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When it comes to office attire, your wardrobe needs to be on point. You can’t just go into the boardroom wearing any old thing and expect to be taken seriously. Unfortunately in this game – image is everything with potential clients and investors coming to a conclusion of who you are by how you look.

So what does this mean – we need to go into debt looking good? By all means no! Many women are quite savvy in the fashion department and know how to make pieces work to their benefit. Still, it’s important to know which stores are available for affordable office attire. If you happen to be on the search for staples, you may want to consider these stores.

There you are, minding your business, shopping on Target.com for a dress–nothing extravagant, but a simple maxi dress. While seeking out a larger size, you inadvertently stumble upon the fact that for the colors of the dresses, for the plus-sized maxi, it’s called “manatee gray” instead of basic gray. However, when you check back for the dress in smaller sizes it says “dark heather gray.” What’s that about?

That’s exactly what a shopper, Susan Clemens of Orange County, Calif., was thinking when she noticed the color description. She went on to speak out against the description via her Twitter page this week and spread the word–and boy did it spread quickly.

“What the.  Plus sized women get “Manatee Grey” while standard sizes are “Dark Heather Grey.”  @Target #notbuyingit”

Others caught on and were equally confused and heated, and while Clemens didn’t expect things to pop off so rapidly and in such a large way, she told ABC News that she’s glad it did.

“A lot has happened in a day because it really resonates with people. I really didn’t expect it to spread as widely as it has but people are tired of having the size and shape of their body commented on, and that’s what this color discrepancy seems to imply.”

Target has apologized for the blunder and blame it on two different teams of people working on copy for the dresses–not a want or need to try embarrass plus-size shoppers. They are updating things and say they will just try to stick with straighforward color descriptions. You know…like “gray.” How easy was that?

Clemens appreciates that Target is apologetic, but she hopes it opens up a larger conversation about the way the sizes of women are talked about publicly:

“It’s an inadvertent thing that Target did but what it tapped into is something that’s real for a lot of people. I think, though, there’s a bigger story here in the way that it resonated with people because they are concerned with how they’re being talked about in the world at large, even if that wasn’t the intent here.”

What do you think?

Source: AP Images

Justin Timberlake hasn’t moved units this large since he was rocking a perm and doing the stomp dance in ‘N Sync. Matter of fact, aside from Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber and maybe Eminem, nobody is selling many copies of anything, let alone going damn near platinum in a week. That should tell you something. Well, three things:

The album is VERY good.

Promotion for the album was also VERY good.

And the fans were tired of waiting for some new music–and they finally got it.

Welcome to the “Work It!” column, where we take a look at business innovation of every kind.

Diego Corredor/MPI / Picturegroup via AP IMAGES

Sometimes being an innovator is as easy as paying attention to what others ignore. Iman is best known for serving fierceness. She blazed runways and magazines during the 70’s and 80’s. She was a muse to Saint-Laurent, Valentino, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, and Versace. She’s David Bowie’s wife! As if all that fabulousness wasn’t enough, you have to give her props for being an innovative businesswoman as well.

If you’ve walked through a department store or picked up a magazine for black women, you know about Iman Cosmetics. But you may not realize how the brand has made history. There was a time when being a supermodel wasn’t enough for a black woman to find foundation in her color.

Iman still remembers make-up artists asking her if she brought her own foundation when she showed up for shoots, and the grey shade her face took on when those same artists mixed concoctions to make due.

Where There’s A Need, There’s A Check

In 1994, after she retired from ripping the runway, Iman founded Iman Cosmetics. From the start, Iman was confident in her venture because she knew there was a need for her product. Women constantly approached her on the street asking what products she used, and where they could buy them. Her products, sold on the Web and in chain stores, do about $25 to $30 million a year.

Iman’s business strategy is still effective today. In every industry and area of interest there is bound to be a group that is underserved. Being the first to cater to their needs will inspire unparalleled brand loyalty.

I was admittedly comfortable with Iman Cosmetics being identified as a beauty brand that filled the gap for black women because it was deeply personal for me. It was more than foundations and powders; it was appealing to a deep psychological need that I think all black women needed at that time: to be told that they were beautiful, invited to sit at the cool table and courted in high style.

- Iman, “Think Tank: Iman on the Multicultural Consumer”

Serve, Don’t Pander And Never Abandon

The main pitfall with this strategy is alienating your intended audience by stereotyping them. As Iman says, “Multicultural markets are nuanced, but not alien.” Know your audience and their culture, but don’t pander in a way that be can perceived as offensive. Show your allegiance with subtle nods to social cues that someone not part of that group would miss.

This innovation strategy isn’t limited by race. Any trait that makes a person unique can be translated into a business’s differentiator. Appealing to a niche market is a great way to build up to serving a larger market. Iman Cosmetics slowly shifted to a more holistic vision that served women of all skin tones. That doesn’t mean when you get on leave your base for the mainstream. Never forget the customers that supported you first.

