Huffington Post, AOL Launching Video-Streaming Network
This summer, The Huffington Post and AOL will launch a video-streaming network that will run 12 hours a day, five days a week. Think of it as a “never-ending talk show,” said Roy Sekoff, founding editor at HuffPo, who will manage the newly formed Huffington Post Streaming Network. News for the network will be taken from the stories appearing on The Huffington Post, for example, and reported on camera by newsroom journalists in New York and Los Angeles. There are plans to hire more people, specifically producers and hosts, and build a staff of 100. Sekoff has ambitious plans to post 30,000 clips during the first year.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/constant-chatter-5607442

Facebook Expects Boost in Brand Advertising
Facebook said it expects branded firms to increasingly dedicate a portion of their advertising dollars to the social media site as it revealed plans to raise $5 billion in an initial public offering. The company said branded firms are using the site because the “broad audiences they are trying to reach are active on Facebook on a daily basis, because we can reach their desired audiences with precision, and because they can spark word-of-mouth marketing through Facebook.”That disclosure was made in a regulatory filing Wednesday night with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Facebook is becoming increasingly important to the retail and fashion worlds as they aim to connect with consumers in new ways. Facebook commerce has been tried by several brands and retailers, with mixed success, but “social commerce,” which uses sites like Facebook for friends to recommend products to other friends, is expected to become a major driver of sales from this year on.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news/digital/facebook-expects-boost-in-brand-advertising-5599941

AOL Sees Growth in Online Display Ads
AOL found something that has eluded many of its peers of late: growth in their online display ad business. AOL managed to turn in a not-so-bad fourth quarter, with display ad revenue — the present and future of its business — up to $363.8 million, up 10% from $331.6 million a year ago. After several years of display ad declines, AOL is facing some easier comparisons, but growth in the fourth quarter is notable considering Yahoo’s display ad revenue was down 3% in the same quarter.For AOL, it’s about convincing brands that big, graphical display ads are core to delivering a brand message, not just eliciting the cheapest possible click-through.
http://adage.com/article/digital/aol-sees-growth-online-display-ads/232460/

Tablet Owners: More e-Commerce In Digital Magazines
While creative flexibility in presenting content is often cited as one of the main advantages of digital publishing platforms, digital magazine readers may not be so entranced by endless variety, judging by new data from GfK MRI’s iPanel, a special survey group composed of tablet and e-reader owners. GfK MRI also found substantial interest in e-commerce via digital magazines. Overall, 72% of tablet owners who read digital magazines on their devices in the last 30 days said they would prefer all digital magazines to be formatted in the same way, according to the iPanel results.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/167189/tablet-owners-more-e-commerce-in-digital-magazine.html

Media News

Architectural Digest Bullish About 2012
Last week, the vanguard of Condé Nast dominated the awards portion of the company’s annual publishers meeting in Palm Beach, Fla. Vogue, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Wired were the winners of in-house awards for a strong year of business. All four are big, venerable titles — no surprise there. But there was one other old-time heavyweight that got up on stage too: Architectural Digest won the award for the best business turnaround at Condé Nast. AD finished 2011 with a 9.1 percent ad page jump, the largest spike on a percentage basis for any magazine at Condé Nast. Further, boosted by a fat January issue for the AD 100, the magazine will finish the first quarter with a 22 percent ad page bump, said publisher Giulio Capua. He added that the April issue will have a 38 percent increase year-over-year.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/ad-ing-it-all-up-5613120

Digital Magazines Popular, Men Hold Edge
While more than half of both male and female tablet owners are interested in reading digital magazines, the proportion is especially high among males, with 77% of male tablet owners saying they want to read digital magazines on their device, compared to 68% of female tablet owners. That’s according to the latest research from GfK MRI’s iPanel, a new survey group composed exclusively of tablet and e-reader owners. Overall, 71% of tablet owners said they were interested in reading digital magazines on their devices. The proportion was even higher among younger adults, with 85% of male tablet owners 18-34 saying they would like to read digital magazines, along with 78% of female tablet owners in the same age range.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166813/digital-magazines-popular-men-hold-edge.html

‘Men’s Journal’ to Relaunch Site with Product Focus
After overhauling RollingStone.com in 2010, Wenner Media is turning its attention to another publication with a less-than-impressive Web presence: Men’s Journal, whose current site is more of an afterthought to the magazine than a standalone digital destination. Men’s Journal is planning to unveil a new site this spring that, in a departure from many magazine websites that still tend to mirror their print counterparts, will revolve around product reviews and advice.
http://www.adweek.com/news/press/mens-journal-relaunch-site-product-focus-137930

Retail News

Milly For Sperry: Top-Sider Shoe Company Announces Designer Collaboration
We’ve always loved Sperry Top-Sider boat shoes for the dash of preppy chic they add to any outfit, and now Sperrys are about to get a whole lot cuter. Sperry has teamed up with Michelle Smith of New York-based fashion house Milly to create 13 styles of shoes emblazoned with Milly’s signature prints and vivid colors. OH YES. “The design team at Sperry Top-Sider has been fans of Milly since the line’s inception,” says Michelle Poole, vice president of Women’s Product and Silver Cloud collaborations, in a release. “We love Michelle Smith’s combination of modern, sexy, feminine details, and are excited by her fresh take on our American heritage.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/03/milly-for-sperry_n_1252602.html

The Ecommerce Revolution Is All About You
Personal recommendations have always been a part of ecommerce, but there has been little innovation since Amazon introduced retail and product personalization 10 years ago. But with the increasing mountains of data at digital retailers’ fingertips, ecommerce is about to get even more personal. The fact is that right now there is little iteration from personalized ecommerce beyond what is taking place on Amazon. So you’ll see suggestions of what other shoppers who bought a certain item also purchased, or recommendations to similar items to what you have purchased, but there is a whole world of social data, and even more-in-depth purchase data that can be mined by retailers to help increase sales.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/29/the-ecommerce-revolution-is-all-about-you/

Tablets are driving retailers’ redesigns
One way to quantify the impact of tablet computers, like the iPad, on e-commerce is to gauge their influence on retailers’ web site design plans. 63.3% of e-retailers surveyed by Internet Retailer are considering redesigning their web sites so they render better on the iPad and other tablets. “It’s the advent of mobile and the tablet,” says Nate Ende, vice president of e-commerce at Trinity Insight LLC, an e-commerce consulting firm. As more e-retail executives visit their e-commerce sites on tablet devices many are realizing that their sites are not overly appealing to shoppers using devices like the iPad, which is spurring some merchants to redesign their sites this year, he says. While only a minority, 41.7%, of catalog retailers are focusing on tablets in their design plans, those numbers go up significantly for other types of web retailers: 73.9% of chain retailers, 62.3% of web-only merchants and 69.2% of manufacturers that sell online say they will have tablets in mind as they redesign their sites.
http://www.internetretailer.com/2012/02/01/tablets-are-driving-retailers-redesigns-2

Travel News

San Francisco approves construction of new cruise terminal
The San Francisco Port Commission has voted to move ahead with plans to build a new cruise terminal. It said construction would begin immediately on the $92 million Pier 27 James R. Herman International Cruise Terminal and Northeast Wharf Plaza. The site is named for the late James Herman, a former port commissioner and president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Plans call for an 88,000-square-foot cruise terminal and a 2.2-acre public park. The project will be taxpayer-funded and completed in 2014, said the commission.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/San-Francisco-approves-construction-of-new-cruise-terminal/

Hawaii Says ‘Aloha’ to More Visitors
Fresh off its prime-time exposure in Sunday’s NFL Pro Bowl, Hawaii has another reason to bask in the sun: Newly compiled figures show the number of visitors to the Aloha State rebounded in 2011 to its highest level since 2007. State estimates being released Monday show the number of visitors to Hawaii rose 3.8% to 7.28 million from 7.02 million in 2010, amid increases in most of the islands’ major markets. A 2.3% increase in visitors from the U.S., along with double-digit percentage gains from markets such as Canada and Australia, helped offset a 5% decline in visitors from Japan, which suffered a devastating earthquake and tsunami last March, according to the Hawaii Tourism Authority.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203363504577190072965868592.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Mexico projects 52 million tourists in 2012
More than 52 million tourists will visit Mexico this year, forecasted the Mexican Ministry of Tourism. Predictions followed a solid holiday season and strong winter occupancy thus far, particularly in the resort areas. The number of air arrivals in December was was up 13% over December 2010. A total of 1.07 million international travelers visited Mexico last month, with U.S. visitors up 10.6% over the same month a year ago. Year-end figures for 2011 are not yet tallied.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Mexico-Travel/Mexico-projects-52-million-tourists-in-2012/

Travel industry is “cautiously optimistic” about growth as economy improves
The buzzwords these days among those who book business travel are “cautiously optimistic.”
After nearly dropping off the map after the 2001 terrorist attacks and again when recession hit in late 2008, corporate travel has gradually recovered. A growth spurt witnessed last year promises to be sustained this year as companies return road-warrior managers to the road to attend conferences and meet face-to-face with clients.
http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19841222

Polyvore, the Fashion Site, Gets More Money and a New C.E.O.
On Polyvore, the do-it-yourself online fashion magazine, the trendiest clothing and accessories today are Givenchy bags, miniskirts and anything from H&M. That information is helpful enough to advertisers, brands and users that Polyvore has become a destination, with 13 million unique visitors a month, far surpassing the Web sites of traditional fashion magazines. On Monday, Polyvore will announce that it has raised $14 million from investors, bringing its total venture capital to $22.2 million. It will use the new money to expand abroad, onto mobile phones and tablets and into areas beyond women’s fashion, like interior design and weddings. Polyvore also named its third chief executive in two years, Jess Lee, its former vice president of product.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/polyvore-the-fashion-site-gets-more-money-and-a-new-c-e-o/

