Just a heads-up for our readers: I will be attending the National Trade Circulation Foundation Inc. (NTCFI) luncheon meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 6. If you’re attending too, I’d love to meet you,* so please e-mail me beforehand or find me there (I’ll be the one wearing the press badge).
DMNews is working to ramp up its circulation coverage, so please tell me what’s on your mind, what you’d like to see in the paper and where I should look for that next big scoop.

*I would also love to meet you if you’re not attending; feel free to send an e-mail or call either way.

1-800-FLOWERS.COM Inc. said today that it will be launching a partnership with Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. in April for an exclusive co-branded floral, plant and gift program called Martha Stewart for 1-800-Flowers.com.

“This partnership will leverage the best of both brands - lifestyle icon Martha Stewart’s unparalleled design talent with our company’s relationships with our millions of customers and our unique same-day, any-day distribution capabilities,” said Jim McCann, CEO of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM, in a statement.

The news was part of the company’s second quarter financial results release, which indicated that 1-800-FLOWERS.COM’s revenues increased 1.3% during the fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 30 for a total of $329.9 million.

During the second quarter, the company attracted approximately 1.3 million new customers, of whom 67%, or more than 845,000, came to the company through is online channels. Approximately 2.8 million customers placed orders during the quarter, of which 54.4 percent were repeat customers.

–Chantal Todé

J. Crew Group Inc. just announced that its president, Jeffrey Pfeifle, will leave the company on Feb. 1.

Pfeifle’s responsibilities will be assumed by members of the executive team with no near term plan to fill his position.

“Jeff and I have had a successful collaboration for more than 15 years, with the last five at J. Crew,” said Millard Drexler, chairman and CEO of J. Crew, in a statement. Pfeifle “has made significant contributions to our business.”

–Chantal Todé

This week’s NRF convention at the Javitz Center in New York kicked off the big Monday show floor with a presentation by The Coca-Cola Company’s Michael Donnelly, director of worldwide interactive marketing and Giff Constable, general manager of ESC software for the Electric Sheep Company. The presentations, which focused on the interactive marketing potential in the more emerging online channels, included details on Coke’s various user generated campaigns over the last two years. Donnelly highlighted Coke’s forays into user generated video campaigns, whose successful Mentos-exploding-Coke-bottles video campaign created by two Maine consumer won the leading beverage maker lots of eyeballs on YouTube and extended into a user generated holiday video greeting card campaign. Again, success.

He also spoke about CC Metro, Coke’s virtual world offerings (http://www.dmnews.com/Coke-jumps-into-Therecom/article/99852/).  Coke’s take is that rather than create a destination island and expect consumers to come to them, they build vending machines and plant these throughout the worlds. The vending machines sell experiences, not just soda.

After Donnelly’s presentation, The Blue Man Group took to the stage for a visual spectacle.

The flashy morning parade seemed to be aimed at getting retailers, who are coming off of a slower than usual holiday season and are facing a new year with expected slow growth. On the show floor, vendors are talking about how to make the in-store experience more like an online experience with advanced tracking devices and

Experian has a new tool called FootFall, in which retailers can track the success of a coupon campaign based on in-store traffic, not just on transactions. This way retailers can measure if it went well, based on products on hand, staff support, etc.

EK3 also addressed the issue of maximizing the customer in the store. Their platform is letting Wal-Mart Canada sell ad space in-stores through digital store signage. Wal-Mart and their vendors can measure sales based on these promotions through POS systems, making the transaction more measurable.

As we move into a tighter time for consumer spending, expect retailers to make in-store shopping more quantifiable.

-Dianna Dilworth