Retailers’ Sly Message: Get Yourself a Gift, Too

“Great Savings for the Holidays on Bissell” said the Amazon.com home page this week. (Category: vacuum.)

The Estée Lauder Anti-Wrinkle Essentials Value Set was a “gift of the day” on the Macys.com holiday beauty page. Among the site’s other head-scratching holiday deals: $50 off a Sonicare electric toothbrush. (Down to $129.)

All were aimed at a particular type of holiday shopper: the self-gifters — people who cannot resist taking advantage of the frenzied seasonal sale wars to buy a few things for themselves. (Those “buy one, get one free offers” are particularly potent bait.)

Even the classic gift of affection for others — jewelry — is fair game, and retailers know it. Under the banner Black Friday Jewelry Deals, Macy’s website coaxed: “This holiday season, get an unforgettable gift for a loved one (or yourself). Black Friday jewelry is a go-to choice for the ultimate present under the tree.”

A number of studies show that since the recession, and even a year or two before, self-gifters have been growing in both numbers and the dollars they spend. Perhaps these shoppers have reasoned that big sales offer the only legitimate excuse to spend for themselves — or in years when their finances were improving, they were finally able to ease up enough to splurge on something.

Whatever the motivation, they’ve become a special demographic niche that retailers depend on heavily, so much so that many preholiday shopping surveys now track them. But some recent surveys suggest this year that these shoppers may be a feeling a little less indulgent — a worrying prospect for companies heading into a season already filled with uncertainty and weak sales projections.

Prosper Insights & Analytics, a consumer intelligence firm that conducts surveys on holiday spending for the National Retail Federation, for example, found that a smaller share of holiday shoppers planned to take advantage of discounts to buy “nongift items” for themselves or their family this holiday season, compared with last year or the year before.

Given that impulse-buying promotes self-gifting, retailers will be doing everything they can this year — overtly, subtly and even subliminally — to tempt people to be more like Robert Kissell of Nags Head, N.C.

Mr. Kissell, 25, is an incurable self-gifter. When the stores open Thanksgiving night and Black Friday morning, he will be on the chase for a 60-inch LED smart TV at Walmart that he says will be on sale for $688, a slow cooker at Ace ($15), an Android tablet at Kmart ($39) and a whole bunch of Blu-ray discs at Target.

He plans to keep every one for himself.

Mr. Kissell hastens to add that he has a wife, parents and others for whom he is also plotting to buy great presents. But the reality is that the number of people on anyone’s gift list — and the general amount they will spend on each — is, in economists’ terms, fairly inelastic. It simply doesn’t vary that much from year to year.

For retailers, the potential for growth is greater with self-gifters because personal wants or domestic needs know fewer limits. And they can be justified as a smart household budget move.

Hence the vacuum cleaner strategy — or as Marshal Cohen, chief retail analyst at NPD Group, a research and consulting firm, describes it, promoting items that really aren’t gifts.

“How many people are you going to buy a big-screen TV for?” asked Mr. Cohen. “That item is not necessarily a gift-giving item.” Retailers, he said, “create it so the price point is so attractive” that it is very easy to rationalize buying it for yourself or even as “a family gift.”

“You are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t wait to see what’s available,” said Mr. Kissell. “The discounts really are worthwhile,” he continued, adding, “I would never buy a TV the other 10 months of the year.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 29, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of a subscription website that offers 30 days free shipping, with the clock starting with your first purchase. It is RueLaLa.com, not Rulala.com.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 29, 2013

A picture caption with an earlier version of this article rendered incorrectly the name of town in North Carolina. It is Nags Head, not Nag’s Head. 

Advertising: Songs and Sunscreen Spread the Health Insurance Message

THE part of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act that requires Americans to obtain health insurance has been a contentious issue politically, but new advertising from the 17 states setting up marketplaces where residents will buy insurance tends to be buoyant.

New commercials for the Oregon exchange, called Cover Oregon, for example, resemble something from a tourism bureau. In one commercial, the singer Matt Sheehy performs an anthemic song, “Long Live Oregonians,” that is reminiscent of “This Land Is Your Land” by Woody Guthrie.

“From Hart Mountain, to the Skidmore Fountain, from the shores of Gold Beach, to the gorge out east,” sings Mr. Sheehy, who wears a plaid flannel shirt and appears strumming his guitar in each new location as he refers to it. “We’re free to be healthy, gonna breathe that fresh air, wanna get the best care, that a state can get.”

Neither this commercial, nor others featuring the singer Laura Gibson or the hip-hop group Lifesavas, mention insurance, although they do conclude with the exchange’s Web address.

