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the iconic Nicole Kidman stunned the industry fashion after showing off muscular biceps and a toned abdomen in a photo shoot for “Perfect” magazine. At 55 years old, the actress has shown that she has nothing to envy the younger generations. Dressed in crop tops and miniskirts, the Hollywood idol revealed her toned figure in a series of edgy-style photos.
Despite criticism of his status and age, Nicole decided to go for a bold new look by wearing a red-haired wig and revealing two-mile-style clothes of the Diesel and Glenn Martins brands.
And the fact is that the award-winning actress who represents the elite of the Hollywood film industry is also a woman recognized and respected by the film industry. fashion. That is how “Perfect” magazine decided to honor her with the “Perfect Icon Award”, in recognition of “shaping contemporary culture” in the midst of celebrations of the most outstanding achievements of pop culture icons.
A woman at the forefront
But this is not the first time Nicole Kidman bet on the edgy fashion. Earlier this year, she posed for the cover of “Vanity Fair” wearing a crop top and micro mini skirt from luxury brand Miu Miu’s viral spring-summer 2022 collection. Even a few weeks ago, she walked the runway for Versace’s latest Haute Couture collection alongside other celebrities like Dua Lipa and Kim Kardashian.
“I’ll just do what you want, last! And just have fun. And only commit, really commit when I show up. (…) I love the idea of being bold and not having to fit in”, The actress previously stated about her controversial decision to model for avant-garde brands and magazines.


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Taiwanese JS Power is gearing up to launch large-scale production of batteries in Turkey. In search of a company to cooperate and seek production opportunities, the company has so far held talks with Zorlu Holding and Anadolu Group.
Foreign companies, spearheaded by Taiwanese battery manufacturer JS Power, consider investing in Turkey for battery production, one of the technologies that will shape the future all over the world. In a statement to energy news portal Enerji Günlüğü, the company's CEO Ann Wong commented on their ongoing projects and activities, saying JS Power, a battery producing company based in Taiwan, focuses on lithium-ion technology. Noting that the batteries they produce are used in mobile phones, tablets and computers, electronic devices such as electric bicycles and electric vehicles, robots, drones, and base stations, Wong stressed that more batteries would be needed in the future for 5G. “And now we produce batteries for popular energy storage applications,” she added.
Touching on their goals for the Turkish market, Wong said they arrived in Turkey for the first time as the company. "We are here for the industrial battery business. Turkey imports batteries from other countries. Industrial batteries are very heavy and therefore extremely difficult to transport. We are now looking for a company to cooperate in Turkey. We want to bring the parts to Turkey and assemble them here," she stressed.
Wong further explained their plans for Turkey. “We have scooter batteries, data center batteries, and 5G batteries. So, we have a large portfolio of lithium-ion batteries,” Wong continued. “However, we are currently focusing on the electric vehicle battery and the batteries for energy storage.”
Wong recalled that they met with two major Turkish companies in need of batteries, namely Anadolu Group and Zorlu Energy. Pointing to the huge volume in the Turkish market due to the battery requirement in many applications, Wong said Zorlu Group (Vestel) makes mobile phones in Turkey and buys batteries from other countries, China in particular. “As Taiwan, we hope to get the opportunity to do business with Turkey. There are many companies, and their products need batteries. I hope we will have the opportunity to cooperate here, which will lead to a win-win outcome,” she added.
The CEO of JS Power expressed their wish to bring the cells and other materials needed for battery production to Turkey and find a company that can mount them here. “And I hope that soon Turkey can say 'we have produced them here' and put the Made in Turkey mark on these products," she said, highlighting that 20 years ago, her country also imported batteries from Japan and Korea.
“I was hoping back then that Taiwan could make its own batteries. My dreams came true. I can find the right company to cooperate with here. And maybe three years later, they start making their own batteries," she concluded.

domain: news


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The British International Freight Association (BIFA) voiced its concerns about the charges following the annoucement earlier this week by Maersk Line that it would be introducing a new Bunker Adjustment Factor (BAF) from 1 January 2019 to take into account the additonal cost of low sulphur fuels. For the Asia – Europe trade examples given by Maersk showed a surcharge of $480 to $840 per feu.
Robert Keen, BIFA director general said: “By any measure, these are very major increases, and they will be received negatively by BIFA members’ customers.
"While the shipping operators may say that the new BAFs are needed to cover the cost of switching to low sulphur fuels or fitting exhaust ‘scrubbers’, rises of this magnitude are unjustified and could be construed as blatant profiteering by shipping lines determined to exploit the situation.”
Surcharges have long been unpopular with shippers but with container lines facing an estimated $15bn additional fuel bill to comply with the sulphur cap the Maersk BAF annoucement looks set to be the first of many. Senior officials from Ocean Network Express (ONE), Orient Overseas International Ltd (OOIL), and APL all said this week that the additional costs of meeting the 0.5% global sulphur cap on marine fuel would have to be passed onto customers.
BIFA said that it would prefer that bunker surcharges were consolidated into freight rates.
Keen added: “BIFA members are now faced with the task of explaining yet another surcharge to their customers, and what the rationale behind it is. The sulphur surcharge is bound to be extremely unpopular.
“Sometimes there is an unfair perception that our members are to blame.”


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Webinar: Convenience Wins
PHTA affinity partner Podium is hosting a FREE webinar, "Convenience Wins: How to save time and make your customers happier," on February 3 at 4pm ET.
It is really difficult to do business during a global pandemic. With government restrictions and social distancing in effect, working with customers requires massive amounts of coordination. So how can businesses keep employees on jobs and sales coming in without tying down phone lines or seeing customers in person? This webinar will cover the top three ways to save time and money: Consolidating communication, delegating work, and collecting payments.
7701 Las Colinas Blvd., Ste. 800, Irving, TX 75063


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The much acclaimed and anticipated annual Victoria’s Secret (VS) 2017 Fashion show which concluded on Sunday night in Shanghai’s Mercedes Benz Arena amidst glitz and glamor continued to roll on much later on the night after the show had ended celebrating another successful year.
The after party attended by the likes of Bella Hadid, Karlie Kloss, and Taylor Hill, ran into some trouble with Chinese authorities with police shutting down the venue before midnight. Reportedly, the after party which began at 9 pm, with DJ Victor Anime about to take center stage, police showed up and cut the music off at 11:50 pm.
As the night wore on a number of uniformed police began to show up and breaking up the party, a woman controlling the crowd announced “They want us to finish. We are sorry, we tried.” The party was officially over as soon as it had begun.
Victoria’s Secret models in Shanghai, Source: People Style
This year’s show ran into some trouble earlier mostly with visa issues with multiple models including Gigi Hadid and Singer Katy Perry withdrawing from the show citing various reasons. Even before the event started, VS staffs that were in Shanghai were monitored by the Chinese authorities during the planning phase.
Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show 2017 in Shanghai, Source: Victoria's Secret
Even with theses much-publicized interferences from Chinese authorities, this year’s VS Fashion saw supermodels Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Jasmine Tooks and Elsa Hosk on the runway. The prestigious $ 2 million dollar fantasy bra was worn by Brazilian model Lais Ribeiro. This was a significant step in terms of showing equality in the fashion industry as this marked the fourth time a black model had worn the Fantasy Bra in the VS history.
- Ojash Singh


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In a year where online events are new normal, Immersia Labs has announced Immersia Connect, a one-of-a-kind virtual B2B cannabis trade show, for November 12 and 13, 2020. Immersia Connect is set to be a virtual event that will bring together a virtual community with the goal of promoting cannabis and wellness – view the trailer for the event here.
The event will be integrating Matterport technology for each of the exhibitors, allowing buyers to see their products in 3D virtual storefronts connecting 100 of the top cannabis brands in California with the most important and influential buyers. Check out an example of the 3D storefronts with Alien Labs and Connected. Participating buyers and dispensaries include Alien Labs, Bare, Casa Cannabis, Connected, Five Star Extracts, Leaf, Haven, House of Flowers, Kannabis Works, Kings Crew, Medicine Women, and many more. For more information on becoming a brand or buyer, email firstname.lastname@example.org.
Immersia Labs has announced partnerships for next month’s trade show with VANA – the leading online marketing platform for cannabis and CBD – and CliqueMJ – the premier loyalty app helping dispensaries unlock their profit potential with the industry’s highest ROI, increase basket size, frequency of purchase, and maximize your margins.
Along with their innovative trade show design, Immersia has also announced Immersia Talks Powered by VANA. Despite Immersia Connect being limited to those in the industry, these presentations will be open to the general public and include a mixture of pre-recorded videos, live interviews, and TED talk-style informative discussions. Rick Ross, Justin Cheadle of the NFL, Bert McCracken of The Used, David Draiman of Disturbed, Dr. Sherry Yafai, and Jose Mangin of Sirius XM represent just a few of the speakers who will be sharing compelling personal stories about their relationship with cannabis and its positive effects on their health and well-being.
“We built Immersia Connect with both brands and buyers in mind,” says the Immersia team. “Focusing on a clean design, seamless integrations, and a user-friendly experience that will be beneficial for both brands and buyers alike, while also providing curated content committed to cultivating the benefits of cannabis wellness and the de-stigmatization of the plant through Immersia talks.”


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Indictment in theft of trade secrets / San Jose man faces six counts
Published 4:00 am, Thursday, April 3, 2003
A San Jose man was indicted Wednesday on charges of stealing trade secrets from two former employers, including details about wireless computer networks and computer code for designing chips.
Patrick J. Murphy, 43, was named in a federal grand jury indictment that charged him with six counts of theft of trade secrets and one count of computer fraud.
Murphy allegedly victimized his former employers, Jasmine Networks Inc., a San Jose company that developed high-speed optical switches for computer networks, and Silicon Wave Corp., a San Diego company that designed radio frequency systems for wireless computer systems.
Murphy did not return a call for comment Wednesday.
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According to the indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in San Jose, Murphy downloaded trade secrets from Jasmine's computer system in September 2001, copied them onto his work desktop computer and tried to e-mail them as attachments to his personal e-mail account.
Murphy allegedly altered trade secrets by removing labels on confidential material belonging to Jasmine and Silicon Wave with labels that read "CoolCom Proprietary and Confidential."
The indictment did not specify whether CoolCom was a fictional company.
The indictment said authorities found trade secrets belonging to Silicon Wave on seven documents on Murphy's laptop computer.
Murphy stole the companies' trade secrets "intending and knowing that his act would injure" them, the indictment said.
The case was investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted under the supervision of the computer hacking and intellectual property section of the U. S. attorney's office.


