from Shop Talk:
Happy Super Valenbowl!
Target spent time talking to Wall Street analysts on Thursday, outlining the multiple ways it will expand its business in the next 10 years.
It will open smaller stores in urban markets. It will add its PFresh food concept into hundreds of stores, boosting customer traffic. It will explore overseas expansion in Canada, Mexico or Latin America.
And it will celebrate the Super Valenbowl!
Michael Francis, Target's chief marketing officer, said the retailer is ready to reclaim seasonal events in a "bolder and more dominant way."
It did that during the busy Thanksgiving holiday shopping weekend. It held a two-day sales event -- online on Thanksgiving day and in stores on Friday -- that it said resulted in a double-digit rise in Black Friday traffic compared with last year.
Next up is Valentine's Day. But Francis said cupid's day is now having to compete with the Super Bowl, which will be played on Feb. 7 this year.
So what to do? How about combine the two!
Target makes the scene with a magazine
You know how it is when you take a trip to Target: You’re going to buy just that ONE THING that you need, and you’re going to keep it cheap. As you leave the store, you wonder how you dropped hundreds of dollars on things that you didn’t realize you needed until you walked into the store.
Target is hoping to spawn a similar phenomenon on its website, where it has begun offering a magazine newsstand. Rather than starting from scratch, it has signed on Zinio, a digital publishing company that offers magazines and books from more than 350 publishers.
Zinio will sell electronic versions of magazines on a page on Target’s website, either as single editions of current and older issues, or as annual subscriptions – usually at a discount. People can read them in a Web browser version or through an application that Zinio offers for download. This is similar to what they’ve done on other websites, like the one operated by Barnes & Noble.
Yes, you can already look at online versions of magazines, Zinio Chief Executive Richard Maggiotto said in an interview. This is different, however, he said: “It’s a high-fidelity, robust magazine.” In other words, these titles, ranging from Elle to Woman’s Day to Seventeen, are meant to look — if not feel — like the print magazines they are replacing. Zinio and Target will share the revenue they get from each sale.
Maggiotto declined to reveal specific goals, but said that he would be happy to see 1,000 or more new subscriptions (a month) come in during the first year of the Target partnership. So far, he said, Zinio sees about 60 percent of its magazine sales coming from archival or current issue sales, and about 40 percent from subscriptions.
This might not be such big news on most other days, but it is coming after some cataclysmic events transpired in the magazine industry. With ad sales suffering, big publishers such as Conde Nast are cutting workers and titles, making some media experts wonder whether the good times are over forever. Digital revenue has failed to make up for print revenue losses, just like in the newspaper world. But every little bit helps, right? Apparently so. Maggiotto would not say who Zinio’s next partners are, but said that “there are 10 more in the queue.”
(PS: Apologies to Tom Waits for stealing one of his lyrics for the sake of a headline. It’s from “Nighthawks at the Diner.” The photo is all Reuters)
It’s true, I had to clean it up. A little provocative conversation is one thing; it’s the tieing yourself up that the editors would find gratuitous. Oh well… High tonight, low tomorrow — precipitation is expected.
