I need to be very careful with this blog post. This is a “work” trip, not a “fun” trip. And according to my mom circa 1983, “work” is not spelled “f-u-n.” Except maybe now.

Today’s keynote was delivered by Jerry Storch, Chairman and CEO of Toys R Us, whose company motto is “Playing to win.” Think his job is no fun? He dropped a stat on us that proves otherwise: Kids rank a trip to Toys R Us just a fraction below a trip to Disneyland. Not sure if the employees would fill the survey out the same way, but they surely might. That’s because Jerry and the folks at Toys R Us are deeply engaged in some of the most fun and most… read more.

Once upon a time, in a job far, far away, I had a boss that inspired me with the following after a promotion “I’ll measure your success on how many calls I don’t get.” Gives you chills, doesn’t it? His words nearly sank me. Worse than that, attitudes like this guy’s could have sunk the company.

What that old boss was referring to was our co-op advertising program, the “below the line” activities that often happen in-store or within retailer-controlled media. Many old-school marketing directors, like my old boss, see co-op as a necessary evil—a contractual obligation that is time-consuming and, to be blunt, quite hemerrhoidal.… read more.

We’ve all seen this: A young couple shows up on the stadium JumboTron, and the guy gets down on a knee and pops the question, right there, in front of thousands of cheering and sometimes jeering fans. And the predictable outcome, although a bit sappy, ends happily: The girl says "yes," jumps into his arms and some sweaty guy in a replica jersey toasts the happy couple with a Bud Light. At least that was the plan a poor kid at a recent UCLA basketball game had. Except the girl said "ummmm…no." Ouch. That’s going to leave a mark – a big one.

Somewhere in that young lady’s mind, alarms were going off. She… read more.

The guy at the DJ stand is going to feel the wrath of Tom. He’s got a pretty high- energy soundtrack featuring some pretty hip mixes. But here’s the problem–it’s like a seven-minute loop. Madonna, I liked your new song before I got here and now I’m near violence. I can’t stand it anymore. If I knew where the DJ was plugged in, I’d rip the his power supply out of the wall. If you can’t keep it fresh, I’ll ignore you. Hmm, there’s a lesson there.

Day Three was all about mobile retail, shoppers armed with tools to make their shopping easier, more cost-effective and more exciting. And some retailers and suppliers are doing it.… read more.

Picking up where I left off yesterday with the whole ‘is it real’ theme, today the seventh grader who lives inside my head had me saying “Oh yeah? Well prove it.” practically the entire day. And I don’t mean that in a snarky, ‘I don’t believe you’ kind of way. There are just a lot of exciting things happening in the retail space and more than ever, we have ways to prove what we are doing is working. Or not.

Self-proclaimed retail nerd Jason Goldberg from CrossView ran my favorite… read more.

Much to my dismay, I discovered last night that my hotel room overlooks the volcano show at the Mirage Hotel. Every evening on the hour, my windows shake from the roar of the flames and spouting water. Which caused me to wonder: is “mirage” the name of the hotel or an explanation of everything Vegas? Perhaps the latter. That Italian marble? Fake. Those stone columns? Actually fiberglass. One thing you need to know about Las Vegas is that what you see is not necessarily what you get.

Inside the Sands Convention Center, GlobalShop is no exception. Across the myriad of vendor displays and supplier… read more.

Welcome back. I’m assuming you’ve read the Four Large Takeaways. At least I hope you did, because interactions between retailers and shoppers as well as those between retailers and manufacturers are important ones. You are now ready to graduate to the “Grande.” This final observation is of the “Do Not Pass Go” variety. There are a few golden rules in marketing, and this is one:

Listen and do
With apologies to Vincent Van Gogh, it’s symbolic that we all have two ears and one mouth: it’s an indication as to the proportion… read more.

I had the pleasure of going on a retail leadership tour in New York earlier this week. I came home with a blown-up pair of Bass Weejuns and five takeaways that are important for any retailer looking to thrive. Well, sort of.  I should say that I came home with a single really big takeaway – one that you simply cannot live without – and four other important ones.  It’s like George Orwell wrote in Animal Farm: “Some animals are more equal than others.” Same goes for observations and the stores they came from.

As advanced as we are with search engines and expensive research initiatives, oftentimes the best lessons come from where… read more.