Search Still Drives Google, but Display Ads a $5 Billion Business
Citing a strong holiday season, Google reported a 25% increase in fourth-quarter revenue and a display advertising business that has doubled in the last two years. While revenue and profits were up sharply, both fell short of analyst estimates, sending shares down more than 8% in after-hours trading. The company attributed the shortfall to fluctuating foreign-exchange rates. Google makes nearly half of its revenue outside the U.S. Google reported $8.13 billion in sales, excluding revenue passed on to partner sites. Gross revenue was $10.58 billion, up 25% from a year earlier. Net income was $2.71 billion, up from $2.54 billion in the year-earlier period but down slightly from $2.73 billion in the third quarter of 2011.
http://adage.com/article/digital/search-drives-google-display-ads-a-5-billion-business/232242/

Social Investors Seek New Niche Networks
Investors, users and, more importantly, advertisers are on a constant hunt for The Next Big Thing. With LinkedIn trading publicly and Facebook’s IPO around the corner, it’s no surprise cool hunters are hungry for another big social play.
“Investors are asking, ‘What are other networks of people?’” said Seth Sternberg, CEO and co-founder of Meebo. “LinkedIn owns the professional network. Facebook owns the friends network,” he said. No one expects an up-and-comer to supplant the category leaders, so instead, market watchers are looking to niches beyond “professionals” and “friends.”
The problem with a niche, of course, is just that: It’s a niche. Facebook and LinkedIn succeeded because of their scale; aiming for a limited audience is less attractive.
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/social-investors-seek-new-niche-networks-137541

Protest on Web Uses Shutdown to Take On Two Piracy Bills
With a Web-wide protest on Wednesday that includes a 24-hour shutdown of the English-language Wikipedia, the legislative battle over two Internet piracy bills has reached an extraordinary moment — a political coming of age for a relatively young and disorganized industry that has largely steered clear of lobbying and other political games in Washington. The bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect IP Act in the Senate, are backed by major media companies and are mostly intended to curtail the illegal downloading and streaming of TV shows and movies online. But the tech industry fears that, among other things, they will give media companies too much power to shut down sites that they say are abusing copyrights.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/18/technology/web-wide-protest-over-two-antipiracy-bills.html?ref=media

US Online Ad Spend to Close in on $40 Billion
US online ad spending will post growth well above 20% again this year to reach nearly $40 billion, eMarketer estimates, as the internet continues to prove its worth to advertisers in a tough economic climate. “Advertisers’ comfort level with integrated marketing is greater than ever, and this is helping more advertisers—and more large brands—put a greater share of dollars online,” said David Hallerman, eMarketer principal analyst. Double-digit growth is expected through 2014, when US online ad spending will reach $52.8 billion. In 2016, eMarketer expects advertisers to spend $62 billion online.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008783

Media News

Many Brands Bid for Product Placement on ‘Modern Family,’ but So Few Make It
Advertisers are working furiously to get their goods into the hands of the characters on ABC’s “Modern Family.” But only a select few will make it, as the producers are wary of turning the nation’s best-loved TV family into a clan of shills. “It is one of the shows where, across a lot of categories, you always hear people saying, ‘How can I get involved?’” said Brent Poer, exec VP-managing director at Publicis Groupe’s MediaVest. Although requests from advertisers have ramped up in recent months, “we turn down, I would say, about 90%” of them, said Steven Levitan, one of the comedy’s executive producers and creators. “We get offers constantly. We do very few. We try to be extremely selective.” Mr. Levitan said the show will attempt one to three of these integrations per season, perhaps more if the story takes the cast to a remote location.
http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/brands-products-modern-family-make/232271/

‘New York’ Hires Design Director
Five months after Condé Nast took his design director, New York magazine editor in chief Adam Moss hired a staffer of the publishing house to fill the significant spot on his masthead. Moss announced that Thomas Alberty would arrive from GQ, where he was art director. He fills the position last held by Chris Dixon, who went to Vanity Fair in September.
There’s some history of back and forth between the two publications. In the past year, New York lost Mary Kaye Schilling and Logan Hill, culture editor and writer, respectively, to GQ. Moss is known for being design obsessed, and it’s no surprise he’d mine GQ, which also has a rich design legacy.
http://www.adweek.com/news/press/new-york-hires-design-director-137524

Pandora Reports Key LIstener Uptick In Major Markets
Online radio service Pandora saw its average listenership increase in a number of major metropolitan markets during 2011, according to the company, with gains ranging from 50% to 100% among key demos including adults ages 18-34.
During the 2011 holiday season, Pandora’s audience listening had increased to an average quarter hour rating of 1.0 or more in the 18-34 age demo in major metropolitan markets, meaning that 1% of adults in that age group were listening to Pandora for at least five minutes during a quarter-hour measurement period between 6 a.m. and midnight.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166317/pandora-reports-key-listener-uptick-in-major-marke.html

Retail News

Apparel Strongest Fashion Category Online
Apparel enjoys a comfortable margin over footwear and accessories as the fashion category most often sought and purchased online. An online survey conducted by The NPD Group Inc. revealed that 73 percent of those who shopped for apparel online in 2011 wound up purchasing it, as compared to 62 percent for footwear and 56 percent for fashion accessories. Finishing in a tie with consumer electronics at 46 percent of respondents, apparel was the second most heavily shopped online category, trailing books, stationery and office supplies, selected by 48 percent. Footwear elicited a 34 percent affirmative response and fashion accessories 25 percent.
http://www.wwd.com/retail-news/direct-internet-catalogue/apparel-strongest-fashion-category-online-npd-5561920

Tablet owners spend more money online than smartphone owners
PayPal has predicted that mobile payment transactions will increase heavily in 2012, and Adobe would likely posit that tablet owners will contribute more to that expectation — at least based on figures in 2011.
According to Adobe’s recently published Digital Marketing Insights report, tablet owners were the most valuable online customers in 2011.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/adobe-tablet-owners-spend-more-money-online-than-smartphone-owners/67520

Why online retailers are looking ahead to 2012 holidays
Online retailers booked a record holiday season but they’re not content to rest on their laurels, writes Shop.org’s Fiona Swerdlow. Instead, many are already planning new strategies for the 2012 season, with plans for better inventory allocation to the online channel, continued infrastructure upgrades and ramped-up investments in SEO and SEM.
http://blog.shop.org/2012/01/24/what-retailers-will-do-differently-for-holiday-2012/

Travel News

At Disney World, Obama reveals plan to increase U.S. tourism
With Cinderella Castle as a backdrop and under a cloudless blue sky, President Barack Obama on Thursday issued a message to the world: “America is open for business.” Obama earlier in the day issued an executive order to ease U.S. visa policies and expand the number of countries in the Visa Waiver Program, with the goal of increasing inbound U.S. tourism. “I want America to be the number one tourist destination in the world,” Obama told the crowd at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. To do that, Obama said he has directed his administration to increase by 40% the visa-processing capacity in China and Brazil, where securing a visa to visit the U.S. can take up to a year.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Government/Obama-wants-U-S–to-be-worlds-top-tourist-destination/?cid=eltrbreak

New Alaska tour experiences call out to travelers in 2012
Suppliers and tour operators in Alaska are offering new adventures for travelers based on rising trends in 2012, such as a focus on family-oriented experiences and up-close wildlife viewing. New offerings include caribou viewing in the Gates of the Arctic National Park, no-frills sport fishing and lodge-jumping tours filled with a variety of activities.
http://www.travelagewest.com/Travel/North-America/Info/Alaska-Travel-Trends-2012/

Starwood eyes Asia Pacific for 2012 growth
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide is looking to open 80 new hotels in 2012, with about 60% of these properties in the Asia-Pacific region. Starwood has named China as the primary driver of growth in the region and says that about 35 of its new properties this year will be there. In addition, the company says it will place more than 60% of the new hotels in the luxury and upper-upscale segments as it nears the 150th luxury-hotel mark this year.
http://www.nasdaq.com/article/starwood-plans-to-open-80-new-hotels-in-2012-20120123-00792

Yahoo Finds Its CEO: Scott Thompson, Former PayPal Prez
After a four-month search, Yahoo has finally filled the corner office. Its choice, former PayPal president Scott Thompson, brings a pedigree of senior executive roles in the financial and technology industries. Yahoo credits Thompson with doubling PayPal’s active user base from 50 million to 104 million. Prior to that job, he held top management jobs with Visa subsidiary Inovant, Barclays Global Investors, and Coopers & Lybrand, each providing IT services to financial clients. That at first might seem an odd pedigree for a person running an online media giant – not to mention uncomfortably similar to his predecessor Carol Bartz’s own tech, rather than media, industry background. However, Yahoo’s primary focus right now is its ongoing strategic review – which could result in a sale of the company in part or whole.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2135251/yahoo-ceo-scott-thompson-paypal-prez

A Rare Apple Compromise
Facing challenges winning over customers for its iAd mobile advertising service, Apple is softening its approach as it loses ground to Google Inc. in the fast-growing mobile-ad market. Launched in July of last year, and championed by former CEO Steve Jobs, iAd is Apple’s service for selling ads within mobile apps on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. But response so far has been tepid: Marketers say they have been turned off by iAd’s high price tag as well as Apple’s hard-charging sales tactics and its stringent control over the creative process. Google’s AdMob service, on the other hand, is priced more reasonably, ad executives say, and is available on a wide array of devices—not just Apple products. In response, Apple is making some changes. It is showing more willingness to bargain on the spending commitment it requires of advertisers.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204336104577094872512502942.html?mod=WSJ_Advertising_MIDDLETopNews

Facebook Looks for More Apps in Partnership With Media Brands
It’s been nearly two months since Facebook launched a new breed of social apps in partnership with media brands including Netflix, Spotify and the Washington Post at its f8 conference, allowing users to consume content within Facebook’s platform and share what they’re watching, listening to or reading in real-time. Now the social network is gearing up to announce a slew of new partnerships in 2012. Speaking at Ad Age’s Media Evolved conference in New York today, Facebook’s manager in charge of strategic media partnerships, Andy Mitchell, told the audience success stories of recently launched media apps that have fared well thus far. He also noted that Facebook’s Timeline — which will soon be widely released and has the ambitious goal of telling the story of users’ lives on their personal page — will give media apps greater visibility, since users who have opted in will have their activity on the app displayed in a module on their page.
http://adage.com/article/special-report-media-evolved/facebook-apps-partnership-media-brands/231026/

