Retailer Catalogue Campaigns Adjust in 2010

Many large and small business retailers have been forced to reevaluate their spending during the recession and also due to a green-friendly image that customers approve of. As a result, many a funky print catalogue campaign has been tucked away for more prosperous years to come.

“But [catalogues] are adjusting not disappearing,” says Leslie Linevsky, founder of Catalogs.com in an article on large retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Barney’s, Sears, J.C. Penney, and watch company Fossil and their creative catalogue campaigns from USA Today. “Instead, [retailers] are scaling back on the number of catalogs they mail out and using them to drive traffic to their websites.”

Just check out Abercrombie & Fitch’s controversial A&F Quarterly Saturday. The retailer decided to launch an issue this year, after a seven-year hiatus and despite the bottom line, in order to drive traffic to their website and Facebook page.

Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys New York, reasons that print catalogues from large retailers are specifically being aimed at young audiences in order to get them interacting with stores. The catalogues are creative, even 3D (like Barney’s) in the hopes of making direct-mail pieces more memorable and, as Doonan puts it, “The generation that shops at [Barney’s] is having fun with 3D…it resonates with the store’s audience.”