The new campaign updates the Easy Button for the modern world, showing off the company’s breadth of services (including marketing and tech support) and products (including janitorial products, furniture and other supplies). 

The work personalizes the Easy Button (now referred to as “E.B.”) as a business assistant, offering productivity tips and playful takes on the realities of modern work with a simple message, “Easy has changed… and so has Staples.” The brand has begun teasing the campaign with a social effort that includes pop stars and influencers, including singer/actor/producer Lance Bass and model and reality TV star Kordell Beckham in a paparazzi shoot. A social video featuring Bass also depicts the star in a podcast studio setting up his out-of-office message as he takes a break from work. 

“This campaign is more than a cultural comeback, it’s a bold reintroduction of the Easy Button and what it represents for consumers and businesses in 2025,” said Staples’ chief marketing officer Amy Steel Vanden-Eykel, in a statement. “Staples has evolved as a business and as a brand, and we’re excited to share how our team of experts today is making work and life easier than ever before.”

The campaign will run across out-of-home, digital, social, radio and streaming platforms. 

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“The Dockers transaction further aligns our portfolio with our strategic priorities, focusing on our direct-to-consumer first approach, growing our international presence and investing in opportunities across women’s and denim lifestyle,” said Michelle Gass, President and CEO of LS&Co, in a statement. “After a robust process, we are confident that we maximized the value of the business and that Authentic is the right organization to usher in the next chapter of growth for the Dockers brand. We thank the global Dockers team for their strong commitment and execution to building the brand, which continues to be the authority on khaki.”

Levi’s created the Dockers brand in 1986 as a distinct offering from its core denim product. The brand gained popularity in the 1990s and 2000s, as khakis became a general fashion choice for younger consumers and were acceptable as casual business attire. However, the brand had fallen out of favor in recent years, particularly in the United States. 

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“Live music is where culture and connection come alive, and that’s exactly where we want to be,” said Marissa Jarratt, executive vice president and chief marketing & sustainability officer at 7-Eleven, in a statement.”We’re eager to recreate the fun and excitement that comes with visiting a 7-Eleven store in an immersive music experience for the next generation of brand fans.”

The partnership was announced just as 7-Eleven is winding down the availability of its  Shaq-A-LiciousXL Gummies sour-pineapple flavor, which was announced as a limited run earlier this year. 

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The retailer’s presence will be deployed uniquely in each game with branding across multiple in-game experiences. In the College Football 26 game, for instance, Lowe’s will be featured on the broadcast overlay of the Stadium Pulse feature, which showcases and builds crowd excitement as gameplay improves. In EA Sports FC and Madden NFL, the brand will be part of the games’ Ultimate Team challenges, which offer rewards through gameplay. 

In addition, Lowe’s will also launch a real-life “On the Road” interactive gaming experience that will tour the country later this year and throughout the NFL season. 

“Integrating Lowe’s within EA Sports titles gives us an innovative way to engage with sports fans who are important to our brand,” said Jen Wilson, Lowe’s senior vice president and chief marketing officer, in a statement. “We are constantly looking for new pathways to bring more consumers into our loyalty ecosystem by connecting with their passions. This is such an immersive and unexpected way to introduce ourselves to the next generation of home improvers.”

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“Levi’s has always built on its rich denim history, reinterpreting it in new cultural moments and proving that reinvention is at its core,” said Kenny Mitchell, global chief marketing officer of the Levi’s brand at Levi Strauss & Co, in a statement. “Pool Hall honors our heritage while breaking new ground, giving fans a chance to personalize their Levi’s and express their unique style.”

The new spot continues a collaboration between the superstar artist and the iconic denim brand that began last year, with the reimagining of another earlier advertisement, “Launderette.” That ad featured Beyonce stripping off her jeans in a laundromat to achieve the faded, worn look she desired. Tellingly, the Launderette spot concludes with Beyonce sitting down to read a newspaper with the headline, “Pool Shark Hustles Town.”

The “Pool Hall” spot was directed by Melinda Matsoukas, and the campaign was conceived in partnership with agency TBWA\Chiat\Day and produced by de la revolucion/PRETTYBIRD.

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As women’s sports continue to grow, demand for both sports apparel and footwear  designed specifically for women will increase. Nike and SKIMS are taking advantage of this shift in the culture to meet this demand.

“We’re energized by the opportunity to build a new brand and shake things up for the next generation of athletes with NikeSKIMS,” said Heidi O’Neill, president of consumer, product and brand at Nike Inc., in a statement. “This partnership brings together the best of both brands and unlocks an incredible opportunity to disrupt the industry with our shared passion and commitment to innovation. We will invite even more athletes into sport and movement with product that makes them feel strong and sexy.”