—

C. Cleveland is a freelance writer and content strategist in New York City, perfecting living the fierce life at The Red Read. She is at your service on Twitter (@CleveInTheCity) and Facebook (/MyReadIsRed). 

We’re highlighting Pioneers in the Game every day here on Madame Noire. Click here to meet all of our salutes.

Ray Lewis and the rest of the Baltimore Ravens are headed to the Super Bowl, playing against the San Francisco 49ers. AP Photo/Paul Jasienski

Every year, there are increasingly more stories about companies using social media in addition to, or in place of, traditional Super Bowl advertising.

This year, Twitter is reportedly increasing its price for Promoted Trends related to the Super Bowl, a strategy the company has started to embrace around high-traffic social media days, such as the Presidential Inauguration yesterday.

In the past, a company could purchase a Promoted Trend for the day for $120,000, but several sources told AdWeek that the price has risen for the Super Bowl, and that Twitter doesn’t have any plans to break up the day and sell Promoted Trends for certain hours.

But brands can also create their own social media buzz leading up to the Super Bowl. Target introduced a mobile game called Snack Bowl, which is available via mobile browsers, and iPhone and Android apps. The game also incorporates other brands, such as DiGiorno pizza and Coke Zero, as their products are used in the game.

Other companies, such as Pepsi and Pizza Hut, are crowdsourcing content for their brand’s Super Bowl ads, with the most well-known example being Doritos. For the seventh time, Doritos fans are invited to shoot and submit their own commercial, with two winning spots based on customer votes, airing during the game. CBS, which is the network airing the game this year, is also encouraging fans to submit photos for a pre-halftime show video, according to USA Today.

And still more companies will preview their Super Bowl ad spots online and via social media, a strategy that some say takes the fun out of watching the commercial breaks during the game.

Will you be using Twitter and social media during the Super Bowl? Will you be writing about the ads, the game, or the party you’re going to?

Source: WENN

After an extremely hot mess of a year, I’m sure no one is more ready for a fresh start in 2013 than Katt Williams. He’s been arrested more times in one year than most people run into trouble with the law in their whole lives, and he’s had numerous altercations with people, including his assistant, folks attending his shows, bystanders, and of course, a random white guy at a Target in California. The video, for most, was just another example of a gifted fella continuing to spiral out of control, but Williams says that there’s more to the clip than what people’s eyes are seeing. According to the embattled comedian, he only slapped the victim, Forrest Liebenberg, because the man called him the N-word of all things.

According to TMZ, during a show at The Comedy Store in Hollywood (who is really still paying to see him live after all the mic slapping and arguing he’s been doing with folks???), Williams said he warned the man to watch his mouth, and when he didn’t, he had to get pimpin’-pimpin’ on him:

“Let me tell you what the dude at Target said … ‘Your assistant is already suing you, you p***y a** n***er. I said did you just say the N-word in front of Katt Williams? He said, ‘you say it all the time.’ I said, ‘Say it again and watch what happens. End of story. If you white and you call me a n***a, I’m gonna punch you in your muthaf****n mouth too.”

While I’m still side-eyeing the fact that he spoke of himself in third person, is it weird that I actually believe Williams? And I say that because of the fact that the employee came out to various news outlets after the incident saying that Target fired him. There was speculation as to why he was given the boot, and I’m sure Liebenberg was trying to get some sympathy so that maybe he could sue since he felt that he was fired because they thought he might have leaked the tape of the incident. However, Target even put out a message saying the firing had NOTHING to do with the tape getting out. So why was he fired? Well, this could be a reason…if it’s true. And Liebenberg could have had a history of acting a fool at work. Ironically, TMZ says they tried to reach out to Liebenberg, who was so easy to get in touch with after the incident, but after multiple attempts, he didn’t get back to them. Veeeeery interesting indeed that he’s MIA all of a sudden…

Check out the clip below, courtesy of TMZ, where Katt breaks down the incident. He also attributes similar disrespect to the early retirement of talents like Dave Chappelle. Do you think Williams’s story is true?

s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

Nicki Minaj has a lot to gripe about lately. She just accused  Steven Tyler of being a racist when he questioned her ability to select talent on American Idol. She questioned Barbara Walters (harshly) for not interviewing her after the Mariah Carey feud story broke. And now, she is saying her latest CD, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded – The Re-Up, isn’t selling because two of the nation’s biggest retailers passed on the album.

The original CD, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, was released in April 2 and “was certified platinum after selling more than 1 million units in the U.S. The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling 253,000 units in its first week,” reports Billboard. The Re-Up was released on November 19 and has eight new songs. It is packaged with a DVD featuring the album’s music videos and 90 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage.