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Good day valued Customers,
Effective at 12:00 pm (noon) EDT, October 15, 2016:
Passengers who own a Samsung Galaxy Note 7 cannot travel with this device. Safety is our number one priority and we thank you for understanding.
Please see links:
The DOT press release regarding the ban on Galaxy Note7 phones on aircraft has been posted at https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/dot-bans-all-samsung-galaxy-note7-phones-airplanes.
The Emergency Order regarding the ban is posted on the Federal Register website at https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2016-25322.pdf. In addition, a Frequently Asked Questions page will be posted shortly to the FAA’s Pack Safe website athttp://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/hazmat_safety/.
Here’s an example of the damage that is happening to the phones. Please be aware and be careful if you own one of these devices.


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Here’s some breaking news for RCHS students about an exciting event taking place next month! We are proud to announce that on January 19th, there will be a Winter Ball for students of RCHS. The Ball will take place from 6:30-9 p.m. at the ANC lobby. This will be for RCHS students only and tickets are only $5.
This event will be a time for students to have fun with friends, have some snacks and dance the night away! The dress code is dressy-casual: ladies will be asked to wear short dresses, (similar to football homecoming or a church dress) or dress shirts and skirts. Gentlemen will be asked to wear dress pants or khakis and a button up or a dress shirt of some sort and choice of tie or no tie. Sweatpants or gym clothing of any kind is not acceptable.
Save the date students, and get ready for a night full of fun!


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Escape Bangor, a Stillwater Avenue business offering the “escape room” experience, plans to close this month.
The business didn’t have enough customers to support staffing during all scheduled hours, the owners said in a Facebook post. The business, at 570 Stillwater Ave., will stay open for three weekends before closing its doors Aug. 18.
Escape Bangor opened in October 2016 as the Bangor region’s second escape room — an entertainment model that became popular across the country in the 2010s.
Groups of two to eight people sign up to tackle various puzzles in one of several rooms. Staffers lead them in, explain the basics and backstory of the room, and then shut a door. A screen on the wall starts counting down from 60 minutes. Before the clock hits zero, the group’s goal is to figure out how to escape. Themes range in difficulty and age-appropriateness, from scary zombie scenarios to silly, kid-friendly games.
Bangor Escape Rooms, which offers a similar experience, is still open for business at 1528 Hammond St.
Follow the Bangor Daily News on Facebook for the latest Maine news.


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Following a teaser earlier this year, HBH has revealed the Bulldog GT which is based on the Aston Martin V12 Vantage.
Following a teaser earlier this year, HBH has revealed the Bulldog GT.
Based on the Aston Martin V12 Vantage, the supercar has an aluminum body, a dual exhaust system and 19- / 20-inch forged alloy wheels.
Power comes from a mid-mounted, twin-supercharged 6.0-liter V12 engine that develops 675 PS (496 kW / 666 hp) and 756Nm (548 lb-ft) of torque. It is connected to a six-speed manual transmission, which enables the car to accelerate from 0-100 km/h in 3.9 seconds and hit a top speed of 300 km/h (186 mph).
There's no word on pricing, but whoever buys the Bulldog GT will also receive a 50% stake in the car's design and production rights. This way, the owner can decide if he wants to keep the vehicle a one-off or make a profit by allowing it to go into limited production.
If everything goes according to plan, HBH will complete the Bulldog's development over the next year and the first model should be ready by early 2013.


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Sony to Shut Down Demon's Souls Online Service in February 2018
No more invasions.
Sony is shutting down the online service for Demon's Souls early next year.
According to a post the Dark Souls team made on Twitter, online servers will terminate on February 28, 2018.
After the shutdown, online cooperation and invasions will no longer be possible, and helpful (or trolling) messages from other players will no longer appear. Bloodstains, which show the ways other players have died, will no longer be available.
Players will still be able to play the game, but without the ability to summon help, players will need to rely on summoning NPCs, which can have mixed results. Beleaguered players will no longer have to worry about losing progress after being killed by an invader; however, fans of Demon's Souls PVP will have to go elsewhere to get their fix.
Some trophies in Demon's Souls are obtained significantly easier by trading items with other players online, so if you still want the Platinum Trophy for Demon's Souls, now is the time to get it.
Demon's Souls started a phenomenon when it launched in 2009, with each game in From Software's series receiving high marks from our review team. It also featured some of the most unforgettable moments from the Souls series.
Brian Barnett is an IGN freelance writer. You can follow or chat with him on Twitter at @Ribnax.


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Technically “they” are not the ones who sell the ice cream. Their company is now owned by Unilever. But they are still involved and support the decision made this summer to stop selling Ben & Jerry’s in the West Bank. They even defended it in an editorial published in July titled, er, “We’re Ben and Jerry. Men of ice cream, men of principles “.
Axios interviewed them to test that proposal. How principled am I?
Not enough principles to answer elementary questions about how they draw their moral distinctions, it turns out.
Alexi McCammond has been kind to them by comparing their stance on Israel with their stance on Georgia’s voting law and the near-abortion ban in Texas. He could have called them out for their parent company doing business with some truly repulsive foreign regimes. But his analogy prompts them to try to explain why they felt compelled to seek outrages against progressivism abroad, in Israel, instead of addressing them here at home. I think he’s cunningly pointing out that their rigid social principles may falter at the thought of giving up the huge and fantastically lucrative US market. You won’t lose much by boycotting a small part of a small nation like Israel. But you risk losing a lot by choosing a culture war battle with the state of Texas and American conservatives more generally.
They are men of ice cream and men of principle, but only until the principle begins to significantly affect ice cream sales.
This clip went viral due to how unprepared Ben Cohen is to defend his stance on Israel in the face of this. Apparently, he didn’t spend five minutes of real thinking on these matters.
The money line there (in every respect): “According to this reasoning, we shouldn’t sell any ice cream anywhere.” You must choose your points when reporting virtue to fellow travelers on the left. I assume his calculation is a simple cost-benefit analysis to maximize progressive brownie points while minimizing the impact on revenue. Fighting with Israel is ideal as it is a relentless target of leftist prejudice and also small enough not to lose lost sales.
McCammond could have taken it by the throat, though, reminding them of who he does business with Unilever. Jerry Greenfield tries to distinguish Israel from Georgia and Texas by arguing that only the former is violating international law, but this is not an answer. Unilever operates in China, after all, also selling ice cream there. And that’s not all:
Unilever is a British consumer goods multinational headquartered in London, UK. It has an annual turnover of $ 61 billion (£ 45 billion) and its products are available in over 190 countries. It also maintains corporate offices in numerous countries that violate human rights, including China, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Venezuela, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. Unilever is reportedly a major buyer of tomato paste from state-owned factories in China’s Xinjiang region, where the US State Department says China is involved in “horrific abuses.” In January 2021, the US government stopped importing all of this tomato paste into the US, citing the use of forced labor which was tantamount to “exploiting modern slavery.” Yet neither Unilever nor Ben & Jerry’s seem to have ever taken action against China’s massive human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
It’s hard to say why Unilever is more concerned about selling ice cream in settlements in the West Bank than about exploiting forced labor in Xinjiang, yet the company’s board members and senior executives have a long string of criticisms of the Jewish state. . Jeff Furman, chairman of the board of directors of the Ben & Jerry Foundation and former chairman of the works council, visited the West Bank in 2012 on a tour organized by a group of activists who supported the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel. Furman also signed a letter condemning Israeli military operations in Gaza, but he never mentioned Hamas, the terrorist organization that runs Gaza. Furthermore, he called for an end to US aid to Israel and falsely claimed that Palestinians endure “apartheid living conditions”.
There are human rights violations in Brazil, Malaysia and even the UAE, and Ben & Jerry’s is being sold in those countries. Why? And why didn’t the “men of principle” use their influence within the company to persuade Unilever to divest from China and stop selling products?
Well, because the calculation would change in that case. Human rights abuses in China are immense, but so is their market of over a billion consumers, and Unilever sells them far more than ice cream. Compared to Beijing, they are in the same position as the NBA, Hollywood and virtually every other American industry: the financial cost of boycotting China is too high, so they choose to bear the moral cost of looking the other way.
What you vividly get from the brief exchange in the clip above is how superficial and bizarre much of the progressive contempt for Israel is. This is not to downplay its more sinister elements, which smuggle anti-Semitism under the cover of “anti-colonialism,” but I don’t get the feeling that Cohen is being driven by the animus. He simply absorbed the wisdom he received from his side that Israel is somehow uniquely evil and has never been asked to question it before. Too bad for him that the first time it happened in front of the camera.
[ https://rocetoday.com/ben-jerry-is-still-refusing-to-sell-their-ice-cream-to-israel-i-bet-they-sell-it-in-iran/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ben-jerry-is-still-refusing-to-sell-their-ice-cream-to-israel-i-bet-they-sell-it-in-iran https://d26toa8f6ahusa.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/30214746/a-quiet-place-part-2-bigs-16.pdf


