A magazine for teenage girls will try, joined by marketers and retailers, to add another “special” day to the U.S. marketing calendar already crowded with celebrations both real (Christmas, Halloween) and fanciful (Black Friday, Cyber Monday).
The magazine, Teen Vogue, is ready to begin promoting Aug. 11 as a national day for back-to-school shopping. Back-to-School Saturday will offer young shoppers — and the parents who often pay the bills — sales, free samples and events in stores and malls.
Teen Vogue has two dozen advertisers taking part, all of them reliant on the back-to-school season for revenue. The participants will include Aeropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Express, Guess, H&M, Maybelline New York, Pacific Sunwear of California, Quiksilver, Staples and Vans. Four brands sold by Procter & Gamble, the nation’s largest advertiser, will be involved: Cover Girl, Olay, Pantene and Tampax.
Back-to-School Saturday will be promoted in the typically enthusiastic Teen Vogue tone of voice. For instance, ads and posters will exhort, “Get ready, get set, get shopping!” And social media will, of course, play a big role; Teen Vogue has already called dibs on a hashtag, #btss.
“We’re trying to create a moment of imagination and motivation,” said Jason Wagenheim, vice president and publisher of Teen Vogue, part of the Conde Nast Publications division of Advance Publications. “We saw it as a real opportunity, because for our girls, back-to-school is as important as” the Christmas shopping season, he added.
Wagenheim acknowledged that the back-to-school shopping period “is a very random eight to 12 weeks that starts early in the South and later in the North.” But research suggested that shopping for school supplies, clothing and other merchandise “seems to peak in the second and third week of August,” he said, so the Aug. 11 date was selected as one that could be turned into “a galvanizing moment.”
Alison Corcoran, senior vice president for retail marketing at Staples, echoed Wagenheim.
Although “the season starts in June in some markets and goes all the way to the third week of September in Manhattan,” Corcoran said that designating Aug. 11 as a special occasion “is putting a stake in the ground, saying, ‘Here’s a day you can rally around.’”
And “for value-conscious parents,” said Corcoran, who described herself as “a mom of four,” it is “great to know there’s a day with the best of the best deals.”
As part of Back-to-School Saturday, she added, Staples will promote, among other offers, its annual Back to School Savings Pass, which costs $10 and offers 15 percent off “all your school supplies for the rest of the season.”
Wagenheim said he was not daunted by how chockablock the shopping calendar already is with days intended to stand out from the everyday.
“Kids are looking for something to do,” he said, “and back-to-school is important to them.”
And “we look to our big sisters from Vogue,” Wagenheim said, who introduced in 2009 a national shopping event called Fashion’s Night Out. The Vogue initiative has grown larger each year, expanding internationally, and this year is Sept. 6.
Consumers are becoming “increasingly interested in event-based shopping,” said Gary H. Schoenfeld, chief executive at Pacific Sunwear, who recalled how he was “up all night on Black Friday in three or four of our stores, and customers were having a blast.”
“Three o’clock in the morning felt like 8 o’clock at night, as people were with friends and having a great time shopping,” Schoenfeld said. “The idea of Teen Vogue trying to introduce something like that for back-to-school is a fun idea; why not be a part of it?”
Deborah Marquardt, vice president for media and integrated marketing at Maybelline New York, part of the L’Oreal USA division of L’Oreal, said that for Teen Vogue’s target generation, “shopping is like a sport.”
Back-to-School Saturday represents an “opportunity to get out in front of this key audience,” she added, in a relevant way that “gives shape and focus to something that’s already existed, elevating it, event-izing it and celebrating it.”
“If it doesn’t provide anything of value,” Marquardt said, consumers will not respond. “But they’re going to get samples, and they’re going to get offers, and there’ll be a fashion show at the Grove,” she added, referring to a mall in Los Angeles, “where 10-to-15,000 are expected.”
Teen Vogue offered advertisers a chance to participate in Back-to-School Saturday if they agreed to do more business with the magazine, in some combination of print and/or digital spending.
