Building a Data-Driven Digital Resource
National Retail Federation (NRF)
The Ask
Strengthen knowledge of the economic impact of the modern retail industry.
The retail industry is the nation’s largest private-sector employer. In fact, this industry contributes about $5.3 trillion annually to America’s gross domestic product and employs roughly 55 million Americans. In ongoing conversations about the strength of the U.S. economy and the role of the retail industry, the National Retail Federation (NRF) needed to launch a new online consumer and member insights center to house insightful data, information and trends to educate key stakeholders and provide them with a current macro (economic) view of the retail industry.
Strategic Approach
Design a digital resource to educate key stakeholders and generate comprehensive, granular and timely insights.
The retail industry’s story needed to be amplified and understood among consumers, NRF members and the media through an innovative, interactive and easy-to-digest resource. Adfero worked together with NRF to establish clear goals for the project and conduct discovery into various applications and data sources to best anticipate how information may be received and shared through NRF’s website. Our recommendations carefully considered that this center would be a living resource that could be regularly updated, promoted and maintained. The team then developed a creative direction offering expert guidance, best practices and new concepts to effectively incorporate interactive visuals into the NRF site and bring data to life.
Following months of careful planning, research and design, Adfero helped launch the NRF Center for Retail & Consumer Insights (CRCI) – a one-stop shop for best-in-class data on the retail industry – and construct corresponding creative assets to promote the new resource.
Housed within CRCI is the CNBC/NRF Retail Monitor, a monthly measure of retail sales leveraging comprehensive data from more than 140 million credit and debit cards, tracking nearly 9 billion transactions and representing more than $500 billion in annual spending. Released about one month prior to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Retail Sales figures, the Retail Monitor offers a timelier and more in-depth look at consumer spending across the industry and consumer economy.
CRCI and the Retail Monitor showcase for users a month-over-month look at retail sales performance across ten sectors.
Impact
Successfully provided a look into the mindset and behavior of consumers and the retailers who serve them.
Adfero’s strategic planning and execution resulted in the creation of a compelling and dynamic display of data for key audiences, with the flexibility to easily update information and insights as they become available.
Following the launch of CRCI, NRF earned media coverage on CNBC’s Squawk Box in March 2024, with a segment breaking down the latest consumer spending data.
