canada are going at me pretty hard, Walmart and Target have me in their sights too. Macy's starting off slow, but maybe they'll pick it up. Curiously Amazon is missing from the equation, at least not at the aggressive level I expected from them, but it's still early in the game, we've got till Dec 26th for this to wrap up.

I'm going to have to group the next round of updates, cause they are all coming back to back with emails - obviously Sears USA is no where to be found, not even in junk/spam folder - utter failure.

 

[CCarter]

I'm starting to look at this more from a marketing perspective versus a holiday perspective - a bit more exciting. Bloomingdales does have mention of the holidays though. They've got some creative copywriters too "Merry Must-Haves For Her". I'm liking this. And as I'm seeing more they have this "Gift Guide" in orange, very nice setup (I might circle back with them regarding that):

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The account creation was a bit tedious, I unfortunately am starting to get used to everyone asking for everything. The good thing is they actually asked if they could send stuff to me as an option and the different categories, I like that. For some reason there isn't a women's category though - that seems like a huge slip up.

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Welcome email was 'bla' like the rest, it's a good design, but doesn't take consideration into the season, which these people definitely should be able to, just another missed opportunity to get me to buy right now:

 

[CCarter]

Here is the Bloomingdales gift guide. I like the sidebar filters at the top left. It'll get the people into the right mind set, Under $50, Under $100, or Luxe, fucking nice. They also to the categorization pretty well, with images of what might be on the other side for "Her", "Him", "Kids", and "Home".:

 

[CCarter]

Since we don't live in a bubble and a part of marketing is PR spin let's throw in a little politics...

I wasn't even aware of this, but apparently Donald Trump's been at war with Macy's and called for a boycott around July. Something about immigration (DONALD TRUMP MACY'S TAKES IT IN THE SHORTS ...Over Firing).

Sources connected to the department store tell TMZ, Macy's has received complaints from approximately 30,000 customers since ending its relationship with Trump nearly 2 weeks ago.

We're told the store has been "inundated with complaints" from customers who believe the department store is unfairly punishing Trump for his views on immigration.​

So I took a look at Macy's stock cause I saw this tweet from Donald Earlier today:

And now the stock:

^^ dafaq. The reports I'm seeing is a 2.9% drop in second quarter revenue which was 'shocking'. I'm not saying Trump did it cause of his boycott, but I'm also not saying he didn't. There are some 30-40 stores being closed by Macys, the weakest performers. It would be interesting to get locations of those stores and do an overlay of Trump best supporters, and see if there any overlap.

Anyways, The Motley Fool reports (http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/10/05/macys-inc.aspx(, that poor sales are the reason. But they mention that there is a strong focus on digital sales and Macy's website in particular, and some apps, to boost sales since everything is going digital.

That drop is a bit drastic in July to not attribute it to something, not saying Trump and his boycott, but this could be another symptom of everyone going digital for their overall shopping - at least that's what Macy's PR team would have you believe. And I too would believe it, but that sudden drop like that...

Well - Another one might bit the dust. I would never think Macy's of all places would go out of business before Sears, not that they are closer then Sears, but damn, that drop isn't looking pretty. Looking at Sears' stock quote in the same 5 year timeframe:

^^ they're lower and still dropping, but this sudden Macy's drop is a steeper decline than Sears' decline... makes you wonder... Trump 2016?

 

[Calamari]

Now this thread has sex and politics.

If this thread was a dream it would be a wet one!

 

[CCarter]

Some of our friends on my list are getting into a bit of hotwater for being open on Thanksgiving day, but reality is - people keep coming to their stores, so they'll keep opening earlier and earlier - cause of CAPITALISM, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/18/stores-open-thanksgiving-2014-black-friday_n_6154492.html

Here is the list, and their PR spin:

1. Walmart - Opens at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"Black Friday is no longer an event for customers who wake up at the crack of dawn to get good deals."​

2. Kmart - Opens at 6 a.m. on Thanksgiving. (This seems a bit desperate, Sears Holdings..)

"This holiday season is all about giving more to our members and because many like to start shopping well before Black Friday, we’re excited to open our doors early on Thanksgiving and offer other early access opportunities for them to shop and save."​

3. Sears - Opens at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"I'd also like to especially thank our seasonal associates and those who have volunteered to share part of the day serving our members on Thanksgiving."​

4. Macy's - Opens at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"We work diligently to staff Thanksgiving with associates who volunteer to work and doing so means that our people are able to make their own decisions about how they contribute to our most important and busiest weekend of the year. We also heard last year from many associates who appreciated the opportunity to work on Thanksgiving so they could have time off on Black Friday. Additionally, associates who work an opening shift on Thanksgiving will be compensated with incentive pay."​

5. J.C. Penney - Opens at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"In keeping with the spirit of the holiday, we have many exciting activities and giveaways planned to show just how much we appreciate the hard work and dedication of our associates. Activities and giveaways include swag bags full of goodies, round-the-clock food to keep associates fueled for delivering excellent customer service, pep rallies to drive excitement and energy through the early morning hours of Black Friday, and drawings for fun prizes."​

6. Target - Opens at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"We know our guests are pulled in a million different directions as the holidays get underway, so we’re helping them save time and money by offering more access to Black Friday deals."​

^^ That was some good spin Target...