For its part, Teen Vogue is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the initiative, an amount similar to what the magazine has spent on previous efforts like Teen Vogue Fashion University.
Wagenheim said, “Our long-term hope is that it becomes part of the retail calendar, like Black Friday.”
The August issue of the magazine, on sale July 3, will have a back-to-school theme, and there will be additional content on teenvogue.com. There are plans for an iPhone app, called Teen Vogue Insider, timed for Back-to-School Saturday.
Shopping for hunting land - Mississippi Business Journal
Shopping for hunting land
Whoever it was that said it’s a buyer’s market for hunting land is in serious need of revising their sound bites. From what I see and have had reported to me by interested buyers, a “buyers’ market” is anything but the truth when it comes to hunting land being easy to find and purchase.
Case Scenario
Friend Barry from Flowood tried to buy land three separate times last fall and could not succeed. “I looked at two pieces of property up in Holmes County not far from the Hillside National Refuge. The first one has been hunted by the two owners, but they crossed up on their hunting management styles and decided to sell. One was willing, the other was not. I made what I thought was a fair offer to their initial pricing and was backed by the rural land real estate agent. I was turned down flat, no counteroffer was even made,” said this potential land buyer.
“A few days later the agent called with another piece of land in the same area. It was a larger piece of property than I wanted to buy, but he assured me the owner would subdivide it any way I wanted it. I printed off an aerial map of the site and marked off roughly 100 acres I was interested in. I gave them an offer $200 less per acre than their price. On the counter, the owner reduced his price by only $2 an acre. I took that to mean he didn’t really want to sell all that badly. He also balked on dividing the land to suit me.” He didn’t call the agent back.
“On my third try I looked at a piece of land in Madison County, but like my friend said, the price was too good to be true. I found out why. For one thing it paralleled the interstate highway with all its noise. There were multiple access points to the long strip of land all planted in pines and everything was littered with trash. I didn’t spend 30 minutes looking at that place,” noted Barry. He gave up after that.
Searching for Nirvana
I love the radio ads of birds calling in the background and fish flopping on the pond as a rural land lending outfit talks about them financing your “little piece of heaven” for recreation and investment. It’s not quite that easy these days.
Land buyers looking for a place to hunt need to decide up front what they are looking for and set a flexible budget to attain it. From my market analysis the price of good hunting land can range from $1,500 to $4,000 an acre or more. Pricing depends on location from population, easy highway access, land feature amenities, infrastructure in place like roads, trails, and food plots, available electricity and water.
Hunters should be clued into the habitat potential. Is the land one huge cutover from a previous timber harvest or does it have standing hardwoods? Is it a pine plantation? Is there natural water available? Are there open areas or all timber? Can the property be easily secured via one or two locked gates? Who are the neighbors nearby and what is their reputation? Do they hunt, run dogs, and manage their property for wildlife? Who has been hunting the place if anybody?
When you initiate your search for hunting land via an agent or searching market newspapers and real estate ads, keep your minimal preferences at the forefront. If you use an agent, fully communicate your desires, and keep stressing them if they stray from your demands. Make sure the agent is selling what you want to buy.
The search for a really good piece of hunting land might take a year, maybe more. It certainly is nothing to rush into over a month or so. Deer hunters should never let the dream of big antlers cloud their decision making. Never buy land during the rut.
Beware of Red Flags
Ask why a particular piece of hunting land is for sale. Good land rarely is. Is the owner distressed? Is it an estate sale? Was the property leased for the past ten years and the owner finally had to run the hoodlums off the place for overhunting it or doing damage?
If the place looks unused, grass grown up, trees down, gate off the post, then it may just have fallen on hard times. If the roads show signs of recent use, deeply rutted roads and trails, then find out why. Is the place relatively clean or trashed? What is the history of trespassing or poaching around the place? Are their neighbors nearby to ask? Good neighbors are always looking for good neighbors, but they may also be the ones that have been hunting the place.
Deer or turkey hunters in particular ought to be interested in any harvest information or records on the place. Is the owner a hunter or his family? Ask them about the hunting? If there are no food plots in place and no sign of hunting stands, then maybe it genuinely has not been used for some time.