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The CEO Who’s Reinventing J.C. Penney
Marvin Ellison has scored some early successes at the troubled department store, but there’s a lot left to fix.
Question: If you wanted to buy a pair of men’s shoes at a department store, would you look for them next to (a) Men’s Clothing, or (b) Women’s Footwear?
Most shoppers would probably answer “a.” But at J.C. Penney (JCP), the 114-year-old retailing mainstay, the answer until very recently was “b.” Women make up about 80% of Penney’s clientele, and Penney managers believed that, generally speaking, those women were likely to buy shoes for their spouses and beaus, just as they did during the Kennedy administration.
“It was a terrible idea,” says Marvin Ellison, shaking his head as he walks a reporter through a Penney store in Frisco, Texas. “It took space away from women’s shoes, and it made it very difficult for men to want to buy shoes.”
Ellison, Penney’s newly minted 51-year-old CEO, had a better idea. He ran a test to see whether men’s shoes would sell faster when showcased next to, say, men’s suits; once the data showed that they did, he instituted that change last summer across the company’s 1,000-plus stores. Since entrusting guys to buy their own brogues and boots, Penney has seen double-digit sales gains in footwear. “That reset has been one of the smartest things we’ve done,” says Ellison.
This Frisco store, not far from company headquarters in Plano, north of Dallas, serves as Penney’s retail living lab, and as he continues the tour, Ellison proudly points out similar changes. Fashion jewelry now sits closer to its Liz Claiborne apparel brand, so women can try on accessories to go with a dress they might buy. The decor has been gussied up at the store’s traffic-driving in-house salons. Handbags got a face-lift too. After Penney failed to cash in on the recent handbag boom, managers did a deep-dive market analysis. Ellison’s conclusion: “Our handbags were ugly. We had to change them.” (It sounds less harsh in Ellison’s gentle Tennessee baritone.)
Photograph by Nancy Newberry for Fortune
As the adage goes, “Retail is detail.” And if the details Ellison is addressing seem forehead-slap obvious, signs of how far J.C. Penney had fallen behind its rivals—well, welcome to his world. Ellison became CEO last August with a mandate to plug the store’s countless leaks in operations, strategy, and technology, problems left over from the chain’s nearly fatal attempt to reinvent itself four years ago. He and Penney’s board are betting that such small but meaningful improvements will add up to a full recovery.
That now-infamous overhaul, under then-CEO and former Apple (AAPL) retail guru Ron Johnson, sought to reposition Penney as a flashier retailer with fancier merchandise. But it backfired: Customers fled, sales tumbled by almost a third, and Penney was crippled financially. Three years ago the board brought back Mike Ullman, the CEO it had unceremoniously chased out in favor of Johnson, to stop the U.S.S. Penney from sinking. And last summer he handed the reins to Ellison—an executive the opposite of flashy.
It’s fitting that Ellison, a lifelong musician, plays electric bass, an instrument that rarely gets a flashy solo but without which no band can click. He made his reputation in retail at Home Depot (HD), helping engineer that chain’s turnaround by focusing on unsexy but primordial things like the supply chain and the integration of stores and e-commerce. He’s a data devotee who grounds every decision in information—including that seemingly intuitive shoe move. “Pure intuition without any data gets you in trouble,” Ellison says. Referring to the Johnson era, he adds, “We went through 18 months of that, and we’re not going to do it again.”
Photograph by Gregg Segal for Fortune
Ellison’s early results are encouraging. Penney reported a 3.9% increase in comparable sales during the 2015 holidays, one of the best performances in retail that season. (Rival Macy’s saw “comps” shrink by 5.2%.) That followed seven quarters of sales growth in the previous eight. And although Penney hasn’t reported a profit since 2010—and hasn’t predicted when it will again—it’s aiming for $1.2 billion in Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) for fiscal 2017, nearly double the level of fiscal 2015.
The trees look nice, but the forest is daunting. Penney’s sales, an estimated $12.6 billion for the just-completed year, are still down 37% from their 2006 peak. Its nascent recovery, part of its fourth turnaround effort since 2000, hasn’t swayed Wall Street—its stock trades close to a 35-year low. In the long term, the problem isn’t just that Penney has been dysfunctional; it’s also that Penney is a department store, a practitioner of a business model under siege. It faces hordes of competitors in its core apparel and home-goods businesses: department-store rivals Kohl’s (KSS) and Macy’s (M); Target (TGT) and Walmart (WMT); discounters like T.J. Maxx (TJX); and, of course, Amazon (AMZN). And consumers, especially younger ones, have lost interest in browsing at the mall. “The struggle is not going to end,” says Mark Cohen, director of retail studies at Columbia Business School. “The traffic that is off isn’t coming back.”
Ellison’s response has been to make Penney smarter and more efficient at keeping customers loyal and selling more to each one. That means embracing Penney’s mall-ness—and trusting that there’s still a place in the retail landscape for a mid-market department store. And if that means playing catch-up for a few years before making bigger, bolder moves, so be it. “We’re going to start with the foundation: No one can beat us being us,” Ellison says.
Turnarounds are nothing new at J.C. Penney. Founded in 1902 as a Wyoming dry goods store, Penney became one of the 20th century’s biggest department stores and catalogue retailers, dominating middle-American towns and suburban malls. But sales began to erode in the late 2000s. Penney was slower than rivals to emerge from the Great Recession and struggled with shrinking profit margins in its apparel business.
This was the situation Ron Johnson was hired to turn around. In 2012 he began a sweeping transformation aimed at shedding Penney’s stodgy image. He dumped its coupon program and changed everything from the logo to the checkout process. Most notably, he tried to make Penney hipper. Johnson dropped or de-emphasized several profitable in-house clothing and home-goods product lines, while trotting out cheaper versions of upscale brands like Michael Graves and Bodum.
The results have been widely chronicled (including in Fortune): The makeover bombed, sales plummeted, and some 40,000 jobs were eliminated. (Johnson declined to comment for this article.) In the spring of 2013 the board ousted Johnson and rehired Ullman, but the worst damage was done. The chain’s inventory management and e-commerce operations were in chaos, and Penney ended up with some $5 billion in long-term debt. The hindsight consensus was that Johnson had dismissed Penney’s core shoppers: middle-income suburban moms with neither the inclination nor the budget to worry about being cutting-edge.
If anybody can relate to those customers, it’s Marvin Ellison. Ellison, one of only five African-American CEOs in the Fortune 500, grew up in Brownsville, Tenn., a two-stoplight town between Memphis and Nashville that was segregated well into the 1980s. He’s one of seven children, and his family was poor. His father at one point worked three jobs at once, too proud to take government assistance. Still, the Ellison family would shop twice a year at J.C. Penney, first for back-to-school clothes and then at Christmas. The family also performed as a gospel act—and got its stage outfits there too. “Going to J.C. Penney was a big deal. It was something we looked forward to,” his older sister Virginia recalls.
Courtesy of J.C. Penney
Marvin’s father, an honors student, had to drop out of high school to support his family after Marvin’s grandfather suffered a heart attack at harvest time. The senior Ellison saw education as a way out of poverty and imparted a deep love of reading to his kids. Marvin developed big ambitions at an early age: The books he likes best are biographies of Presidents; Harry Truman is his favorite. He met his wife, Sharyn, when both were students in the 1980s at what’s now the University of Memphis. (He later earned an MBA from Emory, in 2005.) Sharyn, 47, says Marvin caught her eye as the only young man on campus toting a briefcase rather than a backpack. Date nights early on revolved around episodes of Dallas, the ultimate business soap opera.
Ellison’s retail career started during college, almost by accident. To help pay for books and rent, he took a part-time job as a security officer at Target at $4.35 an hour. That gig turned into 15 years at the retailer, as he climbed the ranks in theft prevention. Those early jobs gave Ellison a close-up view of how retail works at the store level, everything from the cadence of markdowns to the science behind keeping shelves stocked. But the jobs also taught him something that would shape his management style: Too many managers don’t listen to the troops on the frontlines, the workers in stores. Ellison had tons of ideas but didn’t share them with managers, he says, because they wouldn’t ask.
“Too many CEOs in retail like to be the smartest person in the room,” says Home Depot co-founder and former CEO and chairman Bernie Marcus. “Marvin’s not like that.” After Ellison joined Home Depot in 2002, he promptly sought advice from Marcus, who had recently retired. The two went on store visits three or four times a year to talk strategy and culture. Home Depot soon went through its own crisis, enduring lagging sales and plummeting morale under CEO Bob Nardelli. After Frank Blake replaced Nardelli in 2007, Blake became another advocate for Ellison, eventually naming him head of U.S. stores.
Blake credits his former protégé with helping fix Home Depot’s dismal customer-satisfaction ratings and turning the company from an e-commerce laggard into a leader. He also praises Ellison’s knack for galvanizing workers. In one memorable innovation, Ellison launched a weekly video feature on Home Depot’s internal TV station that showcased customer-service success stories. Blake compares them to ESPN’s SportsCenter highlights: “They provided a ‘Wow, that’s amazing’ element to work so that people could see how impactful their work could be … It makes the associates stars.”
“Everyone on the board knew Marvin would end up running a major retailer,” adds Blake. But it wasn’t to be at Home Depot. In 2014 the company chose Craig Menear to succeed Blake. Menear had been the chain’s chief merchant, which meant he had an edge Ellison lacked: extensive experience deciding which merchandise to sell and working with buyers to spot promising products. Such “merchant princes” tend to dominate the corner office in retail: Former top merchants currently run Kohl’s and Macy’s.
