Marketing Pop Culture

Minneapolis, Shopper Marketing and Gilly Hicks

You may have noticed that I typically don't blog about my day job.  However, today was the first day of the PMA's Shopper Marketing Summit.  I've never been to Minneapolis before, so it was a special treat to have a tour of the Mall of America.  According to the presentation from EVP Maureen Basch, there's over 4 million square feet of retail space and they're about to add another 5 million with a new development.  Also, there's a very cool amusement park that puts my local Chuck E. Cheese to shame.  Nickelodeon just took over from the estate of Minneapolis native and Peanuts creator Charles Schultz.  Take a look:

A store that caught my eye was Gilly Hicks (here and here), a concept that is backed by Abercrombie & Fitch.  Basically, they sell women's underwear, and expect to compete with Victoria's Secret for 20-something women.  Whereas Victoria's Secret is bright, GH feels like a club filled with lots of nooks and crannies, you know, places where you might hook up. 

Also, this event gave me a chance to try some live twittering via Twitterberry, a twitter application for Blackberry.  Apparently, Twitter was having some problems, but overall it works pretty well.  You can see all of my tweets from the day here.  Feel free to subscribe, if you like.

Sign o' the times: NY retailers accepting Euros

In an effort to cater to the flood of European tourists coming to NY, area businesses are starting to accept payment in Euros.  According to the Daily News:

In fact, one city store, East Village Wines, recently started taking euros as well as greenbacks to draw in travelers, as well as locals who fly often between continents. “We get quite a bit” of the currency, said the store’s manager, Imran Ahmed. “Tourists bump into us and get a kick out of it.”

The article notes, however, that there are some hurdles to overcome in order for this to become a full-fledged trend:

Conversion costs would eat into profits, he said. Stores also would have to amend their bookkeeping systems to reflect sales (and sales taxes) in another currency.

The full article is here.

The power of scarcity

We all know that low supply and high demand drive prices up.  Makes sense, right?  Thing is, it's rare (I think) to see this relationship so starkly displayed.  Even though it's the holiday season, I still find this surprising.

Apparently, it's not just the Nintendo Wii that's scarce, but also some of the games that go with it.  My colleague hipped me to the following.  Turns out on Monday that someone on eBay paid just over $9,100 for a copy of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.  Don't believe me?  Then check out this link.  The comments and the sellers responses are interesting, too.

Oh, by the way, it retails on Amazon for $49.

Just to get a Wii

Some of you out there have wee ones--or not so wee ones--on your holiday list who have requested a Wii.  Even at this "early" date, there is some product scarcity.  One of my colleagues told me that the Toys R Us near her was only getting 100 in on a shipment this past weekend.  So, she showed up Sunday morning at 6:30AM to stand in line, get a Wii Wonka ticket and was the happy recipient of #36.  Sad note: Everyone who didn't get a ticket prior to the store opening was told to go home.

Point is, you can either dedicate yourself to showing up at some retail outlet at an ungodly hour, risk paying a premium by shopping online, or. . .

You can check out a recent and highly useful post by Forrester's Charlene Li, who offers some tips on how to use a variety of digital and brick and mortar tools and techniques to score one.

If you're really in the market for a Wii, do yourself a favor and follow this link.