7. Kohl's - Opens at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"Kohl’s will be the most compelling shopping destination for the entire family this holiday season with our strong portfolio of sought-after national and private brands, our extensive online assortment and a deep list of exciting products that are new to Kohl’s this year."​

8. Best Buy - Opens at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"While we recognize the decision to open on Thanksgiving affects Best Buy employees, customers have made it clear that many of them want to begin shopping on Thanksgiving evening. In recent years, millions of Americans have shopped on Thanksgiving, and our store associates are excited and prepared to fulfill their holiday wish lists. Most thanksgiving evening shifts are filled by employees who volunteer to work. All hourly store employees who work on Thanksgiving will, of course, receive holiday pay."​

9. Staples - Opens at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving. (This seems like an odd one, cause I don't remember the last time I've even been to a Staples let alone think of them for christmas shopping)

"At Staples, we’re offering more savings throughout November with our first-ever Week of Black Friday for Business plus amazing deals the week of Black Friday through Cyber Monday. We also make less stress happen this holiday season with easy ways to shop in store, online and via mobile"​

10. Sports Authority - Opens at 6 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"Every Black Friday, we kick off the holiday season by offering our customers the best deals of the year. For the second year in a row, our customers can conveniently shop more than a hundred Black Friday Doorbusters on footwear, apparel, team sports, fitness equipment, golf gear and more starting at 6pm on Thanksgiving Day."​

11. Toys R Us - Opens at 5 p.m. on Thanksgiving.

"We have so much excitement leading up to Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Employees are really excited, it’s an event."​

12. Big Lots - Opens at 7 a.m. on Thanksgiving. (This might be too early, what the fuck do they even sell at Big Lots? Has anyone actually been in one of these stores?)

"Big Lots listens to its customers, and based on their feedback, Big Lots stores have been open on Thanksgiving for over 20 years. This year is no different."​

^^ No fucks given I guess...

13. RadioShack - Open from 8 a.m. to noon on Thanksgiving, and reopens at 5 p.m. The midday break came after the employees complained about having to fill shifts from 8 a.m. to midnight.

"Given the customer demand for store hours on Thanksgiving last year, we made the decision to open on Thanksgiving. It gives us the opportunity to stay competitive."​

14. Office Max & 15. Office Depot - Open from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thanksgiving. (These two also seem out of place)

"We know our customers want to make the most of their Thanksgiving holiday while also getting a head start on their shopping lists. That’s why we are so dedicated to providing customers with the extended store hours they want, along with great deals on some of the most highly sought-after gifts they need, both in stores and online."​

--

Mostly it's just about employees complaining from these articles, so it makes me wonder, since customers still line up to go shopping, even at fucking Staples, whether this is just a waste of time topic every year which only the media seems to be concerned about. Imagine this fucking world where the media companies are actually encouraging viewers to NOT spend money with THEIR advertisers - and stay at home and stuff their faces with food. There is so much level of ridiculousness in all of it, it's laughable. The smart marketers see the game the media is playing, see the game the big boys are playing, and the consumers - well shit they WANT to consume, so let them fucking consume, these savages run over each other and risk life and death - with people actually dying from being trampled over, for an extra 5% off, fucking savages...

I have a better chance of not getting gored at the running of the bulls versus getting in the way of a 400+ lbs American looking for an extra 5% off on Thanksgiving day hunting for a TV set that's probably going to be broken within 3 months cause of all the cheap parts. How the fuck can people buy TVs EVERY YEAR? I don't get it, what the fuck are you doing to your TV set you need a new one every year?

Good think Amazon doesn't have these problems... Oh wait, these idiots are trying to open up physical retail stores like the places they are crushing out of fucking business!! What the actual fuck? Sauce: Why Would Amazon Open a Real Bookstore?.

I swear one holiday I'm going to get a security job in the colonies just to watch these savages in their natural habitat. All you have to do is put an XX% off and they'll line up running towards it... wtf.

