Meet Jennifer Luskey

My name is Jennifer Luskey and I am a second semester senior at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating with a degree in public relations and a Business Foundations Certificate. Growing up in small town Midland, Texas my life was full of football and the oil business. My love for football has grown even more while watching the Longhorns play at the DKR Stadium. On any given day you can find me venturing to different Austin restaurants, spending time with friends and family or running on Town Lake. After graduation in May, I hope to find a job in the field of public relations, working with the community and children.

While in college, I spent a semester in Sevilla, Spain, where I learned to adapt to new situations and undertake unfamiliar challenging tasks. I lived with and went to school with all Spanish-speaking locals and also had the opportunity to travel around Europe. My favorite traveling experience was when I went to Morocco, Africa for four days and was completely immersed in the culture. We stayed with local families and talked with many of their young adults about the similarities and differences in our cultures. Walking around the city with them and seeing their day to day lives was an incredible way to get to know more about their culture and way of life.  It was an eye-opening experience that I will never forget.

I have dedicated many summers of my life to Greene Family Camp, a Jewish summer camp, in Bruceville, Texas. Being a camper for 10 years and a counselor for the last three has helped me earn different fellowships and take leadership roles among the campers and staff members.  Most recently, I was a unit Supervisor where I oversaw 50 staff members and over 250 campers all summer. Currently, I spread my love for Judaism to younger kids by participating in a service corps for the Union for Reform Judaism.  I work with a local synagogue to mentor students and raise the number of children who attend camps.

Working with people and continuing my education are two passions that I have in life and Ketner Group is incorporating both of them! I am excited to use what I’ve learned from my college classes in real life experiences and I know that the team at Ketner Group will help me excel.  I am looking forward to putting my new knowledge from Ketner Group into the next stages of my life. The people have been so welcoming and I feel like I am already part of their team! Jennifer

Our New Intern Cameron Ventures Into A Life Of PR

Let me introduce myself.

My name is Cameron Whitaker and I’d first like to say how excited I am to be a part of the Ketner Group team this semester! As far as school goes, I’m in my last semester at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating with a degree in Broadcast Journalism this May.

I’m grateful to be here at Ketner Group but how I ended up here wasn’t the smoothest path. In the last year I’ve gone from wanting to be the lead anchor at a top news station, to going through what I’d call a “late-college crisis”.  After seeing the real world of news and journalism, I realized the fast-paced, early morning, late night, environment just wasn’t for me. It took a lot of soul searching over the summer, but I took a leap of faith and expanded my career goals.

Last summer I got a little ambitious and took on two vastly different internships. By day, I worked as a media intern at the Texas House of Representatives. That was fast paced on a different level, dealing with laws and legislation, rallies, protests, and making sure my representative always said the right thing at the right time. It’s a touchy business, but I had a great time coordinating events, writing speeches, press releases and so much more.

By night (or afternoon I guess), I worked at the Texas headquarters of AARP as a mass communications intern. Talk about slow paced. I spent a lot of my time there staying on top of the newest initiatives affecting people more than twice my age but it was completely worth it. I had the opportunity to edit and write a lot of opinion- based content that went out to the state for the company. I even had a huge hand in helping create a video infomercial where I got to show off my broadcast skills. Both of these offices taught me valuable media skills that I’ve brought with me to Ketner Group.

But enough about my professional side.  Personally, I’ve experienced about all there is to in college in four years. I’m a huge Texas football fan, no matter how bad the games get– I live for college football on Saturdays. Outside of that I spend about 80% of my time with a great group of guys involved with Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity Inc. Being this year’s president, I’ve definitely put in more work than I’d like but all the parties, events, and random foolishness make it all worth it. So yeah, you can call me a frat guy. Other than that, I’m a guy that likes to dress -on a budget, so thrifting is a habit. I try to stay up to date on the latest music being that I love R&B and hip-hop. And whenever I stop being lazy, I’ll work out here and there.

All that said, in May I’ll be walking the stage and starting a new part of my life. I genuinely think I’m headed in the right direction by pursuing a career in PR and marketing. I’m excited to work on accounts with multiple clients, and I think the folks at Ketner Group will prepare me with the skills I’ll need to be successful. I always said I was better at real life than school stuff anyway.

Privacy Fears Hit Retailers’ Big Data Analytics Plans

Brick-and-mortar retailers plan to link in-store analytics with shoppers’ mobile devices. Shoppers say not so fast.

Privacy will “almost certainly” be the leading big data issue this year as consumer advocates focus on controversial spying activities of the US National Security Agency (NSA), according to a new 2014 predictions report from global consulting firm Stratecast | Frost & Sullivan.

If this prediction holds true, it’s unclear how it might impact big data efforts in the retail industry, particularly a new class of in-store analytics systems that use WiFi-enabled devices — typically smartphones — to gather information on customers’ shopping and purchasing habits.

