For thirteen years, Resource Interactive has studied retailers online during their high-stakes holiday season. Why the holiday focus? We’ve noticed that certain competitive advantages become highly conspicuous during these days of intense consumerism—the holiday season can either make or break the year for retailers. In other words, it offers us the opportunity to survey a retailer’s biggest moment and best effort.

Of the 40 online retailers we surveyed using our O.P.E.N. framework, we’ve chosen to feature fifteen in the final report. We focused on the social media, mobile and web site innovation, uncovering quite a few bright spots in a season of innovation and inventiveness. See how retailers fared—from Amazon to Zappos and everywhere in between—and take a look at the most novel marketing moves of the holiday season, which will surely become the everyday fare of 2010. Are you ready?

Download our 2009 O.P.E.N. Watch and share it with your colleagues.

Last week, Kelly Mooney presented at the annual NRF convention: Retail’s BIG Show. Armed with Resource Interactive’s millennials and moms research, Kelly shared how marketing to moms and at-home millennials can help retailers thrive during and after a recession.

Check out the entire presentation:
The New Domestic Economy

In November 2009, Resource Interactive introduced Off the Wall, the first-ever end-to-end ecommerce experience for brands and their fans on Facebook that allows consumers to purchase products directly from the Wall. Our first client, fashion retailer The Limited, was live by mid December. Read what industry analysts and media have to say about Off the Wall by visiting the links below.

The Wall Street Journal: “Shopping Comes to Your Facebook Stream”
Advertising Age: “Resource Interactive Goes Off the Wall for Shopping on Facebook”
Forrester Research: “Off the Wall: A New Social Commerce Experiment on Facebook”
Inside Facebook: “Facebook Roundup: Jivebug, The Limited, Starbucks, Seppukoo and Eminem”

Be sure to experience Off the Wall live on Facebook at The Limited Facebook fan page. And stay tuned as we continue to bring Facebook and ecommerce together on behalf of our clients. If you’re interested in what Off the Wall can bring to your brand, please email us at inquiry@resource.com.

Today Resource Interactive launched its first implementation of Off the Wall, bringing ecommerce to the Facebook stream for the first time. The Limited, a fashion retailer with a loyal fan base, offered an exclusive deal to its fans using Off the Wall.

See it in action at The Limited fan page.

Leaner times hit home for moms and younger millennials

At this year’s Shop.org Annual Summit, Kelly Mooney’s keynote acquainted the Summit audience with the new needs and expectations of moms and millennials rewired by today’s recessionary economy. By sharing how their attitudes and behaviors have changed since the recession, deconstructing their co-shopping journey and unveiling new prototypes, Mooney offered brands ideas and inspiration to reach these crucial consumer segments. (See our prototypes in full on Flickr.)

“The economy has prompted most consumers to rethink their spending, but this reaches further than the recession. We are seeing a cultural shift toward value and practicality. However, it isn’t a doom and gloom scenario for retailers—there’s real opportunity in the new consumer mindset,” Mooney said.

As always, the RI session was one of the Summit’s most popular, but if you didn’t make it to Las Vegas, don’t fret. The presentation is available for download on Slideshare, and Nita Rollins and Klay Huddleston will share the research in our November webinar.

Knowing this new consumer has never been more important. Looking to innovate your way out of the recession and beyond? Look no further than our latest research.

View the presentation highlights on Slideshare

“The OPEN brand is an avid advocate of consumer participation—of leveraging the power of communities and networks—and enables the consumer to influence and co-create its future.”
-Excerpt from The Open Brand

Our second book, The Open Brand: When Push comes to Pull in a Web-Made World (New Riders/AIGA, March 2008) shows how marketing and branding are being transformed by the technology-inspired power shift from brands to consumers, and shows marketers how to embrace the future as it unfolds today. The Open Brand illuminates both the risks and rewards of opening up to consumer involvement, and describes the On-Demand, Personal, Engaging and Networked consumer experiences that will ensure brands’ relevance in a web-made world.

Visit The Open Brand microsite
Buy a copy of The Open Brand

Read More:
The Open Imperative presentation

RU Ready? Right now, an entire generation, larger than the Baby Boomers and with unprecedented discretionary spending power, is growing up knowing only a world that is always electronically connected, always portable and always customizable. How will this generation’s immersion in today’s technology challenge the world of retail?

Through extensive proprietary qualitative research, incorporation of quantitative data from numerous secondary sources, and review of recent publications, Resource mapped the Millennials’ daily digital interactions to shed light on their attitudes and behaviors. We then created future prototype scenarios to forecast possible changes in retail marketing and e-commerce including mobile, social media and in-store experience integration.

Read more:
Kelly Mooney’s Recession-Rewired presentation
Digital Millennials R U Ready presentation
Digital Millennials: Charitable Giving presentation
Digital Millennials white paper

We evaluated over 500 ads, 200 of which were unique, from 11 randomly selected 2006 NCAA Tournament games. Discover whose brand was most integrated across channels, which industry sector is leading and whose campaign had the best web-based engagement strategy.

In our work
Read our Hewlett-Packard case study
Read our Wal-Mart case study

Related Topics
Read the weThink blog
See all Resource Interactive offerings

Brand and product-based web sites have been consumer-focused, beautifully designed and rich with features, which is in stark contrast to their corresponding corporate web sites.

In their attempt to figure out how to best leverage corporate sites, companies have shifted their sites’ focuses from investor relations to recruiting to financial performance. The problem? In an effort to connect with the corporation, the web-empowered consumer who we call the iCitizen is now visiting corporate sites that are not consumer or connection friendly.

We challenge the purpose of corporate sites and share with you a case study from a company who gets it—The Coca-Cola Company.

Read More:
Evolution of the Corporate Site presentation

Taking the spin out of the purchase decision Branded manufactures of durable goods often face the challenge of having two audiences: a channel partner and the end consumer. The digital experience offers the opportunity to please both audiences and the manufacturer. Are you in engaging in the six best practices to satisfy your partners and your end consumers?

Read More:
Get in the Game: Are You Missing the Mark Online? presentation
Digital Best Practices for Branded Manufacturers white paper