But that résumé gap didn’t stop Penney’s board from approaching Ellison that summer to be its future CEO. Mike Ullman, who was instrumental in the search, says that while Ellison may not know merchandising inside and out, he is self-aware enough to surround himself with people who do. “He knows who he is and exactly what he wants to accomplish,” Ullman says.
Penney announced Ellison’s hiring in October 2014, and since then Ellison has conducted more than 60 employee town halls and visited 100 stores. In a relatively uncommon hiring agreement, Ellison was designated to become CEO, but first would spend nine months as president under Ullman. The two men traveled the world, visiting vendors and partners so that Ullman could give Ellison a crash course in areas he was less familiar with, like apparel factories, sourcing, and merchandising. The Ullman-to-Ellison CEO handoff took place last August, but even today Ellison is constantly listening and watching, taking the measure of his colleagues.
Face-to-face interaction helped Ellison quickly spot disconnects between Penney’s executives and its store employees. Early on, he was irked to see senior management in stores wearing designer clothing far beyond the budget of a typical staffer or customer. A snappy dresser himself, Ellison implemented a rule requiring executives to wear J.C. Penney–made clothes when they visit stores and to wear the same name tags store workers do. (During the Frisco store tour, Ellison and the executives all wore Penney brands—Ellison and the other men in Michael Strahan and Stafford suits, a woman colleague in Worthington.)
Fashion choices weren’t the only issue on which management and staff weren’t connecting. One legacy of the reinvention fiasco was that inventory management was a mess. Senior management frequently felt that stores were sufficiently stocked, but in-store employees were constantly alerting Ellison to shortages. Management’s misreading was exposed on Black Friday weekend in 2014. Penney rang up decent sales but left money on the table, as stores were out of stock of hot items because they had ordered too few. (One hint of the magnitude of lost sales: Penney ordered 330,000 pairs of women’s boots for Thanksgiving weekend in 2014 and ran out; in 2015 it ordered 1 million pairs.)
Inventory management is a challenge tailor-made for Ellison—part organizational, part technological. His new tech team, which includes several of his former Home Depot lieutenants, has instituted “demand-based logic”: Rather than, say, automatically shipping 1,000 handbags of a given make to every store every month, Penney now replenishes inventory based on real-time sales data. (That may sound like an obvious fix, but, hey, remember the men’s shoes?) Ellison is also refining Penney’s pricing decisions by building databases to better synchronize markdowns and promotions with changes in demand.
Penney’s tech to-do list is lengthy, particularly in e-commerce. All Kohl’s and Macy’s stores offer same-day pickup for online orders, something that Penney is only getting around to this year. And with smartphones fueling 50% of digital traffic, Penney cannot afford to have what Ellison concedes is currently a subpar shopping app. Mike Amend, one of the Home Depot transplants, is hustling to overhaul it. His priorities: integrating coupons and other incentives so that the app can tell shoppers an item’s bottom-line cost. (Amend needs to hurry up—Kohl’s app already does that.) Coming later this year: handheld devices that will let store workers check customers out from anywhere in the store, not just the registers. These devices may look familiar to some shoppers: They’re identical to the ones used at Home Depot.
As Ellison sees it, Penney’s growth will come from getting a lot more sales from its existing customers. Penney says it now has 87 million active shoppers, the same as in 2011. (At its nadir in 2013, Penney had lost 20 million customers.) It posted average annual sales of about $155 a square foot in 2014—33% below their 2006 peak and well behind those of its competitors (see charts below).
To make its stores more productive, Penney can tap a host of enviable retail franchises. Take its 850 hair salons. Few people know it, but the J.C. Penney salon business is the largest such chain in the country; in some markets they’re the dominant salons in town, destinations for prom days and wedding weekends. The salons themselves generate almost 5% of sales. Even more important: Penney says salon customers are among its most reliable shoppers. As Ullman says, “You can’t get a haircut online.” The salonistas come in eight times a year—twice as often as the average department-store customer—and spend twice as much.
Many of the salons, frankly, look tired. But Penney signed a deal last year with InStyle magazine to rebrand and upgrade them, with a full rollout due to be completed this year. (InStyle, like Fortune, is owned by Time Inc.) (TIME) At the Frisco store the salon has been overhauled already, with slick signage, exposed-brick walls, and a bigger entryway designed to make it more visible and inviting. Penney hopes the rebranded salons will attract top-notch stylists who will, in turn, bring their clients—a new set of customers to woo.
Photograph by Nancy Newberry for Fortune
Ellison also plans to better coordinate the salons with Penney’s in-store Sephora cosmetics boutiques—veritable cash machines where annual sales per square foot are almost $600. Of course, many Sephora shoppers come in, buy lipstick and mascara, and walk right out. Ellison is betting that souped-up salons in proximity to Sephora will offer customers a reason to spend more time at the store and keep them off Amazon.com.
Another prong of Ellison’s strategy: expanding a strong suite of private-label clothing brands. Penney-only brands in home goods and clothing together generate 51% of company sales; its top-selling attire brands include Arizona, St. John’s Bay, and Liz Claiborne. Penney is already a player in clothes for “big and tall” men, and it now wants a similar position in plus-size women’s clothing. But it also believes its brands could lure younger shoppers. That’s an existential priority: According to consultant Kantar Retail, the average Penney shopper is nearly 49 years old—up from 46.6 in 2011, and slightly older than the average at Target and Macy’s.
Ken Mangone, who oversees private brands, says Penney recently noticed that its a.n.a clothing brand was unexpectedly popular with younger women. Penney quickly developed Belle + Sky, a similar line intentionally focused on young shoppers, which it just rolled out to 500 stores. Ellison also used Belle + Sky to accomplish another goal: faster turnaround times to compete with “fast fashion” leaders like H&M and Forever 21. Penney squeezed the concept-to-production cycle time to 25 weeks for Belle + Sky, compared with about 35 weeks on average for its apparel lines.
Photograph by Nancy Newberry for Fortune
Penney’s in-house brands have one thing in common: They’re affordable. According to Kantar, the average household income of a Penney shopper is $63,412, vs. $69,000 or so at Target and Kohl’s and $75,274 at Macy’s. Memories of watching his parents stretch their budget help Ellison relate to a lower-income customer, he says. He recalls that at one point, to make ends meet, his studious and ambitious father took an extra job as a busboy at a Ramada Inn: “If you saw the guy with a bow tie on, serving drinks, you had no idea who he was if you didn’t ask.” The blue-collar crowd isn’t the market that looks sexiest to investors, but he’s adamant that Penney’s future hinges on it. “We can convince ourselves that our core customers are a more affluent demographic, but really, they’re not,” he says.
As we tour the handbags section in the Frisco store, an annoyed customer approaches Ellison and his name-tag-wearing co-execs. There’s nobody around to ring her up, she complains, and she had the same problem at the holidays. “Why don’t the four of y’all get some cashiers,” she says. A store manager quickly steps forward to help. But when one underling tells the woman that the store has been busy, Ellison snaps, “ ‘Busy’ and ‘bad’ are the same thing to the customer.”
In a sense, being “busy” is a sign of a broader contraction. As sales have declined, department stores have closed locations and reduced headcount, compromising service and fueling more customer defections. Industry trends like those fuel skepticism about Penney’s future. Retail experts speak of Ellison with admiration, but many see built-in limits to what he can do. “Macy’s and J.C. Penney are fighting it out amongst themselves for a dwindling share of the market,” says consultant Robin Lewis, CEO of the Robin Report and a former head of Goldman Sachs’s (GS) retail practice. Kathy Gersch, founder of consultant Kotter International, notes that J.C. Penney is “fixing the major problems,” but if it can’t become relevant to younger customers, “ultimately there is a ceiling.”
The decline of the American mall makes Ellison’s job harder. According to Green Street Advisors, 635 of Penney’s 1,020 stores are in malls, and about a third of those are in so-called C- and D-malls—locations with a lot of vacancies, which in turn hurt traffic for the remaining tenants. (Penney has reduced store count by about 80 since 2012, but Ellison has resisted closing more.) Ellison’s biggest initiative so far is actually a play on the weakening mall climate. This year, for the first time since 1983, Penney is selling appliances, beginning with a 22-store pilot project. The decision is data driven: The stores realized that a lot of customers were searching for appliances on jcp.com. But it’s also a response to the fact that Sears (SHLD), another mall anchor, is shrinking fast—giving Penney a chance to grab shoppers looking for a fridge.
Observers waiting for a big, splashy move from Penney will have to keep waiting. Penney’s debt, which generates about $400 million a year in interest costs, is a handcuff that impedes any major makeovers. Its capital-spending budget is about $300 million a year, a fraction of what Target, Macy’s, and Kohl’s each spend. While Macy’s has been plotting an international expansion, and Kohl’s plays around with incorporating virtual reality and robots on the sales floor, Ellison is stuck with prosaic tasks. In February he announced that Penney was looking into selling and leasing back its Plano headquarters to whittle down some of that debt.
Pressed on whether Penney can return to its 2006 apex, when it had $20 billion in revenue, Ellison punts, saying he’s not so concerned with a top-line number as he is with creating a profitable, sustainable business. “We’re not going to sit on our hands and play the same cards we played in the past,” he says. “We’re going to be a modern retailer.” But there will be no retail-rock-star pyrotechnics. For now Ellison is playing bass, providing a steady foundation that may, someday, get Penney back in the groove.
A version of this article appears in the March 1, 2016 issue of Fortune with the headline “The Man Who’s Re-(Re-Re)Inventing J.C. Penney.”