During an interview with New York radio station Power 105.1′s “The Breakfast Club,” Minaj blamed low sales of the new album on Walmart’s and Target’s failure to carry it.  ”… [T]he stores basically said that the last few re-releases they had put out did not do well and they didn’t want to take a chance. So, Target and Walmart is not selling the album. Target is actually my biggest retailer — they’ve always been my biggest retailer. They’ve sold the most Nicki Minaj albums ever, so, thank you, Target. But I wish you could’ve sold this one,” said Minaj.

Best Buy, said Minaj, did take a limited number of units.

Having Target and Walmart behind your product can equal great sales. Taylor Swift used Target to sell the only deluxe version of her latest CD Red with additional audio content (three bonus songs and three remixes), reports Billboard. Target, Walmart and Best Buy also sold the standard version of Swift’s album, which sold a 1.208 million copies last week in the U.S. according to Nielsen SoundScan. “That’s more than any album has sold in a single week since 2002, when Eminem‘s The Eminem Show sold 1.322 million in its first full week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200,” reports Billboard.

Not having a presence on the shelves in Walmart and Target probably is hurting her. But, on the other hand, do her fans want to a spruced up CD with only a few new tracks? Or would they have preferred an entirely new album? Or maybe Nicki Minaj needs to give us all a break and take a holiday vacation. A day with no Nicki news would be a gift to all of us.

Cyber Monday at an Amazon fulfillment center. AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin

The numbers are in and this year’s Cyber Monday is the all-time online shopping champ.

Sales for the day were up 30.3 percent year-over-year with department stores leading the pack, according to the AP. “Results show Americans are getting more comfortable shopping across all screens — computers, smartphones and tablets — and retailers are capitalizing on this by improving e-commerce offerings and beefing up Cyber Monday-specific deals,” the news outlet reports. Still, online sales only account for 10 percent of total holiday sales. We’ll have to wait for the November and December numbers to get a fuller picture, but The National Retail Federation is expecting an overall increase of 4.1 percent in holiday spending this year.

There had been concerns that Cyber Monday had lost its oomph. In response to yesterday’s numbers, Jay Henderson, IBM Smarter Commerce’s strategy director tells USA Today, “The reports of the death of Cyber Monday are greatly exaggerated.” The “most-searched-for products” were Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Ugg boots. The most-searched retailers were CyberMonday.com, Target, Amazon, and Walmart. The data shows that mobile devices were used by many people to visit a retailer and make purchases and “PayPal had almost 200% more volume in mobile payments,” the paper writes. (Interestingly, Mashable reports that Twitter contributed zero to online sales on Black Friday. Or .34 percent to be exact.)

For the weekend as a whole, Ad Age says the average shopper spent $423, up from $398 last year. The magazine outlines four things that they say the weekend showed about the consumer habits. The one that we found most interesting is, “Consumers could care less about the ‘fiscal cliff.’”

“More Americans this month said the U.S. economy will improve than at any time in the past decade, according to the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index. The share of households saying the economy would get better rose to 37%, the highest since March 2002. A year ago, the measure showed a record number of consumers said it was a bad time to spend,” the magazine continues.

We’re curious about whether this optimism is something that comes with the holidays and a coming new year. The holiday season is a happy time, and New Year’s brings with it lots of hope for the year ahead. And after years of this recession, who doesn’t want to let go a little now that things seem to be slowly turning around? (Though unemployment numbers in the black community still show many still feel a strong level of economic strain.)

But an analyst that spoke with the AP, Brian Sozi, also makes an interesting point: ”Retailers have done a fine job at shifting the pool of holiday buyers to earlier in the season, but have not necessarily created demand outside of the carefully scrutinized shopping list.” So the question is whether the level of optimism and enthusiasm will be sustained for the next month? Or will shopping fever cool as people reach their budget thresholds?

This also ties in with one of the other things that Ad Age said about the holiday shopping weekend: “Retailers are nervous about the economy.”

From Eur Web

Nicki Minaj’s “Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded” album may have gone platinum, but its follow up – an expanded version titled “Pink Friday Roman Reloaded: The Re-Up,” released Nov. 19 – hasn’t gotten off to as good of a start, and she’s putting the blame on three of the nation’s biggest retailer for making the CD difficult to purchase.

“It is hard to get the album because the stores basically said that the last few re-releases they had put out did not do well and they didn’t want to take a chance,” she said in an appearance on New York radio station Power 105.1′s The Breakfast Club

Read more at EurWeb.com.

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Ever walked into Target looking to get one essential thing, say, some soap, some toothpaste you’ve run out of, or some snacks, only to get to the register with a cart full of Christmas presents? For yourself? Yeah, Target has everything you need, and that might not be a good thing for a sista’s wallet. But if you do find yourself wandering through the store dropping a bit of everything in your cart, you HAVE to try out these nine products we’re going crazy over ’round these parts.