Stores That Thrive on Surprise

Not everyone is clicking or swiping to buy this year. Some shoppers are actually walking into bricks-and-mortar stores to see what's new and buy before someone else snaps up that unexpected treasure.

T.J. Maxx has a winning off-price formula: Put new merchandise out every day or two, offer name brands at low prices, and staff the cash registers to speed shoppers on their way. The stores have focused inventories that change all the time. So when shoppers walk in, they never know what they'll find. Yes, the retailer has an e-commerce operation, but the real appeal is the thrill of the hunt. Consumer behavior in action!

Same at Marshall's, where the slogan is "Your surprise is waiting." Also owned by TJX, Marshall's has a slightly wider variety of merchandise in each store, but the same merchandising philosophy--ship new merchandise regularly to bring shoppers back again and again. While T.J. Maxx does a bit of e-commerce, Marshall's only sells gift cards online. If you want to buy, you have to go to a store. The retailer's hashtag #MarshallsSurprise reinforces the treasure hunt aspect of the shopping experience.

Marshall's has 300,000 Twitter followers; T.J. Maxx has 385,000 Twitter followers. So the retail brands are social, adding word of mouth to the mix.

Sure, e-commerce is growing every day...giving a boost to the USPS, FedEx, UPS, and other carriers. But for some shoppers, the element of surprise is a real lure to real stores.

Marketing to Girls and About Girls: Always

Procter & Gamble's Always brand of feminine hygiene products has been running an ongoing girl empowerment campaign in broadcast and digital media.

The campaign includes such hashtags as #LikeAGirl and #BanBossy, among others, to echo the main messages of boosting girls' confidence.

Some of the messages refute the idea that doing things "like a girl" (throwing a baseball, running) is an insult. Others encourage girls to stand up and be leaders, changing the perception of girls as "bossy"when they take the lead.

The brand's Super Bowl #LikeAGirl ad received many positive comments and the campaign has won a number of awards. With partners like the Girl Scouts of America and AARP, among many others, Always is showing its social responsibility strength and building its brand in a meaningful way.

Marketing Museums: Selfie Rules (Selfies Rule?)

Museums enjoy positive social media exposure, and selfies certainly fit the bill. According to a recent New York Times article, the Whitney Museum in NY actively encouraged selfies during its retrospective of Jeff Koons art in 2014.

January 21 of this year was, in fact, the second annual museum selfie day.

Some museums ban photographs entirely, not specifically selfies. And when selfies are allowed, the selfie stick might not be. Selfie sticks require space around the selfie-taker--and can lead to unintended consequences such as hurting someone standing nearby or damaging museum artwork or property.

Some museums (including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and the Smithsonian) have actually banned selfie sticks. The Smithsonian encourages selfies, just not with sticks.

Others are posting specific rules. At right, the selfie rules posted by the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, for its recent Peter Halley exhibit.

No selfie sticks allowed but please, go ahead and take a selfie with any of the artworks accompanied by a hashtag on the floor (shown above with my caption).

And for extra convenience, the rules include the museum's social media site addresses and even suggested #hashtags. The museum's Facebook page includes selfie posts, naturally.

Red Nose Day: A Good Laugh for a Good Cause

Red Nose Day (from Comic Relief) has been raising money in the U.K. for nearly 30 years. Now this "get funny for money" fundraiser, beloved by U.K. consumers and a major source of charitable donations for fighting poverty and social injustice, is coming to the U.S. for the first time.

It will be nationally broadcast on May 21st as a telethon by NBC, featuring videos from Funny or Die and appearances by a bevy of celebrities. Proceeds will benefit these charities, among others: Boys & Girls Clubs, Feeding America, the Global Fund, Save the Children, and United Way.

Red Nose Day is a perfect fit with social media marketing. The U.S. version is just getting going, with fewer than 3,000 Facebook likes as of today, compared with nearly 700,000 for the UK Red Nose Day Facebook page. The Red Nose Day US Twitter site has nearly 1,000 followers as of today.

Walgreens is the exclusive U.S. retailer of red noses for Red Nose Day, on sale for only $1 each. When I bought my red noses today, I noticed that all Walgreens sales personnel were wearing the official Red Nose t-shirt and asking every customer to donate or participate.

Watch Facebook and Twitter for #RedNose hashtags in the coming weeks!

**UPDATE: The first U.S. Red Nose telethon raised $10 million by the half-way point in the evening. When the telethon ended, more than $21 million had been pledged or received. Well done!

Hashtags Keep the Marketing Conversation Going

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It's a hashtag world for marketers these days. On Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, Vine, and Facebook, marketers and consumers use hashtags to identify content about specific brands, products, topics, events, occasions, people, and more. The idea is to start or add to a conversation, potentially propel a hashtag into viral territory, maybe even make people smile--and, ideally, give the brand a promotional push.

One key element of hashtags is that they must be short and to the point. A brand like KitKat uses a Twitter hashtag like #HaveABreak to encourage consumers to post photos or other content related to enjoying KitKat bars as, well, a break. For tips on choosing a hashtag for marketing purposes, check this MediaBistro infographic. To see which hashtag campaigns Search Engine Watch named the best of 2013, click here.

For more impact, keep the marketing conversation going across social media sites with hashtags. For visual impact, think Pinterest or Instagram. Instagram explains how to use hashtags for photo campaigns here. Don't miss the links to marketing uses by General Electric and #charitywater.