A recent survey of uninsured Oregonians commissioned by Cover Oregon found that 87 percent of respondents were unfamiliar with the exchange, while 9 percent had a favorable opinion of it and 3 percent an unfavorable opinion. The first phase of the campaign, which was introduced on July 9, aims to familiarize Oregonians with the name of the organization. Subsequent ads will promote enrollment in the program, which, like other states’, begins Oct. 1 for coverage that takes effect Jan. 1.

“If all we were doing is what we’re doing right now, I’d be nervous,” said Amy Fauver, chief communications officer of Cover Oregon, referring to the first phase of the campaign. “But we needed to get our name out there, and get positive associations with our name, and in the fall we’re shifting to a more direct call to action.”

The campaign, by North, a Portland branding and advertising agency, also features other Oregon musicians in Web-only music videos, television and radio commercials. Work by Oregon visual artists is featured in print ads and on billboards. A promotional budget of almost $10 million includes placing advertising, the agency fee and the public relations efforts.

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey in April found that 59 percent of Americans with household incomes under $30,000, a group more apt to be uninsured, were unaware that the Affordable Care Act and its insurance requirement were the law of the land.

The first state to introduce an ad campaign was Colorado, which in May began running television commercials for Connect for Health Colorado. As with other states, the Colorado online marketplace resembles travel sites like Expedia, with competing insurance companies and a choice of coverage levels, and the commercials open with residents navigating the site.

After actors in the spots choose a plan, the walls of their homes slide away to reveal other settings, and they end up either celebrating a win in a casino, being sprayed with Champagne in a locker room or astride a horse in a winner’s circle. The ads close with a voice-over, “When health insurance companies compete, there’s only one winner: you.”

The campaign, which includes print, radio and billboard ads, is by Pilgrim, an advertising and digital marketing agency in Denver. Connect for Health Colorado is projected to spend more than $21 million on marketing and advertising, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

Decidedly more somber is a campaign that began July 15 for Nevada’s marketplace, with a documentary-style approach that focuses on the perils of not having coverage.

“I live fast and play hard,” says the text for one print ad, with a portrait of a man in his early 20s. “But I don’t have health insurance and that scares me.”

C. J. Bawden, communications officer for the Silver State Health Insurance Exchange, said that focus groups of Nevadans indicated a preference for a serious tone.

The focus groups “said health care is a serious matter so please don’t trivialize it and make funny ads about it because we want the facts,” Mr. Bawden said.

The campaign, by KPS3, a marketing and advertising agency in Reno, Nev., includes spots on TV, radio, billboards, newspapers and social media, with projected advertising placement expenditures at about $2.8 million.

In August, beachgoers in Connecticut will be handed packets of sunscreen printed with “Get Covered” and the logo and Web site for Access Health CT, the state’s health insurance exchange. Roving representatives of the exchange clad in orange T-shirts also will hand out branded containers of hand sanitizer and packets of adhesive bandages.

The tchotchkes are part of an extensive $6 million promotional and advertising campaign, which includes television commercials and print, online and radio advertising. The campaign is by Pappas MacDonnell, a marketing and advertising agency in Southport, Conn.

Advertising for health exchanges in Utah and Rhode Island will be introduced between mid-August and early September, according to representatives from the programs.

The Covered California exchange is projected to spend $86 million on advertising placements through April 2015, and it has hired Weber Shandwick, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies, to develop and produce advertising, and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide to help promote it. A representative of the exchange said advertising would be introduced before open enrollment begins on Oct. 1, declining to be more specific. The health exchange for New York, which has yet to announce what it will be called, has a $40.2 million advertising and marketing budget for the next two years and has hired the New York office of DDB Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group. The agency will develop a campaign with television, print, online and transit advertising.

The campaign will begin in mid- to late-September, according to Bill Schwarz, director of public affairs for the New York State Department of Health.

Letters: Prizes With a Message

A co-creator of “Game of Thrones” on Caesar, songs about killers and compost cookies.

Malaysian voters have a historic opportunity to throw out the long-ruling National Front.

News Analysis: Message, if Murky, From U.S. to the World

At the global treaty conference on telecommunications here, the United States got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the document and left in a huff.

What was that all about? And what does it say about the future of the Internet — which was virtually invented by the United States but now has many more users in the rest of the world?

It may mean little about how the Internet will operate in the coming years. But it might mean everything about the United States’ refusal to acknowledge even symbolic global oversight of the network.

