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Would you give up your spouse just to keep your status in a loyalty hotel program? Would you choose your hotel loyalty card over your wife if you had to pick just one thing to travel with? If you’re married, you may not like the answers. Some 73% of frequent travelers said “they would” to both questions.

The report, from the Starwood Preferred Guest program, only got worse for the sanctity of marriage. Some 70% of these frequent travelers said these relationships with hotel loyalty programs might even outlive marital unions or even their current jobs (no surprise there considering our economy). That there elite status would be more important than even their smartphones, tablets or even personal assistants in a travel emergency. And these travelers said they would outright lie to get an upgrade, like saying they were on their “honeymoon.” more

Depending on your viewpoint, JC Penney announced Wednesday that it is migrating down—or up—the multibrand retail chain. In the course of announcing some poor quarterly results covering the holiday season, CEO Ron Johnson said the retailer will remake itself to look less like a standard department store and more like a big-box retailer. The change includes everything from a “boutique” shop merchandising makeover, to a simplified “everyday low pricing” strategy, and even to a logo redesign that, to my eyes, resembles that of Target: the brand initials inside a geometric shape, in this case a square rather than a bulls-eye.

Put aside the Old-Glory-meets-Tommy-Hilfiger logo change, Penney’s second in a year. And put aside the “store within a store” orientation. To me that simply makes Penney more like every other department retailer, but then I prefer my clothes and kitchen goods without ads on them, whether Ralph’s or Martha’s.

What do you feel about the pricing philosophy? more

As can be seen from Erik Hauser’s post below, Walgreens is dealing with a problem that could have a serious financial impact on a large portion of its customer base: a cancelled contract with prescription benefits company Express Scripts that could wind up reducing the number of prescriptions filled annually by the nation’s top pharmacy chain by as much as 1% to 3%. That could cost the company up to $4 billion in annual revenue and a sizeable portion of its customer base, who are already being courted in ads by other pharmacies that remain in the Express Scripts system.

In drug retailing, when people move their prescriptions, they also move a lot of their other healthcare and beauty buying. And having moved away once, they tend to stay away. more

Did you see the hordes out in stores and shopping malls last Saturday opening up their Amazon Price Check apps and aiming their smartphones at the barcodes on that rice cooker for cousin Nellie and the velvet smoking jacket for Uncle Phil? Well, no, neither did I. But retailers would be making a big mistake to take that as a sign that their protest against Amazon’s one-day/5-percent-discount promotion for the app was a success.

The deal was this: For one day, last Saturday, consumers could get a 5% price rollback on an item that they scanned in any store with the app and then bought it on Amazon instead. And some elements of the brick-and-mortar retail industry (and the politicians who love them ) were incensed enough to call for a boycott of Amazon for committing “an attack on Main Street businesses that employ workers in our communities.” Some organizers even promoted an Occupy Amazon event on Facebook for the same day that, I guess, involved going to independent retailers, NOT opening the app, and buying something—it was a bit unclear.

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I saw this sign on a gas pump last Tuesday while I was driving to Boston for the Shop.org Annual Summit. And it made me feel 10 years younger.

Even if Irving is piloting its rewards program, it shouldn’t be so 20th-century user-friendly (oxymoron) about it. Heck, barcode scanners were being used in the 20th century, and the cost to install those, and issue key fobs with barcodes on them, has to have gone down immensely since 1999. more

Last fall, Focus Brands, the franchisor and operator of Cinnabon cinnamon roll bakeries and other brands, held its first summit for small to mid-sized licensees. The idea was to bring them together and get them talking partnerships to leverage each others brands, grow their products, get consumers shopping in isles they may not necessary shop in and trying products they may never have otherwise purchased.

One of those attendees was a representative from SunMaid, which had begun licensing the Cinnabon brand in 2002 to produce Cinnamon Bread. Production began in small areas around Michigan and Ohio and over time more regional bakeries began to make the product. The business grew region by region and is now one of Focus Brands best selling SKUs. At the summit there was lots of talk about cross promotions. more