Social Media Users Look for New Products and Offers, Survey Finds
Social media users connect with companies on sites like Facebook to learn about new products, find exclusive offers and contests, or just play games, according to a new survey of about 1,300 consumers. Consumers also have high expectations for online customer support. The Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council, which facilitates the exchange of marketing ideas, and Lithium, a social media marketing company, partnered to survey both social media users and social media marketers in an effort to better understand how consumers use social media, as well as learn why consumers engage and what they expect from the companies they engage with. The study is called “Variance in the Social Brand Experience.”
http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/3255-Social-Media-Users-Look-for-New-Products-and-Offers-Survey-Finds

Media News

‘Veranda’ Tiptoes Into Commerce: New editor puts her stamp on design magazine
Veranda, Hearst’s lush home-decor magazine, is making its most visible changes since Dara Caponigro took over in April 2010 from Lisa Newsom, who founded the magazine 25 years ago. Veranda is one of Hearst’s smaller and more luxury- focused magazines (its readers have a median HHI of $102,884). While the industry faces circulation and ad page declines, Veranda’s first half newsstand increased 2.3 percent to 95,513 while total circ rose 2.5 percent to 461,488. Ad pages grew 17 percent to 550 for the year, per Media Industry Newsletter. But Veranda has new competition in the building since Hearst became the owner of upscale Elle Décor as part of its Lagardère magazines purchase. The Southern-tinged magazine will continue to showcase elegant homes and expensive jewelry, but Caponigro, late of the defunct Domino and House Beautiful, has added more luxury accessories and people to liven up the pages. Those changes will be more visible with the January/February issue, which will add Elements of Style as one of three new front-of-book departments.
http://www.adweek.com/news/press/veranda-tiptoes-commerce-137255

Oprah, Back in the Saddle
About 1.1 million people watched Oprah Winfrey’s return to the talk-show format Sunday night, the second largest audience for any show on her year-old cable network OWN. But that audience was a fraction of the 6.5 million viewers Ms. Winfrey averaged in the final season of her daytime show on broadcast television, and it dwarfed most of what has been on OWN so far.
The premiere, which featured Aerosmith rocker Steven Tyler at his house in Sunapee, N.H., marked Ms. Winfrey’s return to the interview format seven months after her 25-year run on the daytime “Oprah Winfrey Show” ended. She is the most prominent of several TV heavyweights—including Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann—who recently surrendered highly visible perches in return for greater control and a greater share of the spoils.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204368104577139142237036300.html

Comcast’s 10-Year Deal With Disney Includes Out-of-Home Viewing
Comcast said Wednesday that it had entered into a 10-year deal with the Walt Disney Company that will give Comcast the ability to make Disney content available via television and streaming on iPads and other devices. In a deal that represents hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenue for Disney, Comcast’s more than 20 million subscribers will have access on various platforms to content from Disney Channel, ESPN, Disney XD and other networks. The deal includes 70 services, including on demand and out-of-home viewing on smartphones, tablets and gaming consoles. “Comcast was the first video provider to create technology that enabled us to deliver content to consumers where and when they want it across any viewing platform,” Neil Smit, president and chief executive officer of Comcast’s cable division, the nation’s largest cable provider, said in a statement.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/comcast-in-10-year-deal-for-disney-content/?hp

Retail News

Fashion Forward: What Will Be Hot for 2012
Retailers are ringing in the New Year with fresh trends and burgeoning talents. Barneys New York Fashion Director Amanda Brooks has already noted several standout shoe styles for 2012. “We are seeing a shift toward a 1990s-inspired, single-sole pump silhouette à la Manolo Blahnik,” said Brooks, noting, however, that platforms and unique heel treatments still have a presence. “Celine introduced a new take on the platform shoe, Alexander Wang showed great novelty in his lug-sole monk-strap oxfords, and Prada embraced a 1970s-inspired mule with a chunkier heel. And, of course, Christian Louboutin always embraces and even creates many of the key shoe trends each season.” Also on the horizon this year, said retailers, are mules and flats, as seen with evolved oxfords, loafers and creepers. For Elizabeth Kanfer, fashion and co-branding director of accessories at Saks Fifth Avenue, spring will be all about ankle-strap sandals and wedges with mixed materials, cork and wood.
http://www.wwd.com/footwear-news/fashion/fashion-forward-what-will-be-hot-for-2012-5451539

Online holiday sales total record $37.2B
The final count is in from Reston-based comScore Inc., which says total online retail sales during the November and December holiday season reached a record $37.2 billion. That figure is 15 percent more than last year’s online holiday spending total. This season also saw ten individual shopping days where online sales surpassed $1 billion, led by a record $1.25 billion on this year’s Cyber Monday.
http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2012/01/04/online-holiday-sales-total-record-372b.html

Retailers value Google+ more than Facebook, Twitter
Google’s +1 button is reportedly more popular than Facebook’s Like button and Twitter’s Tweet button, at least amongst retailers. In other words, when it comes to social plugins, Google+ is already embedded on more retail websites than Facebook or Twitter.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/retailers-value-google-more-than-facebook-twitter/6797

Travel & Tourism News

Booking a Flight to Space, With Travel Insurance
To go to outer space, Catherine Culver went to a travel agent. The first flights of the new airlines that will take tourists past the threshold of space are poised to take off in 2012, and getting a seat on one is not all that different from booking a trip someplace on Earth. You can sign up on the Web site of, say, Virgin Galactic, the most prominent of the new space tourism companies, or go to a travel agent and put down a hefty deposit. Soon you will be able to buy travel insurance, just as you can for any other vacation. Until now, space tourism has been limited to the ultra wealthy: just seven people have paid tens of millions of dollars each for a trip to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket. But that could change this year, when Virgin Galactic intends to start offering flights just beyond the space barrier on a rocket ship it has built, featuring five minutes of weightlessness during a two-and-a-half hour jaunt. At $200,000 a seat, this will open the final frontier to far more people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/04/science/space/spaceflights-prepare-to-expand-customer-base.html?ref=travel

Travel Agents Set to Bounce Back in 2012
Travel agents received a nice Christmas present when the Miami Herald spoke of their successes. The Herald cited a study by Forrester Research that found the number of leisure travelers who enjoyed using the Internet to book travel fell from 53 percent in 2007 to 47 percent in 2010, as well as a survey by the American Society of Travel Agents (ASTA) that showed 44 percent of agents said they had more clients in 2010 than in 2009.“[Travelers] don’t have hours to spend on research to compare multiple flights, multiple cruises, multiple packages,” Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Forrester Research, told the Miami Herald. “It’s not unlike doing your taxes. Depending who you are, what your priorities are, there are some people who will choose to do it themselves or to use a professional.”
http://www.travelagentcentral.com/trends-research/travel-agents-set-bounce-back-2012-32885

Google to Roll Out AdX in China
Google is preparing to launch its Ad Exchange (AdX) in China, seeking to get buy in from advertisers and top publishers.
This month, Google highlighted its AdX during its Creative Sandbox event in Shanghai, a technology event for marketers.
In addition, Google’s DoubleClick exec has been making the rounds with media agency professionals in the Greater China region to talk about its AdX and demand-side platform Invite Media, ClickZ Asia has learned. When contacted, Google’s PR responded that they have yet to officially launch the ad exchange in the country.
http://www.clickz.asia/5288/google_to_roll_out_adx_in_china

Facebook’s New Advertising Model: You
Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t talk much about his company’s advertising business, even when it invents new kinds of ads that could disrupt a chunk of the $500 billion influence industry. So it was up to David Fischer, who left a star career at Google early last year to run Facebook’s advertising business, to make a pilgrimage to Advertising Week, a weeklong annual confab of marketers in New York in October. His goal: to draw big brand marketers whose mainstay ad venue is television onto the world’s largest social network. If your friend Jim has clicked the “Like” button back on Columbia Pictures’ fan page, a line of text will pop into the ad saying “Jim Squires likes Ides of March” alongside his photo. People are twice as likely to remember an ad if their friend is in it, according to the Nielsen Co., and they tend to click on it or share it with friends more often than they do plain-vanilla display ads.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2011/11/16/facebooks-new-advertising-model-you/

Twitter-Inspired Shopping Site OpenSky Adds Dwell to Celebrity ‘Curators’
OpenSky, the e-commerce site where celebrities including Tom Colicchio and Alicia Silverstone recommend products to consumers who follow them, has added Dwell magazine to its roster of “curators.” OpenSky, which said last month that it had raised $30 million in fresh investment capital, says it has accumulated 750,000 members since its current iteration arrived in April. It previously helped bloggers and others curate stores on their own content sites, but decided that building a single site devoted to shopping would yield more members and sales.
http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/dwell-joins-celeb-curators-twitter-inspired-shopping-site-opensky/230906/

Media News

Conde Nast Becomes Latest Publisher to Unveil Private Ad Exchange
The assault on third-party ad networks continues. Today, Conde Nast, publisher of magazines such as The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, is launching a private ad exchange to sell unsold inventory on its digital properties to a select group of advertisers. The exchange, powered by Admeld, will feature CPM price floors and real-time bidding. “Like any publisher, we’re interested in maximizing the revenue on our inventory,” said Drew Schutte, exec VP and chief integration officer at Conde Nast. “By opening a private exchange, we’re getting all the controls we wanted while providing access to our premium advertisers who commit to Conde Nast in the most significant way.”
http://adage.com/article/digital/conde-nast-latest-publisher-unveil-private-ad-exchange/231004/

