We won’t know for sure until tomorrow, but according to the IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark, “all signs point to Cyber Monday being a banner year for retailers, marketers and CMOs. With sales up 24.1 percent over 2011, the multiscreen shopper is out in full force this year.”

Black Friday in-store sales were undercut by Thanksgiving Early Bird sales, as well as mobile and web e-commerce, and according to the Wall Street Journal, "Total spending for the weekend reached an estimated $59.1 billion, a 13% increase from a year ago, according to the National Retail Federation...A consumer survey conducted for the trade association by BIGinsight found that shoppers spent an average of $423 over the weekend, up 6% from $398 last Thanksgiving weekend."

Sales projections for today, re-christened ‘Mobile Monday,’ will be further fueled by smartphones leveraging a plethora of apps. "Our findings reinforce that mobile is not just another channel," Chia Chen, mobile practice leader for Digitas, told Mobile Commerce Daily. "It's a technology-driven cultural phenomenon that is changing how people are connecting to brands and commerce.” Continue reading...

The so-called "Grey Thursday" pre-Black Friday rush didn't seem to stop Walmart from having its best Black Friday ever. So how did it all play out over the weekend, and as Cyber Monday morphs into Mobile Monday?

According to the Wall Street Journal, "Total spending for the weekend reached an estimated $59.1 billion, a 13% increase from a year ago, according to the National Retail Federation. Last year the group said sales rose 16% over the weekend. A consumer survey conducted for the trade association by BIGinsight found that shoppers spent an average of $423 over the weekend, up 6% from $398 last Thanksgiving weekend."

As noted by Reuters, comScore estimated that "Black Friday sales during the 24 hours of November 23 passed $1 billion ($1.042 billion) in online sales for the first time, making it the heaviest online spending day to date in 2012 (with 57 million shoppers visiting e-commerce sites) and a 26-percent increase versus Black Friday 2011. Thanksgiving Day (November 22), while traditionally a lighter day for online holiday spending, achieved a strong 32-percent increase to $633 million."

According to IBM's Black Friday 2012 report, US shoppers once again took advantage of early promotions this holiday season, driving a 17.4 percent increase in online sales Thanksgiving Day. This increase set the stage for 20.7 percent growth on Black Friday. Online sales on Black Friday increased 21% over last year, IBM estimated by analyzing data from 500 retailers, including 50 of the 100 largest web retailers. The biggest surge came from mobile consumers, with sales reaching 16.3 percent, led by the iPad. Other takeaways by IBM:Continue reading...

Tesco made headlines a year ago when its HomePlus retail subsidiary in South Korea tested a virtual store in a Seoul subway station, showcasing items that could be scanned and ordered by smartphone for home delivery, while Peapod is testing virtual grocery shopping in the U.S.

Now Walmart is testing a similar idea in Toronto in partnership with Mattel. The retail and toy giants are teaming up on what's described as Canada's first pop-up virtual toy store, enabling QR code-based shopping of Mattel brands — including hot toys from Barbie, Hot Wheels, Fisher-Price and Thomas & Friends brands — to holiday shoppers.

The pop-up is located in the city's massive PATH underground walkway, a retail concouse that connects downtown buildings and and an array of businesses to Toronto's Union Station rail commuter hub. It may find a ready pool of virtual shoppers, as it will run for four weeks in the same location where Wells.ca tested a QR-enabled store in April.Continue reading...

The biggest misconception about Twitter? “That you have to tweet to use Twitter,” said CEO Dick Costolo in a "fireside chat" with Federated Media's John Battelle this week. Indeed, new research from Beevolve finds that 25 percent of Twitter users have never tweeted.

Costolo’s newfound celebrity on magazine covers, The Today Show, Charlie Rose, as well as a recent New York Times profile, is impressive for a brand that didn’t exist seven years ago. Now, it's up to an estimated revenue of $350 million this year and 140 million users, even as Wall Street and Silicon Valley mull over engagement and the "dark social" arts of social marketing. Twitter, meanwhile, is trying to get smarter about providing support and analytics to brand marketers grappling with the age-old question of demonstrating ROI.Continue reading...

Pinterest has become the dark horse in the U.S. election season. First Lady Michelle Obama this week joined as part of her husband's re-election campaign, with three boards — Father's Day, Around the White House, and Great Memories. Michelle’s account, like her husband’s, is run by Obama 2012 campaign staff, with original "pins" signed "-mo."

Mrs. Obama joins the President (the only other account she's following), Vice President Joe Biden ... and Ann Romney, who helped raise awareness in Pinterest among her fellow Mormon wives while tacitly supporting hubby Mitt's presidential run. 

While pinning may now be seen as a precursor to winning, Pinterest is on fire in Latin America, the most socially-engaged market anywhere and home to the fastest growing group of "pinners" on the planet.Continue reading...

Web analysis firm comScore and Facebook have released their second, highly anticipated report, The Power of Like 2: How Social Marketing Works. Their top-line conclusion: exposure to earned media and paid ads on Facebook drives “behavioral lifts in purchase behavior.”

The study comes at a crucial time fo Facebook, which needs to boost its ad business to dispel the post-IPO naysayers. Despite comScore's research indicating that ads really do work on Facebook, prompting Ford to increase its Facebook ad spending with a pre-Father's Day campaign, the fall-out from GM's decision to stop Facebook advertising because they're not convinced it's effective continues to roil the marketing waters.

“While marketers understand the importance of a channel that now accounts for one in every seven minutes spent online, many are challenged to quantify its effectiveness,” commented Andrew Lipsman, comScore VP of Industry Analysis, about the new study.Continue reading...

Apple "friends" Facebook, adds features and cozies up to car brands to stay ahead of Google.

Disney and Netflix clash over DVD rental windows.

Google-branded Nexus tablet rumored.

BMW and Audi rivalry intensified in May as BMW courts bloggers.

Bacardi debuts new flavored rums in "breakthrough" bottles.

comScore releases much-discussed analysis of marketing on Facebook.

Domino's hits $1-billion-plus in digital sales.

Evian pursues one-touch online ordering.

L'Oreal decentralizes marketing globally.Continue reading...

If you hurry you can still see one way that Ford just keeps on using Facebook for paid advertising even as rival GM has pulled its paid ads (and invested in Manchester United as a way to reach Chinese car-buyers). And next week, you can read a report that presumably will underscore how many advertisers still agree with Ford, not GM.

Ford is currently running ads for Ford-logoed licensed merchandise such as t-shirts and toy cars with the Blue Oval logo that the company just got out of hock. The idea is to promote them for Father's Day, so they're June 1st through 10th in advance of Father's Day on the 17th. The ads — a first for Ford's licensing operations — appear on the right-hand side of Facebook user profiles to visit Ford and motor sports-related FB pages, according to Bloomberg.Continue reading...