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The 22nd edition of Philippine World Building and Construction Exposition was, as always, a big success. Simply known as WORLDBEX, the 5 day event presented the best and the latest products and innovations of different participants and partners, not just here in the Philippines, but also from abroad. By far, WORLDBEX 2017 is the biggest gathering of construction and building innovators – with more than 1000 booths from different countries laid out in the World Trade Center, the PTTC or the Philippine Trade Training Center and its most recent venue partner, the SMX Convention Center.
The multitude of guests had an excellent time going from one booth to another, excited and impressed with the products and services from the number of galleries and pavilions in the 60,000 sqm of exhibition space – the Architects Gallery, the Interior Designers Gallery and the International Pavilions – all with the aim of helping the local and international construction, engineering and building trade.
Indeed, WORLDBEX is becoming BOLDER and BIGGER every year! A trade show that gives so much learning and opportunities to everyone in and out of these industries. And Locale City Guide, the country’s first ever city guide, is proud to be one of WORLDBEX’s media partners for this year.


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The market's having a fiesta with Chuy's Holdings (Nasdaq: CHUY ) .
Shares of the fast-growing chain of Tex-Mex casual-dining restaurants popped 15% higher last week after it posted better-than-expected quarterly results -- sending Chuy's to fresh highs.
Restaurant stocks have been surprisingly popular IPOs this summer, but they haven't necessarily been barn burners. Bloomin' Brands (Nasdaq: BLMN ) -- the company behind the Outback Steakhouse and Carrabba's Italian Grill chains -- is trading 18% above last month's IPO at $11, but the company originally wanted to go public between $13 and $15 . High-end chophouse operator Del Frisco's (Nasdaq: DFRG ) is trading 14% higher, but it's the same deal. It had to lower the number of shares and the price of those shares before completing its IPO.
Chuy's is the rock star, for now. The stock has soared 58% since selling 6.7 million shares at $13 in late July.
Last week's second-quarter report was solid. Revenue soared 32% to $43.5 million, fueled primarily by the 37-unit chain's brisk expansion. Pro forma net income rose 40% to $0.17 a share. Analysts were only expecting a profit of $0.16 a share on $43.1 million.
There isn't exactly a consensus of opinion around Fooldom when it comes to Chuy's. I was excited about its prospects after visiting its first Florida location last month, learning the things that set it apart from the countless other Tex-Mex and Mexican chains out there. Fellow Fool John Maxfield wasn't impressed at all. He worries about the moat, debt, and brief corporate history.
The one thing that we can probably agree on is that Chuy's isn't exactly cheap. The 58% pop leaves us with a company valued at 37 to 38 times its projected profitability for this year. Even KeyBanc -- one of the underwriters that took Chuy's public this summer -- initiated coverage two weeks ago with a neutral "hold" rating.
Chuy's is no Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG ) . The chain's top-line growth is almost entirely the handiwork of opening up new eateries. Comps only increased at a 1.9% clip during the quarter. Chipotle's revenue may have grown by just 21% during the same period, but that was powered by an 8% surge in same-unit sales growth.
However, there's also a big difference between the 1,316 Chipotle locations and the mere 37 Chuy's restaurants. Chuy's is considerably earlier in its life cycle, though obviously it has a long way to go to show that it has the kind of legs and cult status that Chipotle has achieved with its burrito-rolling prowess.
I'm still going to keep an eye on Chuy's. I would love to see the valuation become more attractive, but it's hard to bet against a company that delivers strong quarterly results in its first outing as a public company.
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If you're into new things, there's a new report detailing three stocks to own to profit from a new industrial revolution. Did I mention that it was a free report? Check it out now.


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Many exotic ingredients aren't on shelves because people ask for them, but more so because the governments of those countries are actively promoting them.
The government could be pulling strings behind that delicious bowl of bibimbap that you enjoyed for lunch. In a fascinating article for Priceonomics called “The Campaign to Make You Eat Kimchi,” writer Sarah Scharf explains how the rise of ethnic restaurants in North America is a direct result of countries’ campaigns to promote their food and get people interested in their culture, which then translates into tourism and increased revenue back home.
Take Thailand, for example. The number of Thai restaurants worldwide has increased from 5,500 in 2002 to 15,000 in 2016, thanks to a government-run program called Global Thai. The program trains chefs, gives loans to help start restaurants abroad, and helps the chefs to move overseas.
“In addition to helping chefs find work abroad, the program makes it easier for Thai companies package and export Thai ingredients. One restaurateur told us that when she started her first Thai restaurant in 1995, most curries in the U.S. were made with evaporated milk rather than traditional coconut milk. Today, thanks to government support for manufacturers and producers, a host of traditional Thai ingredients including coconut milk and green curry have become grocery store staples.”
Has it helped? Thailand has seen its tourism increase 200 percent since 2002, and one-third of visitors cite food as one of their biggest reasons for going.
A similar push is underway in South Korea, a nation that has long suffered with an image problem. For some reason, perhaps due to its association with North Korea, the country fails to trigger the same curiosity in travelers as neighboring Asian countries do. Hence the government’s launch of Global Hansik, a program designed to promote Korean food and quadruple the number of Korean restaurants overseas between 2008 and 2013. The Korean government focused on kimchi. Scharf writes:
“The government established the Kimchi Institute to test various kinds of pickled vegetables for foreign markets, with the stated goal of ‘develop[ing] the domestic kimchi-making industry into the country’s strategic export market.’ According to the Institute’s director, Park Wan-soo, this requires fine-tuning the production technique and codifying different taste profiles for the traditional dish, ‘so that when we export it to the United States, we can tone down the spiciness and sourness, and when exporting it to Japan, we can heighten the sweetness’.”
It seems to be working. Tourism has increased 70 percent since 2009, which the Korean Tourism Organization attributes partly to foreign interest in Korean culture.
Food is the ultimate comfort zone, which is why being familiar with a particular country’s cuisine and knowing what to expect would make many travelers, particularly those less experienced, more inclined to visit. There’s something about looking at a foreign menu, recognizing the names, and knowing the basic components that makes it less daunting.
Many travelers may be surprised at how different the ‘real’ thing is, compared to what they ate at a restaurant back home, as programs like Global Hansik modify recipes to appeal to certain markets. Does that diminish a dish’s authenticity? Yes, but it’s not a bad thing. I’m thinking of ketchup-soaked pad thai noodles, devoid of tamarind. It’s still tasty, and it gets people eating, thinking, and trying food in new ways. For some that will eventually translate into interest in ‘authentically’ prepared versions. Besides, as Scharf writes, “Gastro-diplomacy programs are all about wooing a global audience, and that often means trading off authenticity for mass appeal.”
In the meantime, I really hope the Korean government looks at my tiny, rural town on a map of southwestern Ontario and decides, “They need a restaurant right now!” I could really use a good bowl of bibimbap that I don’t have to make from scratch for once.


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By NAN Business Editor
News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Oct. 5, 2018: Two Caribbean food companies are in the running for the world’s largest food product innovation awards.
Caribbean Cure Ltd. of Trinidad and Tobago and Naledo Belize Ltd. have been selected as finalists in the SIAL Innovation Awards 2018 in Paris, France, for their product innovation.
SIAL is regarded as the world’s largest food innovation exhibition and hosts the SIAL Innovation Awards each year to recognize those who help to shape what we eat. SIAL is set for Paris, France from October 21-25, 2018
Naledo Belize Ltd. is one of the world’s first manufacturers of fresh turmeric paste. It was developed by CEO, Umeeda Switlo. The company uses a recipe based on traditional Indian cooking to create Truly Tumeric.
“We are very excited to be a finalist in the SIAL 2018 product innovation award for Truly Turmeric,” said Nareena Switlo, COO at Naledo commented recently. “This nomination means that our company has been recognized for the innovative product we produce and our social enterprise model. We hope that it opens trade doors to the EU and beyond.”
Caribbean Cure Ltd. produces a line of loose-leaf natural healing teas that utilize indigenous plants found within the Caribbean. Their handcrafted teas, which utilize premium organic ingredients, are crafted through the preservation of nutrients found within the roots, herbs, and flowers of plants that have been used for generations within the Caribbean to heal and treat ailments.
“When we began hand-crafting our blends, we had one simple mission – to share our passion and love for the age-old traditions and healing qualities of Caribbean herbs,” said Sophia Stone, Founder and Managing Director at Caribbean Cure Ltd. “We visited farmers, herbalists, and tea lovers from across the region to find out what makes the perfect cup of natural tea. We were determined to create much more than tea with health benefits. We are excited to share the Caribbean tea experience at SIAL Paris and will continue to share our passion with the world on this global platform.”


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Bankruptcy among abaca farmers in Bicol
Abaca farmers in Catanduanes have already been facing bankruptcy even before the Covid-19 pandemic. Fifty kilos of abaca are sold for only ₱3,000 which is relatively lower than the ₱5,000-cost of production shouldered by farmers, including rent to landlords.
Overall, at least 200,000 peasant families across the country plant abaca. The crop line covers 180,302 hectares of farmlands. Abaca production is generally backward, small-scale and unsystematic. There is no significant improvement in the production equipment of farmers who typically do manual labor from planting to stripping to produce abaca fiber.
Farmers commonly wait up to two years to benefit from and harvest their abaca. They wait for another three months before abaca plants grow again. With 20-30 abacas, farmers are able to harvest 20 kilos of produce. These are harvested in 2-3 days by at least 2-3 people.
According to the Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority, the province of Catanduanes produces 30% of the abaca supply in the country. The Bicol region has the largest share in the local abaca production.
Based on a research by the Instructor’s Bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines in Bicol, the average pre-pandemic price of dried abaca in Catanduanes was ₱60/kilo. Prices vary depending on the quality of dried abaca. Abaca that is less white is usually bought cheaper. To be able to sell 50 kilos of dried abaca, farmers shoulder up to ₱4,210 in production costs.
Part of the costs covers ₱600 for clearing and cutting abaca plants; ₱2,400 salary for two farm workers employed to strip abacas; and ₱300 for drying.
In transporting the produce from the farm to the road, farmers spend ₱1 per kilo of abaca. The transportation from the barrio the market costs ₱30 per bundle of abaca fiber. For three days, approximately ₱450 is spent for food expenses.
Up to 25% is deducted from the farmers’ net income for land rent, leaving them with a loss of ₱1,960 in the end.
Exceptional Filipino product
The Philippines is among the very few countries across the world which supply abaca. Abaca produced in the Philippines is internationally known as the Manila Hemp. Aside from the Bicol region, other areas including Mindoro in Luzon; Leyte, Samar, Negros Oriental, Iloilo and Aklan in Visayas, and all provinces in Mindanao produce abaca. Many of those who produce these are small and poor farmers and indigenous peoples.
The Philippines produces 87% of the global supply of abaca. In 2019, the Philippines exported $156 million or ₱7.8 billion ($1=₱50) in abaca products. The average value of abaca exported by the country annually is $97.1 million, 12.6% of which is raw abaca fiber.
In 2020, the total local production of abaca fell by 2.17% from 72,300 metric tons in 2019 to 70,770 metric tons. This was primarily caused by transportation restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic and successive typhoons which hit the country during the last quarter of 2020.
Data by the Food and Agriculture Organizaton of the United Nations indicate that the average price of exported abaca fiber in 2016 was $1.99-$2.35/kilo (₱99.32-₱117.5). This is higher by ₱30 than the price at which traders buy the produce of abaca farmers.
In sum, exporters gain about ₱4,966-₱5,875 per 50 kilos of abaca fiber, 60% more than the income of farmers which is only ₱3,000. This is despite the fact that production costs are shouldered solely by farmers, and that no value is added to the raw fibers exported to other countries.
Around 57% of abaca fibers produced locally are processed for the production of tea bags and other paper products. Each tea bag costs ₱1.5-₱2 each.
Abaca is also used for the production of paper bills, clothes and others. Last year, abaca was promoted as a good material for producing face masks.