The Debut of ‘The Collection’
Today, The New York Times introduces the Collection, a fashion app exclusively for the iPad that brings together in one spot all the fashion coverage offered by Thursday and Sunday Styles, T Magazine, The Moment and The International Herald Tribune. The Collection is a visual playground where you are encouraged to explore the latest in fashion news, from reviews by Cathy Horyn and Suzy Menkes to Bill Cunningham’s On the Street videos. You can also click on more than 150 designer galleries from the current season. The Collection’s design showcases photo slide shows, blog posts, videos and articles, offering you a graphic entry point to The Times’s daily fashion content. The app is organized into five sections, with the option to view “All” or filter content according to a specific category: News, Trends, Street and Runway.
http://runway.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/15/the-debut-of-the-collection/?ref=style

Numbers Slip for Oprah’s Media Products
Do people miss their daily dose of Oprah? When her talk show went off the air six months ago, Oprah Winfrey thought her fans would turn to the next best thing, her cable TV network, OWN. But it hasn’t worked so far. The fans have spoken (well, in ratings), and they want more of the talk show queen directly speaking to her audience, much the way she did every day for 25 years on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.” And it isn’t only OWN that is struggling: Oprah’s magic seems to have slipped a bit across all forms of media, including her magazine. The numbers tell the tale: during the first half of this year, while Winfrey was on the air, ad pages at O, The Oprah Magazine were up 4.1 percent, according to Publishers Information Bureau. It’s a different story for life at the magazine in the second half of the year. In September, ad pages fell almost 19 percent compared with the previous year, October paging fell 13 percent and ad paging declined about 8 percent for both the November and December issues, according to Media Industry Newsletter.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/a-slipping-oprah-5381119

Retail News

Luxury Brands Ride the Wave
For the luxury goods sector right now, it’s a man’s world, judging by the recent moves of two of fashion’s largest players. PPR earlier this week completed the acquisition of Italian tailor Brioni, while LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton recently tapped Antoine Arnault to head up the expansion of its men’s luxury footwear specialist Berluti’s product range and store network. The men’s luxury goods market is outperforming women’s in all categories, according to the 10th edition of Bain & Company’s Luxury Goods Worldwide Market Study, prepared for Fondazione Altagamma. Men’s items now represent 50 percent of the total luxury apparel market versus 48 percent two years ago, according to the report, driven by more tailored clothing in mature markets and the upper casual category in China.
http://www.wwd.com/menswear-news/designer-luxury/luxury-rides-the-mens-wave-5360277?src=nl/mornReport/20111110

Fashion’s Next Frontier for Social Media
The fashion industry is quickly learning that men and women engage and shop differently in the digital sphere. Brands and retailers such as Coach, Mr Porter, Gilt Man, Ben Minkoff, John Varvatos and Ermenegildo Zegna have spent a lot of time studying the differences between the ways men and women approach fashion, tapping into their male audiences with a host of initiatives they feel will resonate best with their target consumer. Whether ingesting rich editorial content from Net-a-porter’s men’s e-commerce counterpart, Mr Porter; interacting with Coach’s new men’s Facebook page, or tapping into Ben Minkoff’s expertise in gender-specific online shopping habits, one thing is clear: Men are as into fashion as ever, and brands need to find innovative ways to engage the male audience.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news/digital/brands-embrace-the-nuances-of-marketing-to-men-5375156

The 10 Most Popular Mobile Purchases
Tablets may be good for watching movies or reading books, but it looks like consumers are increasingly using it for something else, too: shopping. According to a study from mobile ad network Jumptap and comScore, 63 percent of tablet owners have made a purchase with their device, as opposed to just 31 percent of mobile owners. That compares to 83 percent of PC owners who have completed a purchase on their laptop or desk computer. Among consumers aged 18 to 34, the gap between PC and tablet shopping is even narrower with 79 percent saying that they’ve made tablet purchases and 89 percent indicating that they’ve used their PC for shopping. Mobile purchasing also skews male. The survey found that 67 percent of men, compared to 55 percent of women, made tablet purchases; 39 percent of men, compared to 23 percent of women, made mobile phone purchases. Jumptap’s study also found that consumers appear to be more willing to use their mobile devices for banking. While just one in eight consumers were willing to access banking, credit card, or other financial information from their mobile device last year, one in six are willing to bank on the go in 2011.
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/10-most-popular-mobile-purchases-136457

Chinese Tourists on Global Luxury Spending Spree Driving Revenue at U.S. Retailers
In what appears to be a rapidly developing trend, Chinese visitors to the United States are being noticed more for the flash of their newly-bought designer bags than that of their Nikons. Tiffany & Co. (NYSE:TIF), Coach, Inc. (NYSE:COH) and Ralph Lauren (NYSE:RL) are just a few the companies in the luxury retail sector that have recently noted how higher revenue at their North American operations has largely been boosted by Chinese shoppers on vacation. In a recent call to Wall Street analysts and investors October 25, Lew Frankfort, chairman and chief executive officer of Coach, Inc. noted the increasing revenue in North America was largely due to a “sharp increase of tourists in select stores in travel markets around the country, including Hawaii, Las Vegas, Florida, and of course, New York.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/251631/20111117/chinese-tourists-luxury-spending-tiffanys-coach-saks.htm

Travel News

Celebrities Pile On To Social Travel Site Trippy’s $1.75 Million Round
Yesterday we profiled Trippy, J.R. Johnson’s latest travel startup. Trippy is a social travel site. It’s a trip planner that connects to social networks and asks for venue suggestions from friends who have already traveled to the destination. Today, Trippy has announced a $1.75 million seed round of financing co-led by Sequoia Capital and True Ventures. In addition those investors and SV Angel, a number of individuals contributed money including some big-name celebrities. Mark Zuckerberg’s sister Randi Zuckerberg invested alongside fashion designer Rachel Zoe and singer Jason Mraz. We’d say that’s weird, except that celebrity investors aren’t anymore. A few weeks ago Leonardo DiCaprio invested in a startup. Before that it was Justin Bieber. And before that it was Justin Timberlake.
http://www.businessinsider.com/celebrities-invest-trippy-2-million-round-2011-11

Welcome Celebrity Silhouette
“The newest addition to Celebrity, the Celebrity Silhouette has officially set sail in the United States. She’s the first Celebrity Solstice® Class ship to cruise from Bayonne’s Cape Liberty, NJ, offering vacationers from the northeast an alternative to flying to the Caribbean Islands,” said Thomas DeSimone, Co-Founder & CEO ofCruiseDealership.com. Some of the new stand-out venues on the Celebrity Silhoutte are The Lawn Club Grill, The Porch, The Alcoves, The Art Studio, The Hideaway, and the overall vibrant style that has become standard with the Solstice Class. With specialty dining venues that are in the same category to the best upscale spots on land, and a host of modern, enriching onboard programs, Celebrity Silhouette created an unforgettable ship experience. Once Again.
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=149489

Study: Men use social shopping more often than women
Men are more likely than women to use social channels to research and compare products, read reviews, seek out product availability and search for local stores, according to a study by ROI Research. The study also found that women are more likely to use the same sites to find coupons and discounts, and 59% of all active social shoppers are likely to log onto Facebook after they buy to share their experiences.
http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/social-shopping-study-performics-1030tpp1/

Video ads are more accepted if they accompany premium content
Live or premium video content wins significantly more sustained attention from viewers for ads, according to a report by video ad-serving company Auditude. In addition, video ads that appear in the middle of long-form content produce the highest completion rates, which means that these forms can be programmed much like television, the study suggests.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/161317/consumers-more-accepting-of-video-ads-in-premium-o.html

Personalized video ads lift consumer favorability
Personalized and localized video ads boosted intent to purchase 37% from the effect produced by a generic ad, according to a study by online video provider Eyeview and travel site KAYAK. Gains were also seen in measures of brand favorability and loyalty.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008655

Google is said to be exploring possible Yahoo! buy
Google reportedly has been in contact with two unidentified private-equity firms about helping to put together a deal in which the Internet giant would purchase Yahoo!’s core business, per this article. The discussions are said to be in the very early stages.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203911804576649121183551678.html?KEYWORDS=GOOGLE+YAHOO&mod=dist_smartbrief

Media News

Major Newspapers’ Total Digital Editions Rise 63 Percent
Digital editions of the top 25 newspapers rose 63 percent to 2,169,843 for the six months ending in September, according to Audit Bureau of Circulations’ Fas-Fax tally. For the most part, the numbers reflect newspapers’ and consumers’ relatively new embrace of digital editions across a growing number of mobile devices. While there’s a lot of excitement about these gains newspapers are seeing—at time when print circulation continues to fall—the industry is still a way off from getting digital to offset the declines.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-fas-fax-major-newspapers-total-digital-editions-rise-63-percent/

Meredith Inks Deal For ‘Every Day With Rachael Ray’
Meredith Corp., the nation’s largest women’s interest publisher, is set to expand its portfolio of food titles with the acquisition of Every Day With Rachael Ray and its related digital properties from their previous owner, the Reader’s Digest Association.
Meredith said it also finalized a 10-year licensing agreement with Watch Entertainment Inc., the company established by the celebrity TV chef to manage all aspects of her media and brand presence.Every Day Wth Rachael Ray publishes 10 times per year with a rate base of 1.7 million and has an estimated audience of 7.4 million. The first issue published by Meredith will be for February 2012. As part of the transition, Christine Guilfoyle is rejoining the magazine as publisher, reprising her previous role as the title’s launch publisher from 2005-2007.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/161458/meredith-inks-deal-for-every-day-with-rachael-ray.html

‘Wired’ Bringing Advertisers and Its Blogs Closer Together
It may have taken nontraditional publishers like Federated Media to pave the way for “conversational media,” in which advertisers mix more directly with the blogging community. But now premium content brands want to get in on the act.
A prominent example is Wired, which is running ad-sponsored blogs that let advertisers commingle their messages with editorial content. One that’s now on Wired.com is Cloudline, sponsored by IBM.
http://www.adweek.com/news/press/wired-bringing-advertisers-and-its-blogs-closer-together-136211

