Branded!

Written through the eyes of retail and technology executives, Branded! explores retailers who are successfully implementing social media and mobility strategies.
Market-leading retailers are engaging technology-savvy customers though social media and mobility. Branded! reveals how these digital communication channels are an extension of a retailer's culture and strategy resulting in building brand equity. Comprehensive reviews of Starbucks, Zappos, Wet Seal, Macy's, 1-800-Flowers.com, JCPenney, Pizza Hut and Best Buy are featured. Branded!:

• Provides a clear review of social media as well as the rapid changes in the development and use of mobility.
• Demonstrates why retailers cannot 'wait and see', and must move rapidly
• Shows how each company's social media and mobility initiatives are based on the individual personality of the company.
• Discusses sophisticated analytic tools that enable retailers to measure their performance and make informed decisions on the data

Foreword.

Preface.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Bringing Your Store to Your Customers.

YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE SPEAKING. ARE YOU LISTENING?

RETAIL 2.0.

RETAIL LEADERS.

YOUR WORLD IS CHANGING—ARE YOU?

Notes.

Chapter 2 Social Media.

DEFINITIONS.

WHY MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA ANOTHER RETAIL CHANNEL?

DEMOGRAPHICS—NOT JUST KIDS!

POPULAR SOCIAL-MEDIA WEB SITES.

WHERE TO FOCUS.

TODAY'S RETAILER ENGAGEMENT.

Notes.

Chapter 3 Mobility.

DEFINITIONS.

SMART PHONES CHANGE IT ALL.

INTERSECTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND MOBILITY.

RETAIL HAS BREAKTHROUGH OPPORTUNITY.

APPLICATIONS FOR MOBILE LEADERSHIP.

RETAIL MOBILE INNOVATORS.

Notes.

Chapter 4 Starbucks: It’s the Experience!

LEARNING—FORMULATING—INNOVATING.

TRANSFORMING STARBUCKS FOR THE FUTURE.

MY STARBUCKS IDEA IS BORN.

FINDING OUT WHERE CUSTOMERS ARE HANGING OUT.

STARBUCKS MOBILE.

DIGITAL LEADERSHIP.

Notes.

Chapter 5 Zappos: "Your Culture Is Your Brand".

COMMITTED TO "WOW’ING" EVERY CUSTOMER.

A VISION TO EMBRACE E-COMMERCE.

WOW SERVICE ONLINE.

AN EARLY LEADER IN "ZOCIAL MEDIA".

"ZOCIAL MEDIA" IS PERVASIVE.

MOBILITY: THE NEXT CHANNEL.

DELIVERING HAPPINESS: A PATH TO PROFITS, PASSION, AND PURPOSE.

Notes.

Chapter 6 Wet Seal: iRunway Steals the Teen Fashion Scene.

FAST FASHION TAKES CENTER STAGE.

WET SEAL’S FASHION COMMUNITY.

FASHION—IT’S ALL SOCIAL.

MOBILE: SHOP ON THE GO.

THERE’S GOLD IN THOSE THREADS.

SOCIAL + MOBILE = A GAME CHANGER.

FARMVILLE FOR FASHION.

Notes.

Chapter 7 Macy's: Shooting for the Stars!

TWO GREAT BRANDS.

MACY'S STRATEGY REFRESHED.

ENGAGING THE CUSTOMER.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS FASHIONABLE.

MOBILE MACY'S.

JUST THE BEGINNING.

Notes.

Chapter 8 1-800-Flowers.com: "Build a Relationship First—Do Business Second".

GOING UNDERCOVER IS REVEALING.

PLANTING THE SEEDS OF SUCCESS.

BEYOND FLOWERS.

LEVERAGING SOCIAL COMMERCE THROUGH TECHNOLOGY.

SOCIAL MEDIA BLOSSOMS.

MOBILE: APP OF THE YEAR.

INNOVATION IS A CORE STRATEGY.

Notes.

Chapter 9 JCPenney: Digital Transformation.

BUILDING A BRAND BY "WINNING TOGETHER".

FROM BIG BOOK TO DIGITAL LEADERSHIP.

CULTURE OF TRANSPARENCY.

SOCIAL AMBASSADORS.

JCPENNEY LOVES MOBILE.

A DIGITAL FUTURE FOR A TRADITIONAL PLAYER.

Notes.

Chapter 10 Pizza Hut: Creating the Perfect Pizza—Digitally.

TOPPING THE PIZZA MARKET.

BUILDING THE YUM! DYNASTY.

VALUE PLUS FAVORITES = A WINNING STRATEGY.

ENABLING GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE SHARING.

AN INNOVATOR IN SOCIAL MEDIA.

THE "KILLER APP FOR YOUR APPETITE".

BRANDED! THROUGH SOCIAL AND MOBILE CHANNELS.

