“You are not going to believe that the new Value City furniture… is Value City Furniture.”

That’s VCF’s new campaign tagline. Visit one of their locations and you’ll discover new and unexpected finds all across the store including new brand names. The rebirth of the furniture retailer is spearheaded by Jonathan Schottenstein, President of VCF, who challenged his merchants to up the style factor while maintaining the same great prices that VCF is known for. “Big changes are happening at VCF, but our commitment to you is and will always be our first priority,” said Jonathan.

Click here to watch the commercials that showcase VCF’s new direction:

Furniture should be fun: http://youtu.be/pLt_F1p4VVE

Furniture should unite:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_IW7rvv2E8 

SBC's Matt Wilson shares his thoughts on The Limited and their new CEO

After six months without a CEO, The Limited announced that Diane Ellis, the former Brooks Bros. President and Chief Operating Officer will take over as CEO on August 26. SBC’s Matt Wilson stated that Ellis has “a bulletproof resume and experience in consumer products and specialty retail.” Wilson stated “She knows both sides of the house from operations and finance to merchandise assortment and marketing.  She’ll work with a similar footprint with The Limited at 259 stores; Brooks Brothers has about 300 stores in the U.S. and internationally, plus a vibrant online and catalogue business.” Ellis is joining the Limited after they recently announced their plans for expansion in both traditional and outlet stores.

Click here to read the entire article: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2013/08/07/the-limited-names-new-ceo.html

OMNI-CHANNEL PART 2: A Frictionless Customer Experience

By Kaylyn Bredon, Sr Mgr, Interactive Creative/UX

In Part 1 of this series, we focused on how the marketing realm has evolved and the importance of creating a seamless customer experience. Continuing this discussion, we’ll now focus on how consumers expect retailers to provide more contextually relevant, personalized information that is carefully tuned to a frequency that suits each individual's liking.

Amazing opportunities present themselves when retailers thoroughly align consumer data with an approach that has context, personalization and a manageable frequency. In doing so, they can provide customers with solutions that make everyday tasks easier while making the shopping experience more enjoyable.

Multiple tactics and some example technologies are listed below serving as areas of opportunity. In no way is it a one-size-fits-all prescription — retailers should identify consumer needs and implement accordingly.

Shawn Brown on the Benefits of Production Houses Clustering in Columbus

SBC’s VP of Creative Services, Shawn Brown, was featured in last week’s edition of Columbus Business First commenting on the Short North studio opening of one of our partners, KSC Kreate. Pick up a copy to read about Shawn’s valuable insights on the benefits of production houses clustering in Columbus.

OMNI-CHANNEL PART 1: Considering the Customer Experience

  

By Kaylyn Bredon, Sr Mgr, Interactive Creative/UX

One consistent theme throughout every session I attended at SXSW 2013 was the need to create and maintain an “omni-channel” experience. This is a new challenge being introduced to many retailers- often times leaving them with unclear direction on just where to start due to the siloed structure that many businesses and marketing teams have grown to be.

As an interactive designer/ux specialist at a full-service advertising agency, the idea of overcoming the obstacles of working with siloed teams is not foreign to me. After all, that’s why many companies hire agencies like SBC Advertising to help them. We have the advantage of being separated from their business, often avoiding the internal and political bureaucracies, while at the same time having direct access to the decision makers that have the ability to make decisions and get the job done.

In the past, working in silos has allowed us to react quickly and create standalone efforts that were supported by isolated databases and provided separate analytics (i.e. microsites). However, these standalone workarounds no longer serve as viable options.

Today, it is imperative that all channels work together, and in return they provide valuable insight into the numbers, showing what’s working and what’s not. With that being said, data is, and will continue to be, at the very base of creating a successful omni-channel experience, making the relationship between Marketing and IT more important than ever.