Study measures brand loyalty among U.S. youth
Young people in the U.S. ages 8 to 24 say Apple is their favorite computer brand, while Oreos are their favorite cookie and Cheerios their preferred breakfast cereal. That’s according to the 2012 Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend study, an annual report by Harris Interactive that ranks the brands most liked by America’s youth. This demographic’s spending power next year is pegged at $211 billion, per Harris Interactive.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/161108/apple-hersheys-sprite-top-youth-brands.html

Magazine Readers Vary on Economy
Different magazine audiences have different attitudes toward the economy, according to Affinity and Experian Simmons, which surveyed readers of various titles to discover their feelings about the future for the Affinity AMS/Experian Simmons magazine database, which combines print and digital magazine audience estimates from Affinity’s American Magazine Study with consumer insights from the Simmons National Consumer Study.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/161682/magazine-readers-vary-on-economy.html

Retail News

Survey: Deals on shopping, shipping will drive online holiday sales
Consumers are expected to shop online for about one-third of their holiday purchases this year, and nearly half of consumers say they’ll shop online this year compared to 35% last year, according to a Deloitte survey. Convenience, low prices and free-shipping offers are driving the shift, the survey shows.
http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/10/26/low-prices-and-free-shipping-make-prosperous-holidays

Spring to bring a clash of splashy patterns
If the recent Spring 2012 runway collections are any indication, the season’s new looks for men and women will burst forth in a riot of clashing patterns and prints. Retailers including Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s are betting that shoppers will see the beauty, although there may be an education process.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204777904576653203808203180.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Study: Luxury brands’ late e-commerce efforts pay off
About 81% of luxury brand manufacturers have overcome early reluctance to engage in e-commerce, and their efforts appear to be paying off. All but 2% of online traffic to luxury sites goes to those that sell online, according to a study from PM Digital. The Ralph Lauren site drew 39.2% of traffic in August, and Louis Vuitton and Gucci grabbed 11.8% and 10.9% respectively.
http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/10/25/four-out-five-major-luxury-brands-now-have-e-commerce-sites

Luxury brands bet on China for growth
China’s economic growth is stabilizing, but demand for luxury brands remains strong, and upscale brands including Burberry and LVMH are counting on China, Asia and other emerging markets for continued growth.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204618704576644812752173144.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Travel News

Wellness travel is gaining global appeal
Wellness travel, an estimated $106 billion global industry, may provide another lucrative sales opportunity for travel agents, says Susie Ellis, president of SpaFinder. Travel agents can learn about the various wellness travel options available worldwide and market them as unique health-boosting experiences for clients wishing to lose weight or de-stress, Ellis says.
http://travelmarketreport.com/medical?articleID=6545&LP=1

Leisure travel in North America surpasses that in global market
North American leisure-travel bookings exceeded the global average by 1.4% in September, Pegasus Solutions reports in its “The Pegasus View.” Leisure-travel bookings showed an overall gain from August’s 4.2% increase, while corporate travel maintained its growth over the prior year, with a 6.1% rise in worldwide GDS channel bookings. “The leisure market’s showing in September evidenced a move towards off-peak travel by consumers,” said Mike Kistner, CEO of Pegasus Solutions.
http://www.travelpulse.com/north-american-leisure-travel-edges-ahead-of-global-market.html

E-boarding pass trend has taken off
Most major carriers have now installed mobile-boarding services at major U.S. airports, allowing a growing number of smartphone-using travelers to check in through e-boarding passes on their devices. Despite some bugs and drawbacks, the new system has received praise from business and frequent travelers.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/travel/testing-e-boarding-passes.html

Martini Ad Network Targets Affluent Buyers
As advertisers begin to focus on loyal and affluent consumers, Martini Media will launch a private advertising exchange that targets online ads to households with an annual income of more than $100,000. The platform — MartiniLIVE — will attempt to reach consumers buying and sharing the most content online. Luxury brands are not the only companies that target affluent consumers. Procter & Gamble publicly announced that it would woo consumers making substantial incomes because these consumers buy multiples of one or more items, according to Skip Brand, Martini CEO. “Sometimes this could be a teacher making $42,000 and a plumber making $62,000 raising three kids, and they buy multiple things at once to save time,” he said.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159351

Dreaming of An M-Christmas: M-Shopping May Soar This Holiday
Holiday shoppers may have limited spending capacity this year, but they will be using their phones early and often during the holiday season to make smarter buying decisions, says mobile ad network Mojiva in its latest user survey of predominantly smartphone owners. When asked what types of product information they would find their phone most useful to obtain, 56% cited product information and the same number targeted coupons and sale info. More than half of users (23%) expect their phones to be useful in getting product reviews, and 51% would expect to find store hours. The findings were just published in Mojiva’s holiday edition of its Mobile Audience Guide.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159579

Internet Ads Reach $15 Billion, First-Half 2011
Internet ad revenue rose 24.1% to $7.7 billion in Q2 2011, contributing a 23% uptick to $14.9 billion in the first half of the year, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers U.S. stats. Display-related advertising-banner, rich media, digital video and sponsorships rose 27.1% to more than $5.5 billion in the first six months of 2011. Breaking it down for the first six months, display-related advertising revenue totaled $5.5 billion or 37% revenue, up 27% from the $4.4 billion reported in 2010. Banners took 23%, or $3.4 billion; rich media, 5%, or $763 million; digital video, 6%, or $891 million; and sponsorship, 3%, or $467 million.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159521

In Online Advertising, Brands Shouldn’t Equate Frequency and Blind Repetition.
Back in Rust Belt HQ, there’s a simple, tested paradigm about how frequency functions in the media equation for brands: Repetition reinforces learning, ergo memory. You never know when a consumer might go to the store, so in your window to talk to them, you need a shot of persuasion that’s memorable. “Hypodermic marketing,” as guru Jerry Zaltman called it, aims to inject a story that will endure — at least until the next shopping trip. Great creative, properly absorbed, can last a lifetime. Cognitive science suggests that a story is more memorable than a simple fact because it is easier for the brain to assimilate. If you want your brand to be top of mind when shopping time comes, engage people’s emotions with a good story. If you want to be sure, tell it again. That’s frequency in a nutshell. Repetition works — ask any schoolteacher. And, because memories decay, if you tell the story closer in time to the moment the brain is supposed to remember it (such as during a shopping trip), it has more impact. If you want to be top of the class, tell it on the day they go shopping!
http://adage.com/article/guest-columnists/online-advertising-frequency-equal-repetition/229810/

Glam Media Buys Ning Social Media Platform
Vertical media company Glam Media is acquiring Ning, a platform allowing users to build custom social websites, for an undisclosed sum, the companies announced today. Since launching in 2005, Glam Media — made up of men’s and women’s lifestyle styles — has grown into a platform with more than 2,500 publishers and 85 million monthly unique visitors, according to ComScore. Its business focuses on selling relatively high-end display ads to 1,000 brand advertisers including Louis Vuitton, Unilever and Procter & Gamble — no search or click-based units. Glam CEO Samir Arora said Ning offered social functionality as well as subscription revenue that could help diversify Glam’s revenue.
http://adage.com/article/digital/glam-media-buys-ning-social-media-platform/229922/

Media News

Hearst Distributes 300,000 Digital Editions Monthly
As all eyes turn to Amazon today in anticipation of the launch of a tablet device, Hearst is touting its current success on the existing digital distribution platforms. The company says it has surpassed 300,000 paid digital circulation on its magazine brands across iOS, Nook Color and the Zinio Newsstand. Hearst distributes most of its titles — including ELLE, Esquire and Marie Claire — on these platforms. The company does not offer complementary digital editions to its print subscribers, so this distribution represents device-based reach. The circulation number includes monthly digital edition subscriptions as well as single-copy sales.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159500

ESPN To Use Research Tracking Day-In-The-Life Of Media Consumers
ESPN has signed on as the charter subscriber of a promising new media research system analyzing the actual “day-in-the-life” media behavior of American consumers. The system, dubbed USA TouchPoints, was developed by New York-based Media Behavior Institute, which is licensing a methodology that has been made popular in Europe. ESPN Vice President-Integrated Media Research Glenn Enoch said the goal was to utilize the data to help turn the multiplatform media company’s “cross-platform research from a special project to a standard practice.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159653

ABC, CBS Tops With Affluent Viewers
ABC says based on the first week of the broadcast prime-time season, it currently holds the coveted spot of being No. 1 with upscale viewers. ABC results for adults 18-49 with incomes of $100,000 or more — taking out sports programming — is a 3.2 rating. Fox and CBS tied for second place with a 2.9 number. For many TV advertisers, upscale viewers can be “light” TV viewers, and thus can be more valuable for many TV prime-time advertisers.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=159565

Retail News

Magazines Begin to Sell the Fashion They Review
On Park & Bond, a new e-commerce site for designer men’s wear, Jim Moore, the creative director for GQ, can be found describing a red Calvin Klein turtleneck as “something that can take that gray flannel suit and give it a little bon vivant.” The sweater, which costs $225, is tagged as a GQ Pick, inside the GQ Store. In Esquire’s September issue, David Granger, the magazine’s editor in chief, invites readers to check outCladmen.com, a site starting in October that will sell items like a $228 pair of chukka boots from Cole Haan or a $795 suit from Michael Kors, specifically selected by the magazine. And fashionistas who are following the latest runway collections being shown this month have the opportunity, beginning this season, to buy some of those looks, from designers like Diane von Furstenberg, Marc Jacobs and Derek Lam, right from the Web site of Vogue magazine.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/business/media/magazines-begin-to-sell-the-fashion-they-review.html?_r=1

