New York Times Reports on Retail Activity-Expect More Advertising for Holiday Season

Advertising

Cloudy Forecast for Holiday Spending Prompts More Promotion

In a Toys “R” Us Christmas commercial, children who believe they are going on a school field trip to a forest learn they are headed to a Toys “R” Us store to play with toys and choose one as a gift.

By STUART ELLIOTT

Published: October 20, 2013

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THE 2013 holiday season was already challenging for retailers and marketers, with fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and continued uncertainty over the economy. Now, after the government shutdown, as some analysts predict that consumers will trim holiday budgets by about 2 percent, efforts are being redoubled to woo reluctant shoppers.

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“We’re being much more promotional this year,” said Coleen Conklin, senior vice president for marketing at Premium Outlets in Roseland, N.J., a division of the Simon Property Group that operates dozens of outlet malls around the country. 

For instance, Ms. Conklin said, a new companywide event called the Wrap-It-Up Early Sale is set for Nov. 8 through 11, and “we created something new for our Web site,” a Deal of the Day calendar, starting Nov. 1, “with multiple deals from various stores.” 

Many stores in Premium Outlets will also open at 6 or 8 p.m. on Thanksgiving, Nov. 28, earlier than last year. That will be followed by a Midnight Madness sale, from Nov. 29 through Dec. 1. That an owner of outlets, which by definition offer discounted prices, says it believes it must hustle for customers says something about the coming Christmas. “Some of our stores are even doing flash sales,” Ms. Conklin said, borrowing a concept from social media. Still, she said she was “cautiously optimistic,” adding: “We always say, when times are good, shoppers love a deal. And when times are bad, shoppers love it even more.” 

Premium Outlets will promote its holiday offers with a campaign by AgencySacks in New York that includes print ads declaring: “Get a jump on your holiday shopping. Wrap-It-Up Early Sale.”

The budget will have “a significant increase” from last year, Ms. Conklin said, and the campaign will be “enhanced, with larger ads, color ads, more digital, more radio.” She declined to provide figures. In all, the goal is “to give shoppers a reason to come out earlier,” she added, which is why the campaign is to begin on Nov. 3, “a little bit earlier this year” than last, when ads started running in mid-November. 

Like Premium Outlets, Toys “R” Us is moving up the start of its campaign; a commercial began running on Sunday, about eight days earlier than the debut of the 2012 campaign. 

Still, Toys “R” Us and Premium Outlets are johnnies-come-lately when compared with some practitioners of “Christmas creep” this year. For example, Kmart started running a commercial promoting its holiday layaway program more than a hundred days before Christmas. “We know what we need to do,” said Peter Reiner, senior vice president for marketing at Toys “R” Us in Wayne, N.J. So 60- and 90-second commercials will join 30-second spots, he added, and “much more quality digital” ads that will include home-page takeovers of general Web sites. The Toys “R” Us 2013 campaign carries the theme “Make all their wishes come true” and, reflecting a major presence in social media like Twitter, includes a hashtag, “#WishinAccomplished.” (Asked if that might remind consumers of the “Mission Accomplished” speech by George W. Bush in 2003, Mr. Reiner replied, laughing, “To be honest, that didn’t even cross my mind.”) 

The genesis of the campaign was to “find a compelling way to communicate the joy when kids come to Toys ‘R’ Us,” Mr. Reiner said, and how the retailer “makes it really easy for Mom to become that holiday hero.”

That is epitomized in a commercial, styled like a prank video, in which children on a bus are told by a man pretending to be “Ranger Brad” that they are going on a forest field trip sponsored by the Meet the Trees Foundation. Then comes the reveal: “You’re going to Toys ‘R’ Us, guys,” he says, explaining that after they have had the run of the store each child may take a toy home free. Pandemonium ensues, followed by heartwarming vignettes of tykes at play. 

The commercial was filmed over three days with three buses that brought more than 200 children to a Toys “R” Us store in Middletown, N.Y., said Norm Bilow, managing director at Escape Pod, a Chicago agency creating the campaign for the holiday season. The store was closed for a week to prepare for the production, he added. 

“I’m a parent; there’s nothing better than seeing happy kids,” Mr. Bilow said. “It’s probably the most fun thing I’ve ever done.” 

The commercial — reminiscent of a recent video by KLM in which children expecting to watch a preview of “Planes” in a theater are brought to a screening aboard a KLM jet — will be the basis for additional spots in coming weeks, Mr. Bilow said. For example, clips of children playing in the store with Barbie dolls will provide a springboard for Barbie commercials. 

Although Mr. Bilow and Mr. Reiner declined to discuss how much Toys “R” Us plans to spend this holiday season, Mr. Reiner said, “We want to make sure we are reaching consumers in a much more impactful way.” 

Spending by Toys “R” Us to advertise in major media in the fourth quarters of the last three years has not varied much, according to the Kantar Media division of WPP. In the fourth quarter last year, Toys “R” Us spent $88.3 million, out of a total of $112.3 million for 2012. By comparison, spending in the fourth quarter of 2011 was $92.7 million, out of $119.1 million for the year.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 20, 2013
An earlier version of this column misstated, in a second reference, when the Wrap-It-Up-Early Sale would begin. As noted in an earlier reference, it will start Nov. 8, not Nov. 3.