Retail sales bounced back in October with both monthly and year-over-year gains as consumers geared up for the holiday season.  Core retail sales (excluding restaurants, automobile dealers and gasoline stations) in October rose 0.6% month and up 4.89% year over year, according to the NRF/CNBC Retail Monitor released by the National Retail Federation.  The October sales report comes days after the NRF released its annual holiday forecast, which predicted that that sales in November and December will grow between 3.7% and 4.2% over 2024. That translates to total spending between $1.01 trillion and $1.02 trillion “Recent economic data has been mixed, yet consumer spending remains solid — supported by wage growth outpacing inflation, historically low unemployment, and wealth effects from strong stock market valuations,” said NRF president and CEO Matthew Shay. “These factors point to continued momentum heading into the holidays.”

Campaigns, Innovations, Performance, Marketing Integrations & Advocacy: Join J.Schmid President, Brent Niemuth, as he shares a client case study of a highly creative and effective direct mail campaign that showcases the magic of print, during the upcoming BRAND United webinar on March 28th. Sign up at: https://lndnm.napco.com/20220328_BRU_WBNR_ELITE_6263_LP.html?partnerref=004

Phoenix Innovate (PI), a leading marketing communications firm headquartered in Troy, Mich., has acquired Carmel, Ind.-based UN Communications Group, Inc. The leadership and staff at UN will remain on and are thrilled to integrate the strengths of both companies with a focus toward creating a new standard for effective marketing solutions. “Our ability to serve our clients' brand awareness and marketing supply chain needs got a big boost today,” said Denise Purvis, President of UN. “The addition of strategic marketing, application development and data analytics expertise Phoenix Innovate provides will help our clients achieve a new level of integration, automation and increased ROI. The combination of our talented team members will continue to create game-changing marketing solutions for our clients.”