Men Dominate Online Shopping: Study
It’s a man’s world, according to a new report on Europe’s online consumers presented at the World Retail Congress which opened here today. The survey of 10,000 shoppers in Sweden, Germany, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Spain and Russia by CB Richard Ellis/EMEA Research & Consulting showed men have replaced women as the most frequent e-shoppers. Men average two virtual shop tours a month, versus women’s once a month activity, and while men spend more online for electronics and media, their online apparel purchases are on the rise, noted Peter Gold, head of Cross Border Retail EMEA, CB Richard Ellis. Men are also more likely to research potential purchases on line than women, the report data showed. Other new study insights: the online consumer is ageless. The willingness to shop online is not skewed to youth, though younger shoppers are often deterred by delivery charges and difficulties in returning online purchases. Higher earners are more likely to shop online, and these spent a larger proportion of total earnings on line.
http://www.wwd.com/retail-news/direct-internet-catalog/men-dominate-online-shopping-study-5225382

Online Shopping: Now, Inside Display Ads!
A year after launching its flashy Project Devil ad service, AOL today announced plans for a new feature that promises to help performance marketers circumvent the dreaded click-through (or, in many cases, lack thereof). Project Devil will now offer consumers the ability to complete e-commerce transactions within the ad itself. Sure, even the most guileless Internet surfer would hesitate before turning over credit card information to a banner ad. That’s why the ads simply pull content directly from advertisers’ e-commerce sites. The branding, technology, and transaction remain exactly as they would on the advertiser’s own site. But with the help of an HTML5 overlay, users can opt to expand an ad to nearly full screen without leaving the page they’re surfing.
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/online-shopping-now-inside-display-ads-135000

Travel & Tourism News

Celebrity Cruises Taps Top Chef to Join Culinary Team: James Beard-nominated “Rising Star” further enhances line’s culinary leadership
Known for its culinary leadership and commitment to offering guests a modern, luxurious experience during their precious vacation time, Celebrity Cruises has expanded its already robust culinary talent by naming 2010 James Beard Foundation “Rising Star Chef” nominee and 2007 “Rising Star Chef of American Cuisine” John Suley as its director of Culinary Operations. Tapped by Celebrity’s charismatic Vice President of Culinary Operations Jacques Van Staden – himself a James Beard-nominated Master Chef – Suley is widely regarded as one of the country’s top “up and coming” chefs. Prior to joining Celebrity, he worked in the star-studded, international dining scene as executive chef at the South Florida incarnation of three-time James Beard honoree Alfred Portale’s famed “Gotham Bar & Grill” (New York), “Gotham Steak” at the chic Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/celebrity-cruises-taps-top-chef-to-join-culinary-team-130202493.html

Canadian port of Saint John building 2nd cruise terminal
A Canadian Maritimes port is building a second cruise terminal and expanding its berth capacity in a bid to draw more ships. Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada’s oldest incorporated city, is situated at the mouth of the St. John River, on the northern shore of the Bay of Fundy. Wedged between Maine and Nova Scotia, the Fundy coast has been compared to “Cape Cod 50 years ago” and “Maine without the crowds,” according to Discover Saint John, the region’s tourism marketing organization. Construction will begin this fall on the new terminal, and berth improvements will accommodate cruise vessels up to 1,115 feet long.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Canadian-port-of-Saint-John-building-2nd-cruise-terminal/?a=cruise

Harris Pillow Supply’s Innovative Pillow-Vac(R) Contributes to Celebrity Cruises’ Efforts to Reduce Waste
Harris Pillow Supply’s innovative Pillow-Vac(R) is contributing to premium vacation company Celebrity Cruises’ efforts to make strides toward furthering waste reduction. Committed to delivering a high-quality, luxurious vacation experience while proactively minimizing its environmental footprint, Celebrity Cruises installed the innovative Pillow-Vac machine on nine of its 10 ships earlier this year, extending the lives of its pillows and reducing waste in the process. “The logistics to renovate pillows on a cruise ship is easy,” said president John Harris, Harris Pillow Supply. “We simply designate to a specific ship each order of new pillow ticking and fill needed to renovate the pillows, and then ship it to a Celebrity warehouse for ease.”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/harris-pillow-supplys-innovative-pillow-vacr-contributes-to-celebrity-cruises-efforts-to-reduce-waste-2011-09-27

Facebook, Twitter Shares Outpace Other Social Buttons
Web site pages displaying the Twitter share button get seven times the social media mentions compared with those that do not, according to a study released Thursday. The BrightEdge SocialShare Analysis September report finds 53.6% of the largest 10,000 sites on the Web display some sort of social link or share button on their home page, up from 52.8% in late July. Nearly half of the largest 10,000 sites on the Web still don’t display any kind of social sharing links or buttons. Analyzing the data, BrightEdge tapped about 4 million tweets selected at random. Its Social Share Engine determined if the tweets carried shared information and then identified whether the content was shared using tools, buttons, links or other methods. Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge, said the report suggests buttons drive mentions and activities through the social channel.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=157786

Report Details Rise of Social Media
As social media like blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube grow increasingly popular among consumers, marketers are seeking more data about the changing behavior of their customers. Nielsen, which has long provided such information about the traditional media, is seeking to become a go-to source of data for new media, too. To help bolster that, Nielsen is to release on Monday morning a report of a kind it says it has not published before, a big-picture look at social media. Although the conclusions of the report are not surprising, it is interesting to read in “State of the Media: The Social Media Report” just how large a role social media are playing in the lives of consumers. Social media account for 22.5 percent of the time that Americans spend online, according to the report, compared with 9.8 percent for online games and 7.6 percent for e-mail.
http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/report-details-rise-of-social-media/

How Social Media Users Engage with Marketers on Twitter
As Twitter evolves its advertising platform, with the latest development being Promoted Tweets to followers, there is concern as to how consumers will react to seeing ads from brands in their Twitter feeds. Market research firm Lab42 surveyed US Twitter users in August 2011, asking about their habits related to brand engagement. Only 11.1% of US Twitter users said that following brands was the leading reason why they use the site. The top reasons include following friends (17.4%), to get a good laugh (15.6%), to get the news (15.1%) and to share the news (13.9%). Additionally, about half of US Twitter users follow between one and 10 brands on the site. Only 10.6% of respondents said they don’t follow any brands, while 8.2% of US Twitter users follow more than 50 brands on Twitter.
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008572

Media News

Bon Appétit Hitting the Runways for Fashion Week
Under new editor Adam Rapoport, Bon Appétit has embraced lifestyle topics like home, celebrity, and travel, all familiar territory for the epicurean magazine set. But fashion? That’s the play the magazine will make during New York Fashion Week, with a program it’s dubbed Feast or Fashion. Celebrity chefs like Mario Batali will introduce new, Bon Appétit-branded menus at their restaurants, and a 40-page style guide will be distributed at Fashion Week events to promote the chefs and their restaurants for the post-show crowd. There will be private dinners, too, where designers like Lela Rose and Whit Pozgay will rub shoulders with culinary stars. The magazine said the program generated $1 million in new business.
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/bon-app-tit-hitting-runways-fashion-week-134602

A Diamond Maker Joins Hearst to Show Power of Print and Dazzle
In the current economy, some can afford to buy diamonds and some might need a little help to do so. A new advertising campaign by Hearts On Fire, the Boston-based diamond company, hopes to have something for all types of buyers. Instead of hiring a traditional advertising agency, the company has collaborated with an in-house creative team at Hearst Magazines for a new campaign with customized messages in digital and print ads. The company says it also hopes to increase awareness of its brands by building a social media community. The campaign will be rooted in 82 print spreads that will run in seven Hearst magazines over 16 months. One of the main goals is “to show the power of print and how it moves consumers into the funnel and brings them all the way down to the purchase,” said Michael A. Clinton, the president, marketing and publishing director of Hearst Magazines.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/business/media/diamond-maker-and-hearst-unite-to-reach-consumers.html?_r=1

Scripps Launches Live Steaming to Mobile Devices
The Scripps station group has taken a major step toward keeping its viewers connected on myriad platforms, as it launches live streaming apps in its nine markets that, according to the company, “deliver live video programming to virtually any mobile device.” At times of breaking news, including severe weather, a user in a Scripps market, such as Cincinnati or Cleveland, will be prompted to view streaming content via the station’s app. Clicking on the prompt opens a live media player that might be a simulcast of the station’s content, or coverage that’s unique to the mobile app. Scripps claims it is the first TV station group to offer live streaming to mobile devices.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/473527-Scripps_Launches_Live_Streaming_to_Mobile_Devices.php

‘NYT’ Launches India Ink Site
The New York Times has launched India Ink, an English-language Web site offering news and analysis about Indian politics, culture, business, sports and lifestyle. The site provides a distinct perspective on news and events, both on the subcontinent and abroad.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=158253

Retail News

Saks CEO sees no reason for discounts amid strong luxury spending
Luxury retailers worried during the downturn when industry experts wondered whether consumers would ever pay full price again, but upscale shoppers are back and they’re not bargain hunting, says Saks CEO Steve Sadove. Saks sales rose 11% in the first half of 2011, the chain has returned to profitability and it has cut way back on discounting.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904103404576560681605703072.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

And this is how e-commerce can turn grade school hallways into fashion runways: Rue La La launches an online boutique for children’s apparel and family-friendly products
Fashion isn’t just for grown-ups—that’s the idea behind a new e-commerce venture fromRueLaLa.com. The flash sale retailer, No. 82 in the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, this week launched Little Rue, where consumers can buy apparel, accessories and entertainment products designed to appeal to children and familes. Little Rue represents the latest product category expansion for Rue La La, which already sells to its members men’s and women’s fashions, home goods and travel packages, along with local discounts for consumers in such cities as Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia and Seattle.
http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/09/07/and-how-turn-school-hallways-fashion-runways