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According to a recent presentation by Redpoint, ARR multiples for Series B and C companies dropped sharply from the all-time-high in 2022 (100x) to a more sober 39x, representing a 4x premium compared to public markets.
- In public markets, revenue multiples fell from 24x in 2021 to 10x in 2022
- Running a startup during a recession
- If there continue to be as few deals getting done, the backlog of startups that raised in 2021 and 2022 will run out of cash starting end of 2023
Links to this note
B2B SaaS businesses targeting enterprise customers that want to be in good shape to raise their Series B during a downturn need to have a run rate of $7-10MM ARR, growing at 2-5X year over year, gross margins 75-85%, and an LTV to CAC ratio of 3-5X. That’s because multiples fell from 100 to 39 times ARR and the target valuation multiples for Series B is ~20X ARR.
In 2023, the average time between raising a Series A and Series B round increased to 31 months according to Crunchbase. With startup funding falling 67% in 2022, more startups could face a difficult time getting funding. Some predict startups will run out of cash in 2023 with the most fiscally conservative ones run out in 2025 unless conditions change.


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Designer News is where the design community meets.
over 2 years ago from Eric Alli
There are countless lists and roundup articles about the "Top XX UI/UX Design Tools"
Let's start another thread about it.
Where the design community meets.
Designer News is a large, global community of people working or interested in design and technology.
© 2022 Designer News Ltd.


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China’s factory inflation moderated as consumer price gains remained tepid, further reducing a potential source of pressure for policy makers to boost borrowing costs.
The producer price index rose 5.8 percent in November from a year earlier, matching the projection in a Bloomberg survey and slowing from 6.9 percent in October
The consumer price index climbed 1.7 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Saturday, less than the median forecast of 1.8 percent
While this year’s surge in raw-materials prices will feed through to consumer products next year, headline factory price growth is seen slowing amid higher year-ago base comparisons and moderating investment demand. As top leaders step up pledges to ensure financial stability amid soaring debt, economists say moderate inflation and an outlook for tame price gains gives the authorities less cause to pursue a broad tightening of borrowing costs.
“Slowing inflation helps ease concerns on tighter monetary policy,” said Tommy Xie, an economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp. in Singapore. “The CPI drop was mostly driven by the decline in food prices, while PPI fell because the base last year was too high. I expect consumer inflation to remain largely stable and fluctuate around 2 percent in the coming year, while the growth of PPI will very likely fall below 5 percent in December.”
“Easing of inflation is probably something policy makers are willing to see, as this suggests China isn’t under pressure to boost interest rates,” said Xia Le, chief Asia economist at Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA in Hong Kong. “As now stricter financial regulation dominates the market sentiment, the authorities may not hope to also increase borrowing costs with tighter monetary policies.”
“We should expect, given the impact of the base effect, that PPI will continue to fall,” said Christopher Balding, an associate professor at the HSBC School of Business at Peking University in Shenzhen. “This is actually somewhat positive, depending on how you look at it, for monetary policy. It eases some of the pressure to increase rates though rates will likely increase regardless of PPI.”
PPI will decelerate further while CPI inflation faces upward pressure next year, Liu Liu, an economist at China International Capital Corp. in Beijing, wrote in a report. “As winter comes and Spring Festival becomes closer, vegetable prices will rebound,” Liu wrote.
“Cooling commodities prices could push PPI inflation lower,” Fielding Chen, an economist at Bloomberg Economics in Hong Kong, wrote in a note. He said the inflation data “reinforce Bloomberg Economics’ view that the central bank is likely to deploy macro-prudential and regulatory instruments rather than tighter monetary policy to encourage deleveraging.”
Food prices fell 1.1 percent from a year earlier, while non-food prices rose 2.5 percent, the NBS said in a statement
A core consumer inflation gauge that strips out food and energy was steady, matching a six-year high of 2.3 percent
Raw materials producer prices rose 9.7 percent, the second-slowest pace this year


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The deals keep comin’. Artisanal Brewing Ventures is venturing outside of craft beer realm, acquiring Bold Rock Hard Cider, the #2 hard cider brand in the US. Bold Rock “signed a partnership agreement to become part of Artisanal Brewing Ventures,” marking ABVs 4th brand family along with Southern Tier, Victory and Sixpoint, co announced. Deal expected to close by end of yr. Founders John Washburn and Brian Shanks will remain in “leadership roles” while Bold Rock integrates into ABV platform. (ABV backed by PE firm/family office Ulysses Management.)
This “signals ABV’s move to continue to extend beyond craft beer” and catapults ABV platform to new heights among US alc bev suppliers, co touts. Recall, ABV surpassed 300K bbls last yr after acquiring Sixpoint, shipping 311K bbls in total. Bold Rock is growing low-double-digits again this yr and expects to finish near 80K bbls in 2019, ABV CEO John Coleman told CBN. And current ABV platform is growing mid-to-high single digits YTD. So ABV on pace to surpass 400K bbls. That puts em among “top-10 regional craft adult alcohol beverage platforms,” sez co. ABV has already been dabbling in beyond beer categories with Southern Tier spirits, RTD canned cocktails, vodka-based hard seltzer line and hard cider on smaller base. But Bold Rock bolsters ABV’s platform considerably in beyond beer realms and widens scope of oppys going forward. It now touts “leadership position in eight of the country’s top 50 markets for craft beer, hard cider, hard seltzer and premium spirits-based cocktails.” Collectively, ABV will look to “leverage” all 4 suppliers’ “collective consumer data and insights to build an impactful innovation program and marketing approach.”
Lotsa Expansion Oppys; ABV Sales Team Over 100 Strong Bold Rock has maintained very tight distribution footprint while going deep in home mkts since opening in 2012. About 80% of sales are in VA and NC where Bold Rock operates its two production cideries with taprooms along with 2 additional seasonal retail outlets as well. ABV distrib footprint is mostly aligned with Bold Rock since they’re aligned in VA and NC. Bold Rock also has distribution in SC, WV, MD, DC, TN, GA, DE and some of PA, according to co’s website. So expanding distribution is an easier lever to pull, and “we can extend our brand to new consumers up and down the east coast” in particular, Bold Rock’s John Washburn sez in released statement.
Bold Rock will also have access to ABV’s 9 retail locations (including Sixpoint in Brooklyn and Victory in Philly still in build-out phase), as well as various production facilities. Plus, Bold Rock will now have access to ABV’s sales team of over 100 folks with “deep and dense” presence in key mkts including 11-person key accounts team. Since Bold Rock does most of its biz in chain-heavy states, VA and NC, there will be oppys to take it to other states with same chains, Coleman noted. “Many consumers, distributors and accounts have urged us to expand to their areas,” and “now we have the resources and capabilities,” added Brian Shanks.
Hard Seltzer Just Getting Started Bold Rock also launched hard seltzer and canned cocktail lines earlier this summer, and those are both really just getting started, John Coleman pointed out. Bold Rock Hard Seltzer launched statewide in VA and NC this Jun with unique apple-based alcohol, clocking in at just 82 calories, 4% ABV and 1g sugar, available in two flavors, Grapefruit and Cucumber Melon (see May 7 issue). But they’re still very small for starters, sez John, especially since it only launched brands in 6pks, yet to launch a variety pk.
Bold Rock $$ Up 7%, Vol +10% in IRI; Total ABV Nearly as Large as Firestone & Bell’s in Scans Taking a closer look at scan data, Bold Rock cider $$ sales were up 7% to $21.2 mil, volume +10% to 577K cases YTD thru Oct 6 in IRI data provided by Bump Williams Consulting. So total ABV leapfrogs Deschutes, SweetWater and Stone to become the 22nd largest supplier in natl IRI with $64 mil in sales, 1.5 mil cases. Not far behind Bell’s ($65.5 mil) and just ahead of Firestone Walker ($63.3 mil). And growing low-double-digits collectively. Bold Rock is still a distant #2 player in cider vs Angry Orchard, yet Bold Rock continues to build its lead over large brewers’ cider portfolios, including AB ($13.1 mil), HUSA ($13 mil) and MC ($10.1 mil). Bold Rock flagship apple cider continues to grow double-digits collectively, John told CBN, tho Virginia Apple is flattish while Carolina Apple is up 20% in IRI. Seasonal program continues to grow as well, tho currently not tracking correctly in IRI data, according to John. And co has strong innovation pipeline including recent Harvest Haze fall seasonal, he added.
Cowen (Townsend) Was Bold Rock’s Financial Advisor Lastly, gotta note that Cowen Company served as “exclusive financial advisor” to Bold Rock for deal, per release. That’s first time we’ve seen Cowen as lead advisor for beer/cider M&A in our memory. But the man behind the advisory role should read familiar: Townsend Ziebold moved to Cowen earlier this yr from Cascadia Capital and First Beverage before that.


