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Tag Archives: social media
A study by Wildfire Interactive found that social media tracking and measurement tools help companies determine benefits and value as well as promote client retention.
In a survey of more than 700 marketers worldwide, 88% of respondents told Wildfire Interactive, a social media marketing software company, that social media helps grow brand awareness. Social media also benefited marketers by allowing them to engage in dialogue (85%) and increase sales and partnerships (58%). An additional 41% of marketers said it helped reduce costs.
Charles Schwab is one company that sees the benefits of engaging in dialogue with customers via social media.
“It has opened up this whole public communications channel, where we can get great feedback,” said Lindsay Tiles, director of corporate public relations at Charles Schwab, in a December 2011 interview with eMarketer. “We’re trying to get people out of the mindset that social media is just for pushing your messages out. It is about communicating, but it’s also about listening.”
While marketers look at the overall benefits of social media, they are also drilling deeper to determine the value of Facebook fans in particular. Among respondents to Wildfire’s survey, 44% said Facebook fans are valuable because they help with new customer recruitment. Additionally, 18% said Facebook fans have higher conversion rates and another 18% noted that they make more frequent purchases.
While these softer metrics are proving valuable for marketers, there is still room to prove solid return on investment and other business results. Of those surveyed, 24% said they measure the ROI of social media by looking at increases in revenue. Additionally, 38% said they count increased “likes,” comments and interactions on Facebook.
Marketers know how social media can influence and add value to a company, but by bringing these specific metrics and benefits to the forefront, they will be better able to prove the importance of this channel going forward.
Checking in to locations with geosocial services like Foursquare is the least popular activity among smartphone users, finds a recent survey by the Pew Research Center.
While more than half of the smartphone owners in the survey of 2,277 adults report accessing social networks, sending photos and viewing email, just 12% of smartphone owners say they use checkin services.
Geotagging updates to social media sites like Twitter and Facebook are also fairly uncommon. Just 9% of Internet users and 14% of social media users say they include their location with their social posts.
Smartphone users are much more likely to find directions or search for recommendations, with 55% of respondents saying they use similar services.
The relatively shallow market penetration of checkin services is not surprising. In November, Pew released survey results showing 4% of online adults use location-based services and only 1% use these services on a given day.
Even though the new study focused exclusively on mobile checkins, as opposed to including online checkins that may occur without a mobile device, the percentage of users didn’t jump. Five percent of mobile owners (including smartphone owners) say they check in.
Checkin services are not mainstream, but does that make them all hype? Or could there be a twist — like location-based gaming — that could win them a spot on the average smartphone?
Lately, we’ve been seeing a lot of articles detailing the spending forecasts of individual marketing sectors, and whether spending in each respective sector is expected to increase, decrease or stay the same in the next 5-10 years.
However, I just read a study from Forrester Research that put the predictions in a different light. It forecasted the total combined spending of all these different marketing sectors. Forrester calls it “Interactive Marketing”—the combination of search marketing, display advertising, mobile marketing, e-mail marketing and social media. It emphasizes the idea we have been focusing on – the importance of incorporating all elements into a business’ marketing mix, not just one.
The study predicts Interactive Marketing spend to reach nearly $77 billion by 2016—just as much as television ad spend is today. This is huge.
It’s been fun following the transformation of marketing in the past decade. Seeing the total interactive marketing spend shift from solely traditional channels to online channels, mobile channels, alongside traditional channels really legitimizes the growth that interactive media has gained in such a short amount of time.
It’s important to pay attention to these kinds of forecasts to see the direction marketing is heading in the future so businesses can plan their budgets accordingly. Marketers can no longer ignore the changing marketing budgets or eliminate a particular marketing tool right off the bat just because they’re hesitant to change the way they’ve always operated and delve into something new and unfamiliar.
Interactive Marketing has proven itself now. It isn’t just about the television and print ads anymore. Yes, they’re still going strong, but with the emerging importance of customer loyalty and new mobile and social technologies playing a huge role in marketing efforts today, we can see how integrating different media into a marketing mix can significantly contribute to a business’ success.
According to survey data from Forrester Research Inc. and Shop.org, retailers will spend more this year on Facebook and other social networks.