Facebook E-Commerce App Payvment Launches Premium Version For Larger Retailers
Payvment, a startup that allows anyone to create and operate a retail storefront on Facebook, is releasing a new version of its social commerce platform that aims to meet needs of larger retailers, brands and agencies. Payvment’s Facebook App, which launched in November of 2009, lets anyone create a retail store on the social network. The app lets you set up products, categories of products (i.e. shoes, T-shirts, sweaters), import photos, list terms of service and shipping options and more. Once you set up your online shop on Facebook, it will show up in a separate tab on your profile or page under “storefront”. The company also offers a virtual shopping mall of all of its storefronts on Facebook.
http://techcrunch.com/2011/09/08/facebook-e-commerce-app-payvment-launches-premium-version-for-larger-retailers/

Travel & Tourism

Celebrity Silhouette Upgrades Solstice Class
Grilling for your friends over lagers and sunshine is not exactly a new vacation experience, that is, unless your vacation is at sea. Now, for the first time ever, clients can enjoy this interactive group dining event onboard a cruise ship. Celebrity Silhouette, the fourth of five Solstice-class ships, delivers Celebrity Solstice’s signature style, elegance and innovation, which guests will experience through new additions and enhancements to the Lawn Club and Michael’s Club.
http://www.travelagewest.com/Travel/Cruise/Info/Celebrity-Silhouette-Upgrades-Solstice-Class/

Cruise ship photo tour: The charm of the Celebrity Century
Built in 1995, the 71,545-ton Celebrity Century may be the oldest of the line’s ten ships, but it still has a lot of fans. What’s the vessel like on the inside? Click HERE to see our new comprehensive photo tour of the Celebrity Century by veteran cruise writer and ship photographer Peter Knego.
Designed as a research tool for vacationers considering a voyage on the ship, the Celebrity Century photo tour is the 39th in our ongoing series of ship galleries.
http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/post/2011/09/celebrity-cruises-century-cruise-ship-/546139/1

Royal Caribbean opens bookings for new Asia cruises
Royal Caribbean today begins taking bookings for its first season of Asia cruises on Voyager of the Seas — the largest ship ever to be based in the region. As previously announced, the 3,114-passenger vessel will operate a series of three-, four-, five- seven- and eight-night itineraries out of Singapore and China starting in May. The deployment of the 137,276-ton vessel in China is a major milestone for cruising in the region. Until now based in Europe during summers, Voyager of the Seas is one of the world’s largest cruise ships and twice the size of any other passenger vessel that has operated regularly out of China.
The Voyager’s 2012 schedule includes four-night voyages out of Singapore with stops in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Phuket, Thailand; four-night voyages out of Shanghai with stops in Fukuoka, Japan and Jeju, South Korea; and five-night voyages out of Shanghai with stops in Nagasaki, Japan and Busan, South Korea.
http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/post/2011/09/royal-caribbean-asia-cruises-china-japan/545997/1

Female-Focused Glam Media Moves Into Mobile
Ad network and online publisher Glam Media says it has built a monthly audience of 200 million visitors worldwide, and now it’s looking to grow by tackling the mobile market. CEO Samir Arora said he’s ready to take on Apple and Google in the process.
Glam is best known as a company targeting women, but there are also partner sites covering topics like health and wellness, and some aimed at men. The unifying factor is an attempt to reach the audiences coveted by high-end brand advertisers.
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/female-focused-glam-media-moves-mobile-134175

Interactive Ads Pay Off for Digital Mags
While most advertisers are still repurposing static print ads for the digital editions of print magazines, those that opt to include interactive elements (or create new ads with interactive features) are seeing a big payoff in terms of reader engagement and brand perception. These benefits carry over to the magazines themselves, according to new findings from research outfit Affinity’s VISTA Digital service, which tracks consumption of digital magazines on iPads and other mobile devices. Affinity measured reader response to a variety of interactive digital ad formats on mobile devices, including sponsored videos, photo galleries and 3D product views.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=156035

Google Revives Digital Catalogs Via iPad App
Are the days of J.Crew and L.L. Bean print catalogues numbered? On Tuesday, Google launched Google Catalogs, a free tablet-optimized app that aggregates shopping catalogs in a searchable, interactive format. Google Catalogs, which is currently only available on the iPad, lets you “subscribe” to digital versions of print catalogs from dozens of retailers, including William Sonoma, L.L. Bean, Urban Outfitters, and Macy’s. The app will provide alerts when new catalogs show up.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391193,00.asp

LinkedIn Backtracks on Controversial Ads
While Facebook seems to be in constant hot water for alleged privacy violations, fellow social network LinkedIn has largely managed to steer clear of negative buzz. But after launching an advertising initiative that exploited its users’ information, LinkedIn is backtracking, reports The Wall Street Journal. In late June, the site began testing “social ads” that displayed users’ profile pictures and shared their public actions, like following companies or making recommendations. LinkedIn announced the ads on its blog and banner ads throughout the site, and also told users how to opt out, since members were automatically included unless they specified otherwise.
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/linkedin-backtracks-controversial-ads-134105

iPhone Still Biggest Advertising Target
Despite major shifts in the smartphone market since 2009, the iPhone has managed to hold strong as the single biggest target for mobile advertising, according to quarterly studies from Millennial Media, the latest of which is being released today. While Apple has stayed in the top spot, the studies show that the rest of the mobile market has been far from steady—and that smartphones have successfully taken over. While Millennial’s 2009 top 20 list, which ranks devices based on the number of ad impressions delivered to each, was mostly made up of feature phones, the latest list is comprised entirely of smartphones.
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/iphone-still-biggest-advertising-target-134103

Media News

Preview: WSJ Magazine’s September Issue
While Sally Singer handed over her latest cover of T: The New York Times Style Magazine to the relatively unknown jazz singer Esperanza Spalding, editor Deborah Needleman is going conventional: Rachel Weisz is WSJ’s September cover girl. On the cover, Weisz is dressed in an Alexander McQueen herringbone trench and is standing in a pose that reveals plenty. The September issue also includes an interview with Marc Jacobs and Robert Duffy and an eight-page spread that shows off the back rooms and ateliers of Hermès.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/journal-entry-5078620

‘GMA’ Closes Morning Ratings Race, ‘Today’ Still Ahead With Key Viewers
Early morning network shows are seeing an overall tighter ratings race than in the last few years — although “Today” is still far ahead among key viewers. ABC News says “Good Morning America” is attracting its biggest overall viewer audience in four years — since 2006-2007 — moving to the smallest viewer gap to NBC’s “The Today Show” in four years.”GMA” averaged a Nielsen 4.343 total viewers and a 1.656 million among adults 25-54 during the week of August 8, 2011. This is a 14% improvement in total viewers and an 8% gain in 25-54 viewers from the week before.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=156182

Radio Revenue Edges Up
Worries about the economy didn’t hold radio back in the second quarter — but growth wasn’t exactly meteoric, either: total advertising revenues increased 1% from just under $4.54 billion to just over $4.58 billion, according to the latest figures from the Radio Advertising Bureau. The modest year-over-year increase was powered by growth in digital, which jumped 18% to $185 million; off-air, up 5% to $392 million; and network, up 3% to $282 million. However, the good news was tempered by weakness in spot advertising, long the mainstay of the radio business, which decreased 1% to $3.72 billion.
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=156270

Retail News

Chico’s in Deal To Acquire Boston Proper
David Dyer just made a $205 million bet that there’s lots of growth left in the misses’ category. The president and chief executive officer of Chico’s FAS Inc. inked a deal to acquire the Internet and catalogue business Boston Proper, deepening Chico’s involvement in the sector and underscoring the company’s faith in the U.S. market.
http://www.wwd.com/business-news/mergers-acquisitions/chicos-to-acquire-boston-proper-5070880

On the Phone: M-Commerce Is the Word
Slow is not an option. Just when everyone thought e-commerce was the next great selling tool, along comes m-commerce, capturing sales on the go. It’s quickly becoming a digital priority for the fashion industry, and accessories are rising as a hot category. Flash sale site Rue La La has had a mobile app since April 2010. M-commerce has grown to become on average 18 percent of its business on weekdays and 30 percent on weekends, according to President Steve Davis. Accessories perform about 20 percent better than any other sector on the site. “Accessories are easier to make a quick decision on,” he says, adding that handbags are especially strong mobile sellers. Net-a-Porter’s accessories buying manager, Sasha Sarokin, reports that with m-commerce, more “everyday” and “wear-now” accessories, like friendship bracelets or small pendant necklaces, are big sellers. Higher-ticket items sell as well, particularly those that pack a strong photographic punch. Even smaller brands sell quite well if they are visual, through either e- or m-commerce.
http://www.wwd.com/accessories-news/trends/on-the-phone-ms-the-word-5053605

Lucky Brand Jeans Debuts “A New Movement in Denim” Campaign
Lucky Brand Jeans launched its new Fall 2011 advertising campaign, entitled “A New Movement in Denim.” Created to coincide with the release of new Super Stretch denim for women and updated Super Soft denim for men, the campaign speaks to the brand’s core business, highlighting the comfortable, versatile and dynamic nature of its new fabric offerings. Shot by world-renowned fashion photographer Carter Smith, under the direction of Lucky Brand Executive Vice President and Creative Director Patrick Wade and Style Director Karin Cole, the campaign marks a more elevated aesthetic for the brand. The ads feature high-profile models Hanne G., Tasha Tilberg and Noah Mills walking, lounging and reclining in a warmly lit room, wearing dark indigo Lucky Brand jeans.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/10/prweb8710664.DTL

Chico’s to track fashion brand mentions on social media
Fashion group Chico’s FAS has tapped SAS for social media analytics to help it monitor and understand what people are saying about its Chico’s, White House Black Market and Soma brands online. SAS says Chico’s will begin by analysing Facebook and Twitter conversations, but the tool can be applied to YouTube, forums and blogs as well.
http://www.research-live.com/news/new-business/chicos-to-track-fashion-brand-mentions-on-social-media/4005788.article