The American delegation, joined by a handful of Western allies, derided the treaty as a threat to Internet freedom. But most other nations signed it. And other participants in the two weeks of talks here were left wondering on Friday whether the Americans had been negotiating in good faith or had planned all along to engage in a public debate only to make a dramatic exit, as they did near midnight on Thursday as the signing deadline approached.

The head of the American delegation, Terry Kramer, announced that it was “with a heavy heart” that he could not “sign the agreement in its current form.” United States delegates said the pact could encourage censorship and undermine the existing, hands-off approach to Internet oversight and replace it with government control.

Anyone reading the treaty, though, might be puzzled by these assertions. “Internet” does not appear anywhere in the 10-page text, which deals mostly with matters like the fees that telecommunications networks should charge one another for connecting calls across borders. After being excised from the pact at United States insistence, the I-word was consigned to a soft-pedaled resolution that is attached to the treaty.

The first paragraph of the treaty states: “These regulations do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications.” That convoluted phrasing was understood by all parties to refer to the Internet, delegates said, but without referring to it by name so no one could call it an Internet treaty.

A preamble to the treaty commits the signers to adopt the regulations “in a manner that respects and upholds their human rights obligations.”

Both of these provisions were added during the final days of haggling in Dubai, with the support of the United States. If anything, the new treaty appears to make it more intellectually challenging for governments like China and Iran to justify their current censorship of the Internet.

What’s more, two other proposals that raised objections from the United States were removed. One of those stated that treaty signers should share control over the Internet address-assignment system — a function now handled by an international group based in the United States. The other, also removed at the Americans’ behest, called for Internet companies like Google and Facebook to pay telecommunications networks for delivering material to users.

Given that the United States achieved many of its stated goals in the negotiations, why did it reject the treaty in an 11th-hour intervention that had clearly been coordinated with allies like Britain and Canada?

In a Dubai conference call with reporters early on Friday, Mr. Kramer cited a few remaining objections, like references to countering spam and to ensuring “the security and robustness of international telecommunications networks.” This wording, he argued, could be used by nefarious governments to justify crackdowns on free speech.

But even Mr. Kramer acknowledged that his real concerns were less tangible, saying it was the “normative” tone of the debate that had mattered most. The United States and its allies, in other words, saw a chance to use the treaty conference to make a strong statement about the importance of Internet freedom. But by refusing to sign the treaty and boycotting the closing ceremony, they made clear that even to talk about the appearance of global rules for cyberspace was a nonstarter.

It may have been grandstanding, but some United States allies in Europe were happy to go along, saying the strong American stand would underline the importance of keeping the Internet open.

News Analysis: Message, if Murky, From U.S. to the World

At the global treaty conference on telecommunications here, the United States got most of what it wanted. But then it refused to sign the document and left in a huff.

What was that all about? And what does it say about the future of the Internet — which was virtually invented by the United States but now has many more users in the rest of the world?

It may mean little about how the Internet will operate in the coming years. But it might mean everything about the United States’ refusal to acknowledge even symbolic global oversight of the network.

The American delegation, joined by a handful of Western allies, derided the treaty as a threat to Internet freedom. But most other nations signed it. And other participants in the two weeks of talks here were left wondering on Friday whether the Americans had been negotiating in good faith or had planned all along to engage in a public debate only to make a dramatic exit, as they did near midnight on Thursday as the signing deadline approached.

The head of the American delegation, Terry Kramer, announced that it was “with a heavy heart” that he could not “sign the agreement in its current form.” United States delegates said the pact could encourage censorship and undermine the existing, hands-off approach to Internet oversight and replace it with government control.

Anyone reading the treaty, though, might be puzzled by these assertions. “Internet” does not appear anywhere in the 10-page text, which deals mostly with matters like the fees that telecommunications networks should charge one another for connecting calls across borders. After being excised from the pact at United States insistence, the I-word was consigned to a soft-pedaled resolution that is attached to the treaty.

The first paragraph of the treaty states: “These regulations do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications.” That convoluted phrasing was understood by all parties to refer to the Internet, delegates said, but without referring to it by name so no one could call it an Internet treaty.

A preamble to the treaty commits the signers to adopt the regulations “in a manner that respects and upholds their human rights obligations.”

Both of these provisions were added during the final days of haggling in Dubai, with the support of the United States. If anything, the new treaty appears to make it more intellectually challenging for governments like China and Iran to justify their current censorship of the Internet.