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Snapchat Is Reportedly Planning to Incorporate NFTs into its Platform
Although the cryptocurrency market may be in its deepest midwinter, major tech businesses are nevertheless exploring the possibility of investing in the space in case things pick up again. The most recent development is Snap looking at how to enable artists to display their digital collectibles as AR filters on Snapchat.
Snap, the parent firm of the social media network Snapchat, is reportedly planning to incorporate non-fungible tokens (NFTs) into its platform. Snapchat will allow developers to utilize NFTs as augmented reality lenses, the Financial Times said.
According to the same report, the company intends to launch this trial in August with a select group of creators. Artists will be able to create and mint NFTs in this test on a different platform, then import them into Snapchat as Lenses. According to the FT, Snap, like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, doesn't intend to charge artists to display their digital collectibles. Instead, it is considering ways for artists to monetize their creations.
Social media networks have used several strategies for NFTs, utilizing the unique characteristics of each platform. One of the first companies to get on the NFT trend was Twitter, which gave its paying users the option to utilize digital items as their avatars.
Instagram said in May that it will allow a select group of creators to display NFTs in their feeds, stories, and messages. A comparable set of capabilities were first tested by Facebook for a small group of American users last month. Reddit's own NFT marketplace, where you can purchase digital avatars for a set price using fiat cash, just started last week.
The NFT test leak appears to be a result of a quick product sprint at Snap: It happens only a few days after Snapchat Plus was introduced, its premium membership service. When the company releases its financial results for the most recent quarter on July 21, one thing to pay attention to is any additional information on either of these fronts. Conveniently, this would help Snap strengthen its message to investors that it is working on additional revenue-generating ideas to complement or offset any ups and downs it may experience in the advertising market.
Read more: Here


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Danielle van Hout
Eye on AI - December 9th, 2022
Welcome to Aigora's "Eye on AI" series, where we round up exciting news at the intersection of consumer science and artificial intelligence!
We return to food tech this week as we break down Starbucks’ new NFT-based loyalty program, now in beta, before diving into a recent company-wide implementation of AI phone-answering systems.
Starbucks’ NFT-Based Loyalty Program Now In Beta
You may remember a post we released a few months back covering Starbucks’ announcement of Starbucks Odyssey, their new NFT-based loyalty program. After months of anticipation, the program is finally ready for beta testing. The article “Starbucks opens up its web3 loyalty program and NFT community to first beta testers” outlines what the program is about, and how beta testing will begin.
“Odyssey introduces a new platform where customers can engage with interactive activities called ‘Journeys’ that, when complete, allow members to earn collectible Journey Stamps — which is Starbucks’ less geeky name for NFTs,” writes TechCrunch contributor Sarah Perez. “The points accumulate over the course of the year, instead of being redeemed for rewards (like Stars are). At year-end, the points reset and you’d start over.”
Odyssey’s aforementioned ‘journeys’ include activities like watching videos, taking quizzes, playing puzzles, or trying new promotional drinks in-store. What makes Starbucks Odyssey unique is that it’s connected to the company’s existing loyalty program, business goals, and mobile payment technologies; in other words, it’s more than just a marketing gimmick.
“At around 500 points, members will earn Stamps — that is, a coffee-themed NFT hosted on the Polygon blockchain,” continues Perez. “These Stamps also unlock special experiences. There will be three levels of benefits and experiences that can be unlocked.”
Experiences range from virtual classes that teach users how to make espresso martinis to unique artist merchandise. At the more advanced levels, real-world event access is unlocked, including special events hosted at Starbucks Reserve Roasteries or even trips to the Starbucks Hacienda Alsacia coffee farm in Costa Rica.
Starbucks will begin the program by letting a portion of waitlisted users (here’s the sign-up) test Odyssey and offer feedback to help work out early kinks. According to Starbucks, beta sign-ups have already “far exceeded” expectations, though exact numbers have yet to be released. Time will tell how popular the program becomes, though it seems Starbucks’ unique experiential offerings will be exponentially more engaging than that free coffee punch card stuffed away in your wallet.
Anthony’s Pizza Launches Company-Wide AI Phone-Answering System
While the Odyssey program is impressive, Starbucks is hardly the only food chain tapping into AI tech enhancements. Another example is Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza & Wings, which, according to the article “Anthony's Coal Fired Pizza & Wings Introduces Artificial Intelligence Phone Answering System to Stay Ahead of Consumer Ordering Preferences,” is launching AI-driven phone answering services at all sixty of its corporate-owned locations.
“There's no question that automation is the future, which is why Anthony's was an early adaptor of this technology” says Ian Baines, Chief Executive Officer at BurgerFi International Inc. “Anthony's started testing AI two years ago with different vendors. Initially, the technology appeared somewhat inconsistent. However, the longer it runs, the more responsive it becomes as the algorithms learn to react to the customer order and then upsell…”
The new AI uses ConverseNow AI technology, which is designed to handle 100% of calls answered, with an expected average purchase increase of 10-12%. Guests will also be able to integrate loyalty numbers into the system to earn points and rewards.
In total, the restaurants receive 500,000 phone orders a year. By implementing AI into its phone systems, Anthony’s should see a significant boost in order efficiency, with its off-premises orders accounting for nearly 50% of sales. 15% of those are phone orders. Company-wide AI implementations like these are still unique. Expect this trend to continue as smaller-scale testing continues to prove effective.
That's it for now. If you'd like to receive email updates from Aigora, click on the button below to join our email list. Thanks for stopping by!


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Widening of tax base: E-commerce business now on taxman's radar
The I-T deptt has trained its scanner on burgeoning 'e-commerce' biz with taxman deciding to monitor a host of services.
May 26, 2015, 19:03 IST
NEW DELHI: The Income Tax department has trained its scanner on the burgeoning 'e-commerce' business in the country with the taxman deciding to monitor a host of services conducted by these popular online portals to better fill up the revenue kitty.
After making an official assessment report on the online retail business in India, the department has decided to track these "huge business" conducting services for extracting the special category of Tax Deducted on Source (TDS) which is taken from the payment made by firms and organisations for getting special services done on the internet retail space.
A "strategy action plan" formulated by the CBDT, the apex policy making body of the I-T department, for bolstering revenue collection in the current fiscal, has asked taxman to pay special attention to this area of business.
The action plan prepared for 2015-16, also accessed by PTI, states that advertisements on different websites of various organised and unorganised agencies, payments for jobs like creating a website, translation of pages, data entry of text, research, among others are areas which can yield "significant revenue" under the TDS category.
"The e-retail or e-commerce business is a fairly new avenue from the view point of collecting taxes and the sector is witnessing huge money changing hands. The department has prepared some trends in this regard and it has been decided to seriously tap this popular online sector for better TDS collections," a senior I-T official said.
"A lot of people now purchase their daily goods or choice items through popular online retailers. A number of entities involved in the operations of these web portals are beyond the tax radar and as part of CBDT's initiative to widen the tax base, this sector is important to be tapped," the official said.
As per industry estimates, e-commerce business in India was about USD 6 billion in value in 2012 and is expected to reach USD 76 billion by 2021.
The Economic Survey prepared by the Finance Ministry in 2014-15 had said that the e-commerce sector in the country is likely to witness a growth of over 50 per cent in the next five years.
The I-T department has particularly been bolstered by ever-increasing collections under the TDS head as it believes that collecting taxes this way promotes a "non-adversarial" regime and according to latest data of the Finance Ministry, TDS now contributes 36.08 per cent of the total direct taxes collection.
The official said that the tax department has developed required "technical platforms" to track business activities on popular e-retail websites operating in the country.
The Central Board of Direct Taxes has also decided and instructed the I-T offices to monitor "catering contracts of 5-star hotels" and "sub-contractors" working with large and small infrastructure companies for tax collection under TDS.
Under the new service sectors, which will be monitored by the taxman this fiscal, the action plan has called for including payments made by educational institutes to guest faculty, payments made to event managers and medical transcription companies among few others.
According to consultancy firm PwC, the e-commerce sector in India has grown by 34 per cent (CAGR) since 2009 to touch USD 16.4 billion (roughly Rs 1,01,375 crores) in 2014 and is expected to touch USD 22 billion in 2015.
If Future is allowed to renege on its contract with Amazon, it may signal to global investors that investments in India are risky, the U.S. company alleges. That is an inconvenient image at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs foreign investment to create jobs and reboot an economy pummeled by the pandemic.


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In 1975, Jeffrey Edmondson, a drug dealer based in Minneapolis, filed his taxes. As a self-employed man in the illicit drug trade, he had a good year—he sold 1.1 million amphetamine pills, five ounces of cocaine, and 100 pounds of marijuana. And like any other God-fearing, tax-paying American business owner, he wanted to deduct standard business expenses.
On his tax return, Edmondson recorded $105,300 in costs related to selling speed, weed, and coke during the taxable year of 1974. He also itemized two-thirds of the 29,000 miles he put on his car that year, $250 for a flight to San Diego, and $200 for food and entertainment expenses during a business trip. There was also $50 for a scale, $200 for packaging supplies, and $180 in long distance phone calls. Since Edmondson ran his business from his apartment, he deducted two-thirds of his rent.
The Internal Revenue Service denied all his deductions in an audit, but in 1981 Edmonson fought the decision in U.S. Tax Court and a judge sided with him—he recouped most of his expenses. However, in 1982 Congress took aim at drug dealers like Edmondson and enacted 280E, a tax code that prevents businesses that traffic Schedule I or Schedule II controlled substances, which includes heroin, LSD, cannabis, cocaine, amphetamines and other drugs, from claiming standard business deductions.
Today, even though 17 states have legalized adult-use cannabis and 32 other states permit medical marijuana use in some form, cannabis retailers must pay taxes under 280E. This tax code essentially makes cannabis companies pay taxes on gross revenue; a huge financial burden that makes it difficult to turn a profit.
The effective tax rate, says Henry Wykowski, a veteran cannabis tax lawyer who has litigated over a dozen 280E cases, could be anywhere between 60% and 100% of profits, depending on how a company is set up.
Vivien Azer, an analyst who covers cannabis at Cowen, describes 280E as an “onerous” and “punitive” tax code.
“It means in some instances that they are paying as much in income taxes as they’re generating in pre-tax income,” Azer says.
The reason cannabis companies must pay under 280E is simple: marijuana is still a Schedule I drug under federal law. What’s interesting is that in 2013, the Justice Department, via the Cole Memo, advised federal prosecutors to stop spending resources to pursue cases on state-legal marijuana businesses. However, in recent years it appears that the IRS has upped its 280E-related audits to generate more tax revenue.
“It’s an interesting paradigm, the federal government is spending fewer resources on state-lawful companies but reaping greater rewards under 280E than they ever have,” says Garrett Graff, a lawyer and managing partner at cannabis-focused Hoban Law Group.
Earlier this month, Marijuana Business Daily obtained hundreds of pages of documents from the IRS outlining how the agency has refined its training and methods to crack down on the industry. In one set of documents, agents reported that auditing marijuana companies can result in four times more money than an audit of federally legal businesses.
In many parts of the tax code, there are clever and creative ways to lessen a tax burden. But Wykowski says 280E is not one of those areas where it pays to be creative.
“Many of the work arounds we’ve seen people try have cost the taxpayer attempting it a substantial amount of money,” he says. “You can plan for 280E and minimize it, but you can’t eliminate it.”
Wykowski, a former federal prosecutor who made a name for himself defending cannabis companies against federal enforcement in the San Francisco area, says it’s not worth trying to fight the IRS on 280E anymore.
“Basically, the Tax Court has sided with the IRS and there is no meaningful relief for 280E,” says Wykowski.
One of Wykowski’s biggest wins was in 2007 when he successfully convinced the court that medical marijuana dispensary Californians Helping to Alleviate Medical Problems, Inc., known as CHAMP, should be able to deduct expenses that could reasonably be separated from the trafficking of marijuana. This win set an important precedent that marijuana retailers, if their businesses were set up in a specific way, could claim deductions on parts of the business that had nothing to with marijuana trafficking.
But Wykowski’s last big court battle limited that precedent. His client Harborside, the iconic Oakland dispensary, lost its years long battle with the IRS. In October 2019, the Tax Court ruled that Harborside owed $11 million in back taxes from 2007 to 2012.
The punitive tax code is good for certain types of businesses, Wykowski says coyly.
“The inequitable taxation of the legal cannabis market is what keeps the illicit cannabis market alive,” he says. “If the taxation was equitable the street dealers would go out of business.”
For now, 280E is a money maker for the IRS.
“These audits are low-hanging,” says Wykowski. “They know they’ll recover money—the question is just how much.”
When asked if they’re seeing a wave of audits, Graff says that’s not the most accurate description.
“It’s not a wave because a wave crashes,” says Graff. “We’re not seeing a drop off, we’re seeing a gradual increase as the IRS pays closer and closer attention, seemingly in a targeted fashion, to the cannabis industry.”
Cannabis retailers now think getting audited under 280E is a matter of when, not if, Graff says.
When asked how 280E effects his business, Boris Jordan, the chairman of Curaleaf, the largest cannabis company in the world, says to imagine if your 38% federal tax rate was doubled.
“Today, cannabis companies are working on behalf of the government,” Jordan says, “which is ironic, because we’re federally illegal but they love taking our money.”


