The “Retailer Promotion Guide” is designed to help consumer packaged goods marketers, in-store merchandising specialists, advertising and promotions agencies, and all vendors to the trade do some general planning for the year ahead.

The Guide lists, describes and in most cases shows visual examples of major promotions that tend to be held annually at ten major U.S. retail chains: Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Kroger, Safeway, Publix, Ahold, Dollar General, and Family Dollar. Among the types of promotions and themes noted are Holidays, Super Bowl, Back to School, “March Madness,” Cold & Flu, Dads & Grads, and Black History Month.

The listings were compiled by editors at the Path to Purchase Institute and Shopper Marketing magazine who monitor each of these 10 chains’ promotional practices, marketing themes and advertising messaging.

This app should be considered a “guide” and not as a “calendar” per se. It does not list any of these chains’ specific 2013 plans (dates, windows, requirements, etc.) That is information that at this time even many of the chains themselves do not possess. While most of the promotions listed were conducted as recently as 2012, there is no guarantee that any or all of these events will be held again in 2013. The guide’s information should therefore be viewed as notional and in all cases, require confirmation from the chain itself.