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PETER SACHSE: We actually launched a campaign that
surrounds our holidays two years ago, in the height of
the recession, actually.
And it's called Believe.
And the campaign was bore out of the fact that we thought
everybody needed to believe in something, particularly if
it's Santa Claus or if it's in the war is going to end, or
whatever you want to believe in, please believe in.
And we centered this all around this letter to the
editor called, Yes, Virginia.
There is a Santa Claus.
And what we did is we said please write your letter to
Santa and tell him why you believe.
Mail that at your local Macy's, and we'll donate for
every letter that we receive.
And by the way, we'll get it to Santa.
We know were Santa lives, so we get all
those letters to Santa.
And for every letter that we receive, we donate $1 to Make
a Wish; another big organization that
is all about believe.
So that campaign will exist again in 2010.
Our goal is to collect 2 million letters.
And ultimately, donate $2 million to the Make a Wish
Foundation.
It has been a rallying cry, quite
honestly, for our company.
Our company is so proud of the campaign, all the employees in
the company.
And more importantly, the customers are
unbelievably generous.
We have had busloads of schools come
to mail their letters.
We had one school whose classmate was a Make a Wish
child, who all wrote letters.
400 of them came to the local Macy's to mail them.
So that campaign will exist. As far as the promotional side
of the business, it will be as promotional as it has been for
every Christmas.
We have planned those promotions out.
They will be no different than they were last year, or the
year prior, or the year prior.
The recession is still in play,
particularly for most consumers.
At 9.6 or 9.5%, whatever the unemployment rate is today,
you can't fool yourself into thinking that we're out of
this and we're heading nothing but upward.
So then it becomes a market share game.
You have to execute better than others.
You have to get that emotional tug, perhaps.
Maybe through the Believe campaign.
And you have to have the product in their store, that
they want, and speak to them in a relevant way.