Best of NRF 2014: Top 10 Takeaways

  1. The Big Show Keeps Getting Bigger
    This year’s NRF Big Show expanded its footprint taking over 200,000 square feet of the Javits Center – including the North Building for keynote presentations – with more than 30,000 attendees and 500 exhibiting companies. The vibe was very positive with a renewed confidence for retailers and vendors alike. With more space came a more comfortable show floor – the aisles weren’t cramped and busy booths weren’t obstacles to get around – in general the booths seemed more spacious. The Big Show doesn’t just get bigger physically though, it’s been reported that next year the Big Show will be a day longer, opening on Sunday.
  1. Home Depot Improves Store Assortment Planning Data across 2,200 Locations
    The Home Depot implemented the Predictix assortment applications suite, including modules for analytics, planning and in-season management across its 2,262 stores. The solution allows the retailer to creat assortments that meet customer demands and optimize sales and margins, enabling the retailer to spend more time on forward-looking planning and analysis. “The Predictix tool provides a seamless ability to evaluate assortment changes at both the national and local level,” said Steve Huth, VP The Home Depot merchandising. “The flexibility of this solution enabled integration with internal systems. This provides our merchants tools to evaluate and execute decisions quickly, in turn enabling an increased service to our customers.”

The RTP Team Wraps Up The #NRF14 Show (Day 2 Recap)

The final day of the NRF Big Show 2014 was a long, but rewarding one for the Retail TouchPoints editorial staff. Editor-in-Chief Debbie Hauss shared her top terms of the day, which included “multiplex channel,” and “heads up engagement.” Publisher Ed Cleary discussed the value of location by sharing insights from his meetings with top vendors in the location analytics space; and Senior Editor Alicia Fiorletta delved into how solution providers are adding more personalization and excitement to loyalty programs by integrating location, customer data and gamification. Tune in for our complete NRF report, which will be published in the January 21 newsletter.

Forrester’s Mulpuru: 2013 great year for e-commerce; 2014 even better

With average web growth of 29 percent, 2013 was a great year for e-commerce, and “2014 promises to be even better,” according to Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru.

Mulpuru previewed findings from Forrester’s upcoming “State of Retailing Online 2014: Key Metrics and Initiatives” study during her “First Look: 2014 Outlook for Digital Retail” presentation at Retail’s BIG Show, pointing to the web’s increasing influence on total retail sales this year and beyond. Mulpuru said we’ll reach close to $300 billion in online direct sales in 2014, but that “the really interesting number” is the additional $1.4 trillion of retail sales that will be influenced by the web in some way this year. Following an uneven holiday season and amid as-yet tenuous consumer confidence, that’s welcome news for retailers.

Shopper Rewards Go Local & Mobile

Mobile shopping application Punchcard, which allows end-users to earn rewards where they shop, has implemented Digby’s Localpoint platform in order to deliver real-time localized offers.

When customers shop at one of Punchcard’s fifteen million supported retail partner locations, they will simply need to take a photo of their receipt with the Punchcard app, start a virtual punch card for that retailer wihin the app, and play a Spin and Win game to earn points and free rewards. The Punchcard mobile app can then record shopper purchases down to the SKU level, creating an exact buying history for each shopper.

It’s a wrap: Holiday retail winners and losers

The gifts are all unwrapped. Returns and exchanges have been made. Now it’s time to cut through all the marketing hype to see what really happened this holiday shopping season.

Which retailers did the best job of making us happy? Who really had the lowest prices?

We spoke to three marketing research firms, 360pi, ForeSee and Deal News, to see what they found when they ran the numbers. Here are the major takeaways.

It’s a wrap: Holiday retail winners and losers

The gifts are all unwrapped. Returns and exchanges have been made. Now it’s time to cut through all the marketing hype to see what really happened during the holiday shopping season.

Which retailers did the best job of making us happy? Who really had the lowest prices?

We spoke to three marketing research firms, 360pi, ForeSee and DealNews, to see what they found when they ran the numbers. Here are the major takeaways.

Retail’s Big Show Will Showcase Hot Technologies For 2014

President and CEO of National Retail Federation, Matt Shay, speaks at the 2013 Big Show
Matt Shay, President and CEO of National Retail Federation, speaks at the 2013 Big Show

It’s NRF time again and the Ketner Group Team is getting ready to head out to New York next week to attend the Big Show! Leading up to what should be a convention full of new and trending retail technologies, renowned retail industry analyst, Forbes contributor and Ketner Group friend, Paula Rosenblum, shares in her most recent article, “Retail’s Big Show Will Showcase Hot Technologies For 2014,” what she predicts to be the best selling retail technology solutions of the year on display at retail’s “Big Show” next week. This year, Rosenblum expects the biggest tech trends to focus on keeping consumer satisfaction and attention with competitive prices and seamless online and in-store experiences. Retail is a crazy roller coaster ride of an industry, and the Ketner Group team looks forward to an exciting 2014!

Here’s a short summary of what Rosenblum lists as her “Top Five” of 2014.

1. Technology to improve the customer experience in stores. It’s not a secret that more shoppers are moving online to make their purchases. Retailers are finding ways in-store technology can differentiate and improve in-store experiences so customers  keep coming back.

2. Cross-channel Order Fulfillment. Because consumers want instant gratification these days, retailers are making sure that merchandise is always in stock, whether physically or virtually. Customers don’t want separation of in-store and online—they want brick-and-mortar stores to have e-commerce-style inventories.

3. Promotion and Price Optimization. According to Rosenblum, Black Friday has become the Superbowl of shopping and promotions. In order to attract the most customers, retailers are investing in technologies that help uncover the most effective promotional and end-of-season prices.

4. Big Data and Predictive Analytics. Big Data is everywhere. Adoption of analytics is becoming widely popular for retailers and they are looking to these technologies to determine what consumers really want so they can sell smarter.

5. Data Security. Thanks to the data breach Target suffered in December, Rosenblum says this shot up to her list. Retailers will be looking for ways to protect not only their customers, but themselves, as well.

For more information, check out her full article here on Forbes.