“Over the past five years, SKIMS has redefined the intimates and casual apparel landscape, championing inclusivity and confidence,” said Jens Grede, co-founder and CEO at SKIMS. “Now, by partnering with Nike, the undisputed leader in athletic performance and innovation, we’re poised to create a new standard in the activewear market. This partnership will empower individuals to move with confidence and express themselves authentically, merging SKIMS’ focus on body confidence and self-expression with Nike’s relentless pursuit of athletic excellence.”

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“The pandemic forced innovation onto consumers,” said Jake Avdiev, head of consumer marketing and strategy at Amazon Fresh. Consumers embraced online shopping during lockdown as a safe and convenient alternative to shopping in person. Typically, innovation is organically introduced to meet consumer needs or ushered in via environmental factors or external events. However, barring an outside event driving change—like the pandemic—innovation should not be forced onto consumers. “Retailers shouldn’t simply push technology for its own sake,” he warned.

Companies like Amazon that “embrace optionality” and place an emphasis on customer obsession tend to succeed in the industry. Whether it is a fully grab-and-go store, self-checkout with smart carts or a full-service cashier checkout, a great store format caters to the preferences of the shopper, said Avdiev. Omnichannel retail needs to meet shoppers where they are at and give them choices, letting them pick and choose their experience online or in real life, said other speakers. 

Keri Taub, VP of business strategy at Bloomingdale’s

Retailers only adapt to how consumers behave, said many speakers. The pandemic led to an accelerated adoption of online shopping and shop-online-pick-up-in-store retailing, but as the lockdown moves into the history books, shoppers are prioritizing the store experience again, while still demanding a higher level of service online. 

“The pandemic hit people over the head with the sense that shopping is not a means to an end,” said Keri Taub, VP of business strategy at Bloomingdale’s. The end of the pandemic restrictions left consumers with a desire to be out and around others, which created opportunities for retailers to recreate the in-store experience. Bloomingdale’s, for example, has experimented with multiple store formats that match the profile of shoppers that patronize a certain store, ranging from large-format stores geared towards discovery to smaller stores focused on one demographic—such as an all-women’s assortment—or towards fulfilment of online orders and replacement purchases.  

“First and foremost, we have to give the customers what they want,” said Taub. 

The stores have to “make hard choices” because the goal becomes not doing everything OK, but picking spots and exceeding expectations there, she explained. The product itself is not the sum of what the department store is selling, she said. The experience counts. Amazon has shown that a merchant can optimize every aspect of fulfillment, and not make the customer happy:  “One plus one doesn’t always equal two in the way that you think,” she said. 

Carina Ertl, chief marketing and digital officer of Tourneau Bucherer

Balancing technology

Merchants are now challenged with growing their customer base and balancing technology and experience to provide those customers a brand experience across digital and brick and mortar channels. Data shows shoppers want to shop both online and offline channels, so merchants need to make that transition seamless, said Marina Sukhova, head of customer experience at L’Oreal. 

Shoppers will start at different points of the customer journey, which has become more complex in terms of the variety of scenarios marketers have to think about, so personalization becomes more important, she said. 

Even in the luxury arena, digital channels are now more important. Carina Ertl, chief marketing and digital officer of Tourneau Bucherer, noted 80% of the  watch retailer’s clients come to the store having had previous touch points elsewhere. Tourneau needs to know what those are and use them to improve the experience; bridging that store/digital divide is a crucial task, she said. 

“We need to become more personalized; we need to make sure our content is more authentic,” Sukhova said. Brands need to create multiple scenarios to communicate with different shoppers. The history of branding is repeating the same message, but in this fragmented, personalized world, brands need to consider this new trend of multiple scenarios and the technological challenge of creating content that fits each platform, she said. 

The promise of artificial intelligence helping this effort is resonating with retailers. 

AI is making things better in consumer marketing by personalizing messages and giving marketers more relevant information on their customers, said Michele Calhoun, head of consumer health & wellness at online drugstore GoodRX. 

Nick Antoniades, VP of marketing at makeup retailer Ipsy

But many speakers also warned about using AI as the proverbial hammer, and seeing everything as a nail that needs pounding.  AI is a tool, but its uses are limited, said Nick Antoniades, VP of marketing at makeup retailer Ipsy. It can help content creation and personalization—“How many of you are willing to test 20 (email) subject lines?” he asked—but it can’t replace human curation. 

“It will not come up with the unexpected,” he said. 

When it comes to AI, the industry is somewhere between “surreal optimism” and caution, said Chris Orr-Van Abbema, VP of product management at agency Huge. “It’s completely transforming the way that we deliver and the experiences themselves,” he said. 

The technology is “a huge accelerator”—he noted how Huge’s staff was able to do a site rebrand for a client drastically faster by using AI—but it’s important to temper expectations for what it can do. He warned about AI hallucinations possibly harming brand equity by sending the wrong message. He explained that marketers need to be purposeful in using the right brand moments to train AI and putting the right guardrails in place to train agents in brand tone. 

