If consumer spending does in fact drive the American economy, and if the economic recovery is to be driven—as President Obama and others have suggested—by innovation, then I have some good economic news to report.
I’m not just talking about the latest Fed report which suggests consumer spending was stronger in February and might have been even stronger if half the country hadn’t been snowed in for half the month.
Consider the title of the event we are sponsoring in San Francisco this week: The Retail Innovation & Marketing Conference. I think that pretty much covers the consumer spending and innovation factors, right? Now consider this: The event is full, at capacity, sold out.
And it didn’t sell out at the last minute. The event was already sold out last week. And this event is not being held at the Motel 7 by the airport. It’s at the Westin St. Francis. Not what you’d call a small hotel.
Furthermore, this is not some annual junket that’s been on everyone’s calendar for years. In fact, this is the first time this event has been held, ever. It was created late last year by the NRF (National Retail Federation) as a joint effort of RAMA (the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association) which is NRF’s division for marketing professionals, and Shop.org, NRF’s digital division. You can follow news from the event via the hash tag #innovate10 on Twitter.
So what does it mean if you put on a brand new conference about retail innovation in March and it sells out, despite the fact that there was another big show for electronic retailers (eTail West) just the week before? I think it’s a strong indication that retailers are feeling bullish about consumer spending, particularly in the second half of the year.
Right now many retailers are putting together their strategies for that critical sales period, the fourth quarter. They want to make sure they are up to speed on the latest developments, from mobile marketing and smartphone shopping, to recurring purchase systems, customer reviews, private shopping sites, localized delivery, geo-targeting, post-click optimization, and so on.
As a supplier of what we think is pretty innovative retail and marketing technology Monetate just had to sponsor this event. And we were delighted when retail industry veteran Bob Myers, formerly of QVC, agreed to join our roundtable on real-time marketing. What we didn’t know when we signed on as a sponsor last year was whether or not anyone would attend. The fact that there’s a sold-out crowd at the St. Francis right now strikes me as good news all round.