All the while you walk the place be thinking about what work the place needs and what that is going to cost you. Hunting land with amenities in place is worth more. Land without hunting infrastructure should not command the same high market prices. Keep looking until you find just what you want, which could include land you want to mold and shape on your own.
It may not exactly be a buyer’s market out there for hunting land, but with enough effort most people will eventually find that private piece of land they can call their own.
John J. Woods, Ph.D., is vice president in charge of economic development and training, Eagle Ridge Conference and Training Center, the Workforce Development Center and contract training services at Hinds Community College in Raymond.
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Deadly shooting at Toronto shopping mall - The Guardian
A gunman has escaped after killing a man and wounding five others at Toronto's Eaton Centre, one of Canada's busiest shopping centres.
Police said two people were in a critical condition, including a 13-year-old boy, and that the man who was killed was 25. Several people were trampled and pushed in the panic, including a pregnant woman who went into labour.
Witnesses said multiple shots were fired in the shopping centre's food court and hundreds of panicked people sprinted for the exits. The Eaton Centre, which is popular with tourists, was evacuated. People watched from outside as an injured man with visible bullet wounds was wheeled out on a stretcher.
The Toronto Blue Jays baseball player Brett Lawrie tweeted that he sprinted out of the centre after hearing the shots: "People sprinting up the stairs right from where we just were."
Marcus Neves-Polonio, 19, was working in the food court when he saw a man pull out a gun and start firing. At least two people were on the ground, he said.
"All of a sudden a herd of people were just running toward us, a massive crowd of people screaming, running, freaking out," said Hannah Stewart, 21, who had been shopping. "We saw this girl, sitting on the ground, and she had blood on her toes." The girl appeared to have been one of the victims and told Stewart she had just been shot.
Erica Solmes, a store manager in the food court, said she heard about 15 shots before a stampede for the exits. Transit service around the Eaton Centre was shut down for a while.
Fatal shooting at Toronto's Eaton shopping centre - BBC News
The BBC's Lee Carter describes events at the Eaton Centre
One person has been killed and seven others injured in a shooting at Toronto's main central shopping centre, Canadian police have said.
Witnesses described scenes of panic after gunfire broke out in the food court of the Eaton Centre.
"A herd of people were just running toward us, screaming, running, freaking out," said one shopper.
Police said two of the injured were in a critical condition and warned that they were still hunting the shooter.
A 13-year-old boy was among those seriously injured.
Officials said a 25-year-old man was pronounced dead at the scene.
As crowds gathered outside, an injured man with two bullet wounds in his chest was wheeled out on a stretcher and rushed away by ambulance.
Toronto police chief Bill Blair described it as a targeted shooting in which bystanders were also hit.
"The nature of the wounds indicate this individual was targeted," he said.
"A lot of innocent people were hurt and a lot of innocent people were put at risk.
"We will be relentless in our pursuit of the individual or individuals that were responsible. We are receiving a lot of co-operation from the people that were present in the food court."
He added: "I believe every Torontonian is shocked and appalled by this crime."
Although some witnesses said they saw a man with a gun, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told reporters at the scene that it was not immediately clear if the shooter was a man or a woman.
"It's terrible when you hear something like this," said Mr Ford.
"My heart goes out to the families that have been affected by this terrible crime. We have to apprehend this shooter."
Marcus Neves-Polonio, 19, who works in the shopping centre's food court, said he saw a man pull out a gun and start firing. He saw at least two people on the ground.
Erica Solmes, manager of a McDonald's outlet, said she heard about 15 shots before hundreds of shoppers started stampeding for the exits.
Police constable Victor Kwong said at least two people had been trampled in the rush, including a pregnant woman who subsequently went into labour.
Gun ownership in Canada has been subject to licensing since the 1970s, and gun crime has dramatically declined over the years.
The last similar incident in Toronto was in 2005, when a gunman opened fire in a street near to the Eaton Centre and killed a teenage girl.
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