“It’s not a magic tool for everything, but it can be a tool for many situations,” he said. 

Another tool experiencing a surge is retail media networks, but that development also brought up some caveats among speakers at the Summit. They cautioned that retailers need to balance their growing networks, which open new revenue opportunities and a way to monetize the customer base, while looking out for risks to vendor relationships and the customer experience. 

These pressures create tensions between growing that media channel, the store experience and relationships with vendors, said John Giaquinto, VP of loyalty personalization and analytics at Rite Aid. These functions are often managed by different internal teams that will need to negotiate and sync their priorities for the RMNs to succeed, said Giaquinto.  “There’s enough competition outside retailers to compete within,” he said. 

Done right, an RMN allows smaller brands that didn’t have the scale to communicate with consumers to get in front of shoppers, said Sarah Crockett, CMO of shoe retailer DSW, which is launching its own Retail Media Network. That can strengthen the relationships between a retailer and the brands it carries, said Crockett. 

“The primary part of the equation is to strengthen the relationship with vendors,” she said. “Financial benefits need to work too, but the relationship is most important… to ensure vendors can break through and create a unique messaging opportunity.” 

The effort can go sideways if it compromises the integrity of the brand, she warned. Done wrong, it can dilute the DSW brand by letting partners take over the DSW storytelling in-store, she said.

Making a retailer stronger and building better customer relationships is the goal, said Giaquinto, who called retail media networks “a work in progress.” He warned retailers diving into media networks to not take their eye off the ball.

“You can be a successful media company surrounded by a weak retailer,” he warned. “You don’t want to do that.” 

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“Walmart aims to be an inspirational, digital retailer that provides all the products, brands and services our customers need and want,” said William White, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Walmart U.S., in a statement. “This update, rooted in the legacy of our founder, Sam Walton, demonstrates our evolving capabilities and longstanding commitment  to serve our customers of today and tomorrow.”

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The figure is the second highest number in the survey’s history after last year’s record of 200.4 million, and was much larger than the NRF’s initial expectations of 183.4 million shoppers.

“We expect a very healthy holiday season, consumers are spending and retailers are feeling optimistic about the season,” said Matthew Shay, president and CEO at NRF, during a press conference.

The study tracked retail sales both in store and online during the five-day holiday weekend from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday. Shay noted that consumers were “thoughtful and deliberate in their spending patterns” and were proceeding “carefully” but also said that this turnout indicated a healthy holiday season.

Black Friday remains the most popular day for both in-store and online shopping with 81.7 million consumers shopping in stores on Black Friday, up from 76.2 million last year and the highest level since the pandemic. Around 87.3 million shopped online, a dip from 90.6 million in 2023. Cyber Monday remains the second most popular day for online shopping, with 64.4 million consumers down from 73.1 million in 2023. 

Shay noted that with Thanksgiving later this year, many retailers began promotions earlier in the season and 38% of holiday shoppers took advantage of deals during the week leading up to Thanksgiving. Still, 52% of consumers said they still have half of their shopping left to do at this point.

Department stores were the most popular shopping destinations during the five day with 42% of consumers going to these stores, 37% of shoppers going to clothing and accessories stores and 32% visiting discount stores. Eighty-six percent of shoppers purchased gifts during the period, spending $235, up $8 more than 2023.

The top gifts purchased during this period included clothing and accessories bought by almost half of shoppers, toys bought by 31% of shoppers and gift cards, purchased by 27% of shoppers.

NRF expects the holiday season to see a 2.5-3.5% increase in sales over 2023, totaling $979.5-989 billion in 2024.

“Overall this was a very strong holiday weekend and it is a positive indicator of the holiday season,” said Phil Rist, executive vice president of strategy at Prosper during the press conference.

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As retailers head into 2025, many are relying on new technologies and personalization to insure success. The change of leadership and these potential new tariffs could impact how brands shift their spending on marketing, as they manage price increases and consumer spending.

According to the NRF’s research, which was conducted in association with Trade Partnership Worldwide, the cost of goods made in China could go up in several ways. First, a universal tariff of 10-20% on all imports into the United States from all countries (Scenario A), and secondly an additional tariff of 60-100% on all imports from China on top of existing tariffs (Scenario B). In this extreme Scenario B, the cost of goods could go up by 50%.

From a consumer spent point of view, this translates to consumers paying $13.9-24 billion more for apparel, $8.8-14.2 billion more for toys, $8.5-13.1 billion more for furniture, $6.4-10.9 billion more for household appliances, $6.4-10.7 billion more for footwear and $2.2-3.9 billion more for travel goods.

“Despite accounting for just 7% of total U.S. imports, the proposed tariffs on these six consumer goods categories alone would reduce U.S. spending power by up to $78 billion annually,” read the report.

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