LISTENING, ENGAGING, EXCITING!

Notes.

Chapter 11 Best Buy: The Connected World.

GROWTH STRATEGY.

CROSS-CHANNEL: MEETING CUSTOMERS WHERE THEY ARE.

A WIKI CULTURE.

SOCIAL MEDIA: FROM THE INSIDE OUT!

A WEB 2.0 TOOL KIT IS BORN.

THE HUB FOR ALL THINGS BEST BUY.

HELPING MOBILE CUSTOMERS "SHOP, LEARN, AND BUY".

THE CONNECTED WORLD, TAKE TWO.

Notes.

Chapter 12 Analyzing Value: Social Media.

GETTING STARTED.

WHAT’S THE RETURN?

MINING THE GOLD.

SOCIAL-MEDIA ANALYTICS.

INSIGHTS TO ACTION.

Notes.

Chapter 13 Conclusion: Take the Lead.

Notes.

Index.

"Insightful and well written." (Retail Systems, May 2011) Bernie Brennan is a consultant and investor in retail-related technology. He has served in a number of roles over thirty years in the retail industry, with seventeen of them as Chairman and CEO of Montgomery Ward, Sav-A-Stop Inc., and Household Merchandising. Brennan is a former Chairman of the National Retail Federation and earned the Gold Medal Award as Retailer of the Year.

Lori Schafer is the Executive Advisor for Retail at SAS Institute. Schafer, an entrepreneur with twenty-five years of experience in retail and consumer-packaged goods' technology, began her career at The Procter & Gamble Company. She was CEO of Marketmax, Inc., prior to its acquisition by SAS in 2003 when she became Vice President of SAS Global Retail. She serves on the board of directors of several retail and technology companies as well as the National Retail Federation.

Consumers have become technology savvy: they blog about product reviews and customer service, instantly do comparison price checks from their mobile phone in a store aisle, become fans of their favorite retailers and brands on Facebook, show off their purchases on YouTube, and provide accolades—or vent complaints—to their friends and to the masses on Twitter. Successful retailers must not only find ways to differentiate merchandise strategies and stores, but also to engage with consumers where they are already spending a lot of their time: blogging, friending, tweeting, and surfing. Now is the time for executive management to jump into ongoing conversations about their companies and participate rather than sitting on the sidelines. Branded! helps you harness the power of social media and mobility to its fullest potential.

Sharing their decades of experience in retail and technology, Bernie Brennan and Lori Schafer demonstrate how social media and mobility can substantially improve a retailer's market share and brand position. Loaded with examples, Branded! provides comprehensive reviews of leading retailers who are successfully implementing social media and mobility.

Written through the eyes of retail and technology executives, Branded! explores:

• How your world is changing. Customers are now in charge. Retailers who fail to engage will be bypassed

• The powerful impact of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, private social networks, and social gaming

• The lightning speed in the growth of smart phones—connecting retailers and customers—regardless of time or place

• How analytics helps you listen, quantify, and react to the impact of massive volumes of conversational data

• The strategies of leading-edge retailers, including: Starbucks, Zappos, Wet Seal, Macy's, 1-800-Flowers.com, JCPenney, Pizza Hut, and Best Buy

• How open culture and transparency are the hallmarks of these leaders

Unlock the mystery of these rapidly emerging new channels of communication and commerce and strategically engage your customers with Brennan and Schafer's Branded!

Winning Retailers in the New Digital World

Today's technology-savvy consumers are constantly using social media to share their views—often from their phones from a store aisle—of a retailer's quality, products, pricing, and services. Branded! shows retailers how to "get inside customers' heads" as a result of this whole new digital method of listening and engaging with consumers. Brimming with reviews of retailers who have embraced the "culture to consumer" approach to their business and fully leveraged the potential of social media and mobility, Branded! highlights superstars of the social world, including:

• Starbucks, with more than twelve million fans on Facebook and the number-one social brand

• Zappos, whose culture is its brand, has 1.7 million followers on Twitter

• Wet Seal, an innovator in teen engagement through its Outfitter social network

• Macy's, using its digital hub to engage customers across all channels

• 1-800-Flowers.com, a trailblazer in mobile and social shopping

• JCPenney, embarking on a digital transformation through open culture

• Pizza Hut, with its award-winning "killer" iPhone app and ubiquitous Tweetologist

• Best Buy, with visionary leadership for the "The Connected World"

Social media and mobility can make you or break you. The time is now to leverage this incredible opportunity or give up brand and market share growth. Learn how to become a brand leader through these exciting digital channels with Brennan and Schafer's Branded!

Praise for Branded!

"You owe it to yourself, to your colleagues, and to your stakeholders to read this book. You'll be glad you did."
—From the Foreword by Dave Evans, author of Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day and the forthcoming Social Media: The Next Generation of Business Engagement, and cofounder, Digital Voodoo