Spike Santee Dot Com

Santa in the summer? Retailers are pumping still more energy this year into trying to get shoppers to loosen their purse strings early for Christmas with sparkly ornaments, holiday music and special prices. In July.

Get ready: Nielsen is once again trying to challenge one of the industry's oldest chestnuts -- that consumers over 50 aren't worth the expense to target. The measurement-and-data giant is out to prove that it is advertisers' continued focus on younger customers that's out of date, thanks to a massive and aging population of baby boomers as well as changes in consumers' lifestyle sparked by new technology.

Having spent slightly more on Valentine's Day, Easter and even St. Patrick's Day this year, consumers are continuing the trend and will spend a little bit more on mommy dearest as well. Behind the winter holidays (Christmas, Hanukah and Kwanza), Mother's Day is the second largest U.S. consumer spending holiday. The National Retail Federation's 2010 Mother's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, found the average person will shell out $126.90 on Mother's Day gifts, compared to $123.89 last year. Total spending is expected to reach $14.6 billion.

Super Bowl Sunday means a lot to Tony Matta -- and it's not all about football. The executive at snack giant Frito-Lay Canada counts on the excitement around the game to generate more business than any other day of the year. But this year he did something different to rev up sales of Frito-Lay snack foods. He dispatched an army of 120 "game day gurus" to supermarkets across the country with a mission to nab shoppers in what some marketers refer to as "the last three feet" -- the space between the shelf and the customer who's making a purchasing decision.