Nearly three-quarters, or 72%, of retailers plan to spend more on marketing via social networks this year than in 2010, according to survey data from Forrester Research Inc. and Shop.org. Only search marketing—this includes paid search and search engine optimization for natural search—beat out social networks for anticipated increases in marketing spend in 2011. 75% of retailers plan to spend more this year on search marketing.
The results come from the annual State of Retailing Online survey conducted by Forrester Research Inc. for Shop.org, the online retail division of the industry trade group National Retail Federation. The first wave of the two-part report, released today, is based on a survey conducted in March and focuses on marketing, social networks and mobile commerce. The second section of the report will cover other aspects of online retailing and be released in the second half of this year.
The survey, conducted in March, includes responses from 68 e-retailers, including web-only retailers, multichannel retailers and manufacturers who sell online to consumers. Survey respondents reported a 40% average increase in 2010 web sales compared with sales in 2009—a hike skewed upward by a 79% increase among the manufacturers in the survey. (The 40% increase compares to 2010 online retail sales increases of 11% reported by Forrester, 14.8% by the U.S. Department of Commerce, and 9.8% by comScore Inc.)
Despite the anticipated spending increases, social networks account for only a small part of marketing budgets—2% of the $5.5 million average marketing budget among the retailers responding to the survey. And only 29% of respondents say social marketing has helped grow their businesses.
Still, 18% of respondents say that a social network presence was among their top sources for acquiring new customers—tying social networks with e-mail marketing for fourth place among customer-acquisition techniques. Search engine marketing led that list with 90% of respondents, followed by affiliate marketing with 49% and organic traffic at 44%.
When asked about their attitudes toward the value of marketing through social networks, the largest group of respondents, or 82%, say they are pursuing social marketing strategies because “this is a great time to experiment and learn more about what they can do.” The next-largest group, 62%, say the returns on social marketing are unclear; and the third-largest group, 61%, say the primary benefit of social marketing is “listening to and better understanding our customers.”
When asked specifically about the benefits of marketing through the Facebook social network, brand building is cited by 40% of respondents; listening to customers, 37%; getting new fans or Likes, 16%; building the lifetime value of existing customers, 6%, and customer acquisition, 1%.
Original article found at: http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/05/03/retailers-place-hopeful-bets-social-marketing
While driving transactions is an important goal of mobile marketing, the fact that consumers carry around mobile devices all the time and, increasingly, these devices offering immersive media experiences, makes them important marketing tools. Executives from several retailers and brands offering products and services to consumers who spoke last week at the Mcommerce Summit: State of Mobile Commerce 2011 conference May 12 in New York provided important insight into how brands are using mobile to connect with consumers.
“Mobile is really the ultimate connector for us,” said Dan Fine, director of digital experience at Target, Minneapolis, MN, at the conference organized by Mobile Commerce Daily. “If you think about the mobile device, it’s about being wherever your consumer is and that becomes connected – and that is really powerful.”
Target is using mobile to help make it easy for consumers to get done what they need to get done, Mr. Fine said.
HSN’s overall mobile marketing strategy is driven by the fact that mobile devices are highly personalized, per Ed Deutscher, director of technology at HSN.com, during a presentation at the conference.
Mr. Deutscher pointed to HSN’s extensive use of video in mobile and how this has helped make mobile the brand’s fastest growing channel. The HSN iPad application, for example, enables users to watch live streaming video, 15 channels of category specific content as well as create their own customized channels.
“We’re looking for ways to engage with consumers via mobile and providing the HSN experience wherever they want,” he said.
“We want to use our mobile apps as an engagement tool but, if at the end of the day, consumers are compelled to buy, that’s great.”
Mobile integrates with loyalty
Going forward, St. Petersburg, FL-based HSN is looking to social media to help it enhance its efforts to drive engagement and customer activation in mobile.
“We truly believe there is an opportunity in mobile for us to find ways to group customers into affinity groups where they can take advantage of sharing content such as product information and reviews,” Mr. Deutscher said.
Los Angeles-based citrus cooperative Sunkist doesn’t expect to get into mobile commerce any time soon because of the medium’s limitations when it comes to delivering the tactile experience that consumers look for when they are buying citrