Category archive for ‘Shopping’ rss

  • Macy’s Windows Wonderful or Woeful in 2009?

    12/29/09 • (0)

    As a parting shot to Christmas, freelance communications consultant Steve Tanner and wife Amy take a look at this year’s Macy’s State Street holiday windows. Even though Steve’s an avowed ‘Macy’s hater’, the Tanners find a few things to like in a window display at least better than last year’s illuminated vacuum-cleaner hoses.

  • All Hooked Up for No Place to Go

    9/14/09 • (4)

    Three months almost to the day since the first wave of my technological migration, I’m proud to complete my transition to the modern age. Give or take a couple years.

  • Mold-A-Rama Madness!

    3/22/09 • (11)

    Earlier this month, a visit to the Brookfield Zoo uncovered new depths of hidden obsessiveness in Yours Truly. I’ve always liked the place–it reminds me of a pancake-flat Bronx Zoo, minus the Bengali Express monorail ride through Wild Asia that I grew up riding. But there’s one thing I unfortunately didn’t grow up with at the NYC animal park: Mold-A-Rama!

  • Cut-Rate Macy’s Holiday Windows: The Movie

    12/04/08 • (1)

    Take a look at this video of 2008’s State Street Christmas windows and decide for yourself whether Macy’s firing of longtime window dresser Amy Meadows was really such a bright idea.

  • Macy’s State Street Cost Cuts Christmas

    11/09/08 • (9)

    I’ll cut to the chase: Macy’s State Street has cost-cut its Chicago Loop holiday windows and Christmas tree so deeply this year, I personally don’t believe it’s worth bothering to make that time-honored family foray downtown to see them.

  • Too Late to Save Macy’s State Street?

    1/14/08 • (10)

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Macy’s CEO Terry Lundgren will go to the grave–and take the former Marshall Field’s with him–before he and his team get a clue about how to treat Chicagoans.

  • Pulling a “Lundgren”

    10/29/07 • (2)

    Who says you can’t teach an old Macy’s, Inc. CEO new tricks? Last week, Crain’s Chicago Business and the Chicago Tribune both announced the rollout of a new Macy’s marketing campaign entitled, ‘Take Me to State Street.’ According to the papers, the campaign will be full-court media push highlighting the flagship State Street store as a premiere retail destination. It’s about time.

  • Scraping on State Street: A Year of Macy’s

    7/25/07 • (9)

    It’s generally not a good sign when the ABC news van is parked in front of your establishment in the middle of the business day. ABC was reporting on food health violations at the new Macy’s State Street. I’d much rather discuss the economic health of the store after a year of deaf-eared marketing decisions by Federated CEO Terry Lundgren.

  • Macy’s North: It’s Lonely In Here

    12/14/06 • (6)

    If you thought you heard a citywide refrain of ‘I told you so’ yesterday, you weren’t imagining things. According to a report in Wednesday’s Chicago Tribune, Federated finally admits feeling financial pain over a hardcore group of former Marshall Field’s shoppers who decided to quit shopping the chain when the nameplate was switched to Macy’s last fall.

  • “Welcome to (Whose?) New Macy’s”

    9/08/06 • (10)

    This weekend, as the respirator plug is pulled on the Marshall Field nameplate once and for all, Federated will finally get to see how well their big advertising push to lure old Field’s customers to the new ‘Macy’s on State Street’ has worked. My guess is not very. One look at the campaign’s commercials and printed ads easily shows why: where’s Chicago? And why would anyone in Chicago–or anywhere else–cares about Macy’s arrival, anyway?