Travel & Tourism News

First Call, the Silhouette: New turf for Celebrity
There’s little doubt that the Lawn Club on the top deck of the Celebrity Silhouette will deliver the wow factor that cruise ship designers and executives seem to be forever chasing. A lush lawn in a park-like setting is a Solstice-class innovation, and it’s been modified on this 2,886-passenger ship to include a grill restaurant and eight private cabanas, called the Alcoves, that can be rented for the day.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/First-Call,-the-Silhouette–New-turf-for-Celebrity/?a=cruise

Caribbean governments alleviate pier pressure
Vendor harassment of cruise passengers has long been an issue on Caribbean islands where ports play a major role in the tourism economy. But that has been changing recently as island hosts respond to growing numbers of unhappy passengers and pressure from cruise lines to clean up their act. Most recently, vendor harassment came into focus immediately following the opening of the multimillion-dollar Port of Falmouth, a collaborative joint venture of the government of Jamaica and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., whose brands include Royal Caribbean International, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises and Pullmantur.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Caribbean-Travel/Caribbean-governments-alleviate-pier-pressure/

Twitter Places Brand Tweets Atop Timelines
Twitter will start letting brands pay to deliver tweets “at or near the top” of the timelines of their followers, the company announced on its blog today. The offering, called “Promoted Tweets to Followers,” aims to increase the visibility of a company’s tweets among people who have already expressed an interest in it. Launch partners include Best Western, Dell, Gatorade, Groupon, HBO, JetBlue (see image), LivingSocial, Microsoft Xbox, Red Bull, Sephora, Starbucks, TNT and Virgin America. Their tweets will appear in the new Twitter program during the “next several weeks,” according to the blog post. LivingSocial spokesperson Brendan Lewis told ClickZ News that Promoted Trends to Followers “provides us with another avenue to reach our members, and give them an advanced look at some deals before they hit ‘conventionally,’ like on our website or app.”
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2097805/twitter-brand-tweets-atop-timelines

ComScore: Brands Should Look Beyond Facebook Fans
Marketers have yet to agree on the value of a Facebook fan, but comScore argues the question may be missing the point. Instead, the research firm suggests marketers should consider reach and frequency of brand impressions shown to fans as well as their friends. In a study of unpaid Facebook impressions by three brands – Starbucks, Southwest Airlines and Bing – comScore measured the impact of brand exposures reaching friends of fans, rather than friends alone. According to “The Power of Like: How Brands Reach and Influence Fans Through Social Media Marketing” study, conducted in May by comScore in conjunction with Facebook, for every fan of a top 100 brand, an additional 34 friends of fans can be reached through an exposure to the fan, or liker.
http://www.clickz.com/clickz/news/2097415/comscore-brands-look-facebook-fans

New Site Unveils Visual Search
With the tag line “drag, drop, buy,” image-driven discovery platform Ave23.com is looking to change the landscape of fashion search engines with visual intelligence technology. Just more than a year in the making, the new e-commerce model, which launched in beta today, is the first search engine that uses images — instead of words — to find visually similar products. All users have to do is drag an image into Ave23.com’s search bar — and voilà — the site spits out an exhaustive list of products that make up the look.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news?module=tn#/article/media-news/new-site-unveils-visual-search-3734075

Nice timing: Facebook debuts “Facebook for Business”
On Tuesday Facebook debuted a step-by-step online guide aimed at helping small businesses use the social networking site. The company is billing the new web page, found at Facebook.com/business, as an “online education center” that gives directions on such things as how to set up a profile page, create targeted ads and deals, and interact with customer feedback online. The timing is interesting, as it comes just a week after Google began shutting off all company profiles on its Google+ social network. The search engine giant says it’s just company policy to restrict Google+ access to individual users, a stance that has inspired a good deal of controversy in recent days.
http://gigaom.com/2011/07/26/facebook-for-business/

Media News

Hearst, Lagardere Deal Complete
TWO DOWN, MORE TO GO: Hearst Corporation said today it has completed the U.K. segment of its international deal to buy or publish Lagardere SCA’s magazines. The deal puts the National Magazine Company, Hearst’s main U.K. business, and Hachette Filipacchi UK Ltd. under the same umbrella and the new organization is called Hearst Magazines U.K. The deal gives Hearst the U.K. publishing rights to the international titles Elle, Elle Decoration and Psychologies. It also gives Hearst ownership of the women’s monthly lifestyle title Red, All About Soap, Inside Soap, Digital Spy, the show business and entertainment news site, and Sugarscape, the online iteration of Sugar magazine, which closed earlier this year.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news?module=tn#/article/media-news/fashion-memopad/hearst-lagardere-deal-complete-3739861

Niche Luxury E-Commerce Site Edition01.com to Launch
Launching the last week of September, Edition01.com is an e-commerce site conceived as a destination for exclusive capsule collections by luxury designers. Estefania Lacayo and Jessica Wilpon Kamel, who have been friends since their college years, are banking on the high-end consumer’s demand for exclusive merchandise. The two spent the last year enlisting labels, including Donna Karan, Doo.Ri, Narciso Rodriguez, Peter Pilotto and Calvin Klein, to create special product specifically for Edition01. Most sales will feature around 10 to 25 units and all merch is priced comparably to the designer’s average retail price, which, according to Lacayo and Wilpon Kamel, was a very appealing part of their pitch to design firms.
http://www.wwd.com/media-news?module=tn#/article/retail-news/exclusive-luxury-e-commerce-site-edition1com-launching-this-fall-3736453?navSection=media-news

Glamour adopts 2D mobile route to social-network links
Glamour is banking on 2D codes in its September issue to generate a bigger social presence, inviting readers to swipe the code and “like” the magazine on Facebook. The SpyderLynk-powered SnapTags on the edition’s cover and inside pages require a free application from Apple iTunes or Android Market and also encourage links with Glamour advertisers.
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-glamour-looks-to-mobile-and-social-for-september-print-promotion/

Retail News

Beauty Bytes: Designers get into the makeup game
In recent years, the lines between fashion and beauty have blurred with more and more fashion brands getting involved with makeup, haircare, bodycare and fragrance. Calvin Klein, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Rock & Republic and more have all launched successful beauty brands that have added revenue to their companies through the sale of cosmetics. And it looks like this fashion-into-beauty trend will just continue to grow. Three fashion designers have recently announced their first forays into the world of makeup. Kate Spade has teamed up with lipstick extraordinnare Poppy King to produce a line of lipsticks called “Supercalifragilipstick.” The four-piece line will include Spade’s signature bright hues. The lipsticks will be housed in golden tubes with the phrase “Pucker Up” stamped on the inside. The collection will be out this fall and each lipstick will retail for $24 each.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/lifestyle/fashion/beauty-bytes-designers-get-into-the-makeup-game/article_9796f778-b6c8-11e0-ba59-0019bb30f31a.html

Malls Gain Traction Despite Slow Recovery
Retailers might be sweating the recovery, but mall operators are feeling pretty good, particularly when it comes to their luxe venues where shoppers are out and spending. Simon Property Group Inc. — the nation’s largest mall operator with 201 regional malls and premium outlet centers — said last week that sales per square foot, occupancy and average rents were all on the rise. The smaller Taubman Centers Inc. had a similar take recently. David Simon, chairman and chief executive officer of Simon, said his company’s strongest headwind came from chains that have missed out on the recovery and will potentially close stores. But shoppers overall are hanging tough.
http://www.wwd.com/retail-news?module=tn#/article/business-news/malls-gain-despite-slow-recovery-3738659

Nordstrom shops for Manhattan site again
Nordstrom has searched Manhattan on and off for 10 years to find the perfect site for a full-size department store and, while it still hasn’t identified a location, the luxury chain will launch a two-story charity shop in the SoHo neighborhood this month. Fans of the chain are pushing for a full store.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903366504576486403437699190.html?mod=dist_smartbrief

Travel & Tourism News
Celebrity touts luxury experience in marketing campaign
In tandem with the Celebrity Silhouette’s launch last week, Celebrity Cruises introduced a marketing campaign using the tagline “Modern LuXury.” The campaign continues the use of Celebrity’s “X” logo. Its previous marketing slogan was “X the rules,” launched in January. Celebrity CEO Dan Hanrahan discussed the new approach during a pre-inaugural cruise from Hamburg last week. He said the campaign will target a wider market of upmarket travelers, including younger people. Agents selling Celebrity should focus on the ships’ “cool designs” and “warm, inviting spaces,” along with the cruise’s value proposition.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Celebrity-touts-luxury-experience-in-marketing-campaign/

Megaships’ amenities inspiring cruise lines’ fleet upgrades
Onboard Royal Caribbean International’s Oasis of the Seas a few months ago, a Travel Weekly editor attempted to sample the lunch menu at Park Cafe, an indoor/outdoor gourmet market located in the megaship’s Central Park, serving salads, sandwiches, soups and pastries. The line was out the door, and a few dozen passengers waited patiently for their chance to sample the much-talked-about eatery. It’s little wonder, then, that Park Cafe is among the Oasis-class innovations that will be added to other Royal Caribbean ships as part of a $300 million revitalization plan the line announced earlier this month.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Megaships–amenities-inspiring-cruise-lines–fleet-upgrades/?a=cruise

To enter Cuba, tour operators navigate a minefield of rules
Think of Cuba today as a theater in which the curtain is about to go up on the first act of a performance that created quite a buzz in rehearsals a decade ago. Abercrombie & Kent announced new Cuba programs last week, followed a day later by a similar announcement from the Globus Family of Brands. Insight Cuba was first out of the gate in June, and according to director Tom Popper, it didn’t take long to fill its inaugural trip, which departs Miami on Aug. 11. There are other companies already in the mix as well, and more announcements from mainstream operators are expected soon. Fueling all these product announcements is a policy change issued by the Obama administration in January, which allows U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba to meet with local Cubans in the “people-to-people” category of educational and cultural travel.
http://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Tour-Operators/To-enter-Cuba,-tour-operators-navigate-a-minefield-of-rules/