GenDigital

Music Mag Blender Teams Up With Best Buy

Best Buy, the number one consumer electronics retailer among college students, has announced a partnership with music magazine Blender to push newly released music. Beginning next week, 658 Best Buy locations will feature "Blender Approved" aisles of music endorsed by the magazine's editors. The hope is to get shoppers to move beyond purchasing the most popular CDs of the moment, the bulk of Best Buy's music sales. Blender is a relatively small player in the magazine category when it comes to Gen Y readership. Only 7% of all teens and college students report reading Blender at least once in the past six months, and only 2% actually subscribe to the magazine. The partnership will go into overdrive when back-to-school season hits featuring video games and DVDs alongside the music offerings.

Sephora Partners with J.C.Penney

J.C. Penney and Sephora, the specialty beauty retailer announced a new partnership where Sephora will open mini Sephora "stores within stores" later this year. This is good news for J.C. Penney who has lost teen and young adult shoppers over the past five years to the specialty clothing retailers like American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch and Forever 21, among others. Even though Sephora has only 120 stores nationwide, the stores are in major markets. Sephora and its associated brand equity is highly popular among teen and young adult women. The partnership should get some younger shoppers into J.C. Penney right around back to school time.