The holiday season is typically a time for retailers to blanket the airwaves with commercials. This year, one company was noticeably absent: Sears Holdings Corp. The struggling parent of the Sears and Kmart stores hasn’t run paid national television commercials since late November, according to ad research firm iSpot and a person familiar with the situation. The Kmart brand has been absent from national TV networks since Nov. 24, iSpot said, while Sears hasn’t run a paid national TV spot since Nov. 25—the Friday and Saturday...
Sears Holdings, the parent company of US retailers Sears and Kmart, took the "highly unusual" step of buying no TV advertising spots in the crucial period between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2017, according to iSpot. The company, which has suffered cumulative losses of $$8.4m since 2011, spent 11bn on TV spots for the Sears brand, and $6.5m for the Kmart brand, during the same period in 2016. Company executives have reportedly claimed that neglecting TV advertising is doing more harm than good. In contrast, Sears Holdings increased its digital ad spend, due to CEO Edward Lampert's preference for the format.