The era of big data is not only here, it’s exploding! Retailers of all stripes are collecting consumer purchases and preferences, totally eclipsing reliance on demographics. So says Stuart Aitken at a luncheon sponsored by CREW (Commercial Real Estate Women), which I had a chance to attend on May 14. Aitken is CEO of dunnhumby USA, a marketing services company, which is a joint venture of the Kroger Co. and London-based dunnhumby Ltd.

Founded back in 2002, dunnhumby USA tracks shoppers through loyalty programs that in turn allow it to provide “customer management, relevance marketing, analysis and insight services.” Other clients include P&G, PepsiCo, Kellogg and Kraft. Continue reading →

Just about everyone is talking about the new hook up between Target and Facebook.

Target is rolling out Cartwheel, a service that pairs a social network with “deal” pricing. Target’s new program (about a year in development) relies on customers using their Facebook accounts to select the deals they want online. But, the payoff is actually in-store, when the customer presents a barcode (either on paper or mobile screen) at a bricks-and-mortar Target to get the special offer pricing. It grows more “social” when a shopper can see what offers their FB friends have chosen, while claiming them generates automatic News Feed posts on Facebook (unless the user turns them off). Continue reading →

Diva’s heading back to San Francisco this month—woo hoo! Why, you ask? Well because DDI Magazine’s fifth CitySCENE networking event will take place in San Francisco on May 23, 6 p.m.-8 p.m. at The Westin St. Francis, at 355 Powell St. In case you haven’t been to a CitySCENE event yet, Diva has the deets: CitySCENE is a series of local networking events across the country designed to bring like-minded peers from the retail design industry together for casual conversation and cocktails—and it’s free to attend!

The event, which first debuted last May in San Francisco, returns for a second stop in the lovely Bay Area, and not to mention at a lovely location (Diva loooves The Westin St. Continue reading →

We’ve been reading and hearing quite a lot about signs these days and that got us thinking. Contemplating the craft of making signs and the role signs play in our lives—how signs reflect the intersection of art and commerce.

I visited the new home of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, prompted by a recent segment on “Antiques Roadshow.”

The museum boasts one-of-a-kind signs befitting retail Main Street of a bygone time. We’re talking hand-lettered, hand-painted, gold-leafed, porcelain enamel and, yes, neon ones that reflect individual shopkeeps and the community they served, well before graphic design co-opted the word “identity” (remember a discipline called “commercial art”?). Continue reading →

Like this is a newsflash (?): Women are increasingly shopping online, but still make purchases in a store. (Note Diva J’s April 10 post.)

But, here are some stats to back up what we already suspected, plus a few more nuggets from the second annual “SheSpeaks/Lippe Taylor Women’s Buying Behavior Index.” The study collected the responses of 2,152 women over the past two months to get a handle on buying habits and forecast purchasing trends of American women.

Among the findings: When asked which method they use most to research products, 71 percent chose laptops, 18 percent selected mobile/tablet, while 6 percent preferred browsing in a store. Continue reading →