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Google is stepping up its efforts to serve speedy content to mobile internet users with its Accelerated Mobile Pages, but the initiative is getting mixed reviews from publishers as some worry about its impact on their advertising revenue.
Google unveiled AMP about a year ago and hundreds of companies are now publishing AMP versions of their articles, including the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, CNN, Hearst, The Guardian, the New York Times, Vox Media and many others.
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Sri Lanka launches World Cup 2022 packages
Source : travelmole
Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau recently unveiled themed travel packages for FIFA World Cup fans.
It has set up a fan zone in Negombo, a popular coastal destination in Western Sri Lanka.
This joint industry promotion sees Sri Lanka Inbound Tour Operators Association, Travel Agents Association, and Sri Lanka Tourism Promotions Bureau marketing special packages
It includes flights and accommodation for five days.
All hotels, restaurants and travel agents are on board to put together the FIFA Zone to accommodate and entertain visitors. .
Sri Lankan Airlines, Flydubai, Qatar Airways and Air India have joined forces to support Sri Lanka tourism efforts.
National carrier Sri Lankan has also extended a special rate for FIFA Zone travellers and all airlines will promote the packages.
Tourism Minister Harin Fernando, said t is a one-of-kind opportunity to show the world that Sri Lanka is open for business.
The Minister is confidentt it will attract around 5,000 global football fans to Negombo.
Negombo beach will have a giant TV screen live streaming all matches, food and beverage stalls and beer gardens with music.
Negombo has a lively fish market and colonial architecture.
Tourism is Sri Lanka’s third largest export earner.
In 2019, Sri Lanka was visited by 1.9 million international tourists who generated an estimated US$ 3.6 billion to the local economy.


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Innovative Ad of the Week: Sony Pictures ‘Ghostbusters Waterloo’ (UK)
This week brings to an end a pretty spooky burst of outdoor activity for London commuters, who were surprised and delighted by a giant sculpture of the iconic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man at Waterloo, as part of a complete train station takeover by Sony Pictures to promote the new ‘Ghostbusters’ movie.
The ‘super-sized’ out-of-home campaign, a collaboration between Sony Pictures, JCDecaux (campaign concept), Feref (creative), MGOMD and Talon (media), played up the idea of ‘something strange in your neighbourhood’ by transforming London’s Waterloo Station into a film-themed showcase for the past two weeks.
The campaign encompassed a range of activity, including 8 metre ‘Slime Poles’ placed around the station and a colossal sculpture of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man seen smashing through the concourse floor. Furthermore, the station’s busy commuter tunnel was like stepping into New York through the use of vinyl wraps and atmospheric audio to create an immersion zone.
Adding a retail element to the activity, a pop-up Ghostbusters retail unit, built to look like a New York subway entrance, was erected and run by Forbidden Planet – selling limited edition Odeon cinema tickets and a range of souvenirs.
Taking the message beyond the confines of the station, dynamic fake news items featuring ghostly sightings has also been deployed across the UK on JCDecaux’s DOOH network, amplified by experiential activity using the iconic Ghostbusters car, the ECTO-1.
Stuart Williams, Deputy Managing Director & Marketing Director at Sony Pictures UK, said: “We wanted to deliver more than a pure awareness outdoor campaign and give people the chance to experience GHOSTBUSTERS for themselves and be part of the excitement. Our campaign with JCDecaux has achieved this on many levels using a range of the outdoor opportunities on offer across a variety of digital screen formats, phone boxes and culminating with our takeover of Waterloo station. The activity covers experiential, media, digital, publicity and merchandising and is a critical part of our release campaign to make GHOSTBUSTERS the film event of the summer.”
Robin Behling, Chairman at Feref, added: “This incredible canvas allows us to really push the boundaries of creativity. Everything is big - but it has to be when working in such a large environment. This is its strength. We can bring moving image, sound effects, 3D sculptures and retail all into one concept. There’s nowhere else like it; nowhere else we can showcase Ghostbusters on this massive scale to such a vast audience.”
[Note from Cream Editor: Check out a similar activation from Universal Pictures last year, which saw Waterloo Station taken over for the launch of Jurassic World. Read the full case study, including results, here >>>]


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Scanadu Hikes Price, Beefs Up Specs of Forthcoming Medical “Tricorder”
As it worked to finalize its smartphone health-monitoring attachment, Scanadu decided that its planned $150 device wasn’t going to quite cut it.
People wanted more features and the ability to use the Scout on others, not just to measure their own vital statistics. So the company is adding a beefier processor as well as a new design that will allow people to measure their own vitals and those of others. The company is also using the new hardware to measure blood pressure without a cuff at 95 percent accuracy.
“The bad news is it is going to cost a bit more,” Scanadu’s Walter De Brouwer said in an interview. The Scout will now sell for $199 rather than the planned $149.
The company will still offer the first 1,000 devices for the original $149 price via an early testing program launching Wednesday on Indiegogo. The company says selling early products to testers this way will get the company the data it needs to get Food and Drug Administration approval — a necessary step before it can be sold commercially.
Depending on how long that approval takes, De Brouwer said that Scanadu hopes to make Scout commercially available in late 2014 or early 2015.
“Then we will be a real tricorder,” he said, arriving just in time for a Qualcomm-sponsored prize to build a commercial version of the “Star Trek” tricorder.
To tide it over, De Brouwer said the largely bootstrapped startup has raised a bit more money.
“Obviously, we are not a rich company, but we have enough to pull [it] off.”


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XOOM into a Honeycomb(Android 3.0) tablet made by Motorola, yep…that's it's name. Sounds fast, which is exactly what I've heard Honeycomb will be. Xoom will absolutely be running Honeycomb, but it will fall short in the area of 4G LTE. We're hoping to see a USB slot, which will support 4G LTE, but for now it won't be built in.
Google's VP for Mobile Platforms, Andy Rubin, has already given us a taste of what Xoom can do, and it surely looks like a must-have for Android Tablet lovers. Here's the YouTube video for those of you that may not have seen it.
Update: According to Android and Me, the Xoom tablet could have an optional LTE modem that would plug into a PCI expansion slot. Sources tell Taylor Wimberly that Verizon would be selling these to provide 4G speeds for the new tablet. Wimberly goes on to say he still thinks Honeycomb is Android 2.4 (not 3.0), based on analytics from his site logs.


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Blog Post by Jaheer Abbas, Sr. Director Of Sales
In pursuit of satisfying consumers’ never-ending appetite for low-latency video streaming and responsive apps, OTT video streaming platforms are discussing and evaluating cloud computing at the edge a lot more now. Current day video streamers have no time to waste on buffering videos.
Over-the-top (OTT) streaming has gone from being a nascent business model to a technology that changed the way we consume video. While Netflix had dominated the OTT space for a long time, technology and content powerhouses like Disney, Amazon, Apple, Rakuten, and MX Player are serving millions of on-demand and live event streamers via their platforms.
Competition for end user eyeballs and share of customers spend is at a feverish pitch. Monetization opportunities from video streaming services are off the charts. By 2022, the worldwide over-the-top (OTT) revenue is expected to skyrocket to US $83.4 billion.
Original content, live events, and regional content continue to be must-haves for the growth of an OTT platform along with a flawless user experience. According to the 2018 State of Online Video report by Limelight Networks, video rebuffering remains the most frustrating aspect of online viewing for 43 percent of global consumers. The report also shows that 29 percent of viewers will stop watching a video the first time it rebuffers, with an additional 37 percent dropping off after the second time. This is one of the driving factors behind media companies leveraging edge compute capabilities to bring down latency while ensuring quality video and streaming performance.