What’s more, two other proposals that raised objections from the United States were removed. One of those stated that treaty signers should share control over the Internet address-assignment system — a function now handled by an international group based in the United States. The other, also removed at the Americans’ behest, called for Internet companies like Google and Facebook to pay telecommunications networks for delivering material to users.

Given that the United States achieved many of its stated goals in the negotiations, why did it reject the treaty in an 11th-hour intervention that had clearly been coordinated with allies like Britain and Canada?

In a Dubai conference call with reporters early on Friday, Mr. Kramer cited a few remaining objections, like references to countering spam and to ensuring “the security and robustness of international telecommunications networks.” This wording, he argued, could be used by nefarious governments to justify crackdowns on free speech.

But even Mr. Kramer acknowledged that his real concerns were less tangible, saying it was the “normative” tone of the debate that had mattered most. The United States and its allies, in other words, saw a chance to use the treaty conference to make a strong statement about the importance of Internet freedom. But by refusing to sign the treaty and boycotting the closing ceremony, they made clear that even to talk about the appearance of global rules for cyberspace was a nonstarter.

It may have been grandstanding, but some United States allies in Europe were happy to go along, saying the strong American stand would underline the importance of keeping the Internet open.

A Message for First-Year Associates: Seven Things to Consider

It's law firm arrival season. The postbar adventure vacations have been tucked into Instagram folders. The first law school debt payments loom. And visions of all-night doc reviews now dance feverishly across imaginations that only a year ago were wooed for their high-performance potential. As they start down this road, here are seven things I'd like the new group of first-year asso­ciates to keep in mind:

For Most, This Will Be Short-Term Employment. If the past is prologue, about one-third of the starting class will have left by the end of their third year; two-thirds of your class will be gone within six years. This isn't personal; the structure relies on regular departures of associates, sometimes voluntary, sometimes not. For the new lawyers, this means that you're in charge of your careers. The old paternalistic, just-excel-and you-shall-be-automatically-rewarded game is over. Now you have to decide what you need to learn while you're at the firm and manage your time accordingly. This regimen is a neat fit for our ironic age: Put down roots and expect to be uprooted.

You Have Two Masters. At the firm, you're expected to heed your supervisors, be they partners or more senior associates. Ignore them at your peril. But the bigger prize is serving the clients. At first, you won't be in their company; alas, you may leave without having met one. But eventually -- somewhere -- you will have your own. Develop the habit of learning your clients' needs and try to meet them. Do they really require the journal-quality memo and the 105 billable hours it took last week to produce? Or will a single page with five dependencies and one judgment suffice? Ask.

Seek A Mentor and, if you're serious about staying, a sponsor. Many firms are better now at connecting their juniors with partners who will try to bring them along. But given the internal pace, the personnel churn, and the fact that not every partner is capable of teaching best practices -- or teaching at all -- you must be prepared to search for your own. Interpersonal chemistry is important, of course, but find the ablest mentors you can, those who will challenge you even as they're imprinting their habits on your career. If you're determined to stay at the firm, you will need a sponsor, too. These are partners who will try to advance your career. These folks are hard to find, and most associates won't acquire one at their first firm. If you wake up as a sixth-year and you can't name your sponsor, it's past the time to take those calls from the recruiters.

Don't Trash The Brand. I receive announcements every week about 45-year-old lawyers taking new positions in government or business that include mentions of their brief stints as associates at Cravath or Latham or S&C (or one of a hundred other firms). This is the halo effect that comes from putting in a little time at one of these fabled places. The assumption is that if you cleared their screening process, you must be pretty good. This is valuable currency, and one you don't want to devalue for sport. (If you doubt this, check around for lawyers bragging about their time at Howrey or Thelen or Brobeck.) These merit badges will follow you, for good or bad, for the next half-century. That's worth keeping in mind when deciding whether to tell the world that this or that partner is an officious jerk.

Help Others. You've joined a profession and not, for the moment, an industry. Part of your responsibility is to help provide legal services to those people and causes that otherwise couldn't afford them. That's a serious obligation. If you fulfill it, you will feel better about yourself in the morning. You also will learn some things about practice and life that you otherwise would not. A corollary point: There are people working at the firm, in a variety of roles, who do not have your credentials. They contribute to your success; some will know things you don't. Treat them with respect.

You're Good And You're Lucky. It's an accident of timing that you're beginning work this autumn and not suffering through the doubts of a deferred start date. As the man says, you didn't build this situation alone. So be mindful of your good fortune and use it not only to pay down your debt but as an antidote to arrogance, which is unbecoming at every level.

Find Work You Love. If it's at your firm, fine. If not, go elsewhere and do it.