 

[CCarter]

Alright, let's start off with TigerDirect, These motherfuckers are relentless with their daily emails:

^^ These guys aren't fucking around, and this shit is becoming a full time job keeping up with all these promotions, so I'm going to run through this a bit quickly:

Nov 3rd, 2015

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Nov 4th, 2015

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Nov 5th, 2015

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Nov 6th, 2015

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Nov 7th, 2015

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Nov 8th, 2015

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Nov 9th, 2015

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Nov 10th, 2015 - Black Friday "PRE-Release" WTF

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Nov 11th, 2015

-

Nov 12th, 2015

This savagery is a bit much. I can't understand the type consumer which would accept this reality, an email every FUCKING DAY? FOREVER? They must be counting on users not seeing their emails daily, or just mentally filtering them out cause I can't figure out how this doesn't drive anyone mad.

I'll no longer be reporting on TigerDirect's activities or emails UNLESS they send out specifically holiday related items, cause this is just madness. I might do a weekly tally of the emails like the first image, but no longer pasting every single email I get cause it's overwhelming to me, and I'm a marketer! Fucking savages...

 

[CCarter]

This savagery knows no bounds. You kids thought I was fucking around when I said to do email marketing, look at the lengths the big boys go through to get customers into their stores. Land's End went from every 2 days, to daily emails starting the 7th:

These aren't random coincidences, they know how to get people to their sites, and it involves bombarding these consumers with deals every single fucking day...

People think email marketing doesn't work, if that was the case why would all these majors be sending so many emails? They aren't stupid, you don't keep doing something which doesn't work... You don't see them taking out whole page Yellow Page Ads...

I'm not sure what I was thinking on reporting on the marketing from the major brands during the holidays, LOL. I thought I would get 1-2 emails daily from the total collective, we're still 2 weeks away from Black Friday mates...

I also checked my email, and saw that Walmart emailed me 3 times today!! 2 of the emails were the same emails, just 1 hour apart, LOL WTF. I'll report on them in a follow up post, but here comes Land's end's savagery (And this will be my last report on these folks unless it's holiday season related as well):


Nov 4th, 2015

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Nov 6th, 2015

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Nov 7th, 2015

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Nov 8th, 2015

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Nov 9th, 2015

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Nov 10th, 2015

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Nov 11th, 2015

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Nov 12th, 2015

--

 

[CCarter]

And Fucking Sears (USA) hasn't sent me anything, Although Sears Canada is pounding my emails inbox left and right, and I'm checking junk mail everyday for Sears' emails, but nada. So I went to one of their old emails:

^^ I decided to click on one of these links to see what's going on with my account, and I get the fucking following:

^^ Another 404 error. This can't be real life. Sears loves these 404 errors. I'm speechless, I have no words or anything to say. This is just utter failure... I'm going to hunt down my account and see what's going on and why I'm not getting any emails, ridiculous I have to even do this.

Edit: A quick update, my Sears.com, and Kmart.com emails settings are perfect, I'm suppose to be getting emails from them, so the fact I am not, and nothing is getting into junk mail means they aren't sending any emails... You guys can probably start figuring out why Sears is going down the tubes... cause this is ridiculous.

 

[backwoods]

Weird, I get blasted on a daily basis from Sears.com and their ShopYourWay.com ... especially the ShopYourWay.com program... they are incredibly aggressive with their email marketing even during the non-holiday seasons.

 

[backwoods]

I'm signed up with quite a few retailers email newsletters as well and I've found the companies below to be quite aggressive with their email marketing (daily basis).

ebay.com
big5sportinggoods.com
SportsAuthority.com
Costco.com

Amazon.com allows you to pick and choose what emails you receive between a wide variety of specials, discounts, categories, etc. They will pound your email box with permission.

 

[Postmortis]

Getting emails from Twitter every 2 days now by the looks of it:

Despite this email below, the majority weren't that focused on Christmas:

For those curious, the guide can be found here.

The other emails didn't mention much about Christmas at all and focused more on Twitter's large user base:

To top it all off, the above email I received twice and a different 'Christmas' email was sent to me multiple times as well. You'd think they'd at least change it up a little bit.

 

[contract]

So..

Express, Staples, etc. are going hard on gift cards this year.

Using eBay to push sales way up. Example: 11,768 sold for Staples alone.

That's $2,000,560 in gift card sales.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/200-Staples...050639?hash=item419f73f3cf:g:4nMAAOSwjVVVqP9a

 

[emp]

Well... let's have some fun.

Here is the stock prices for all those for the last 10 years (+ebay, apple, and the Dow Jones thrown in)

See the growth of Google and Amazon?

Fucking hell, 1900% you say? wow..

Here comes the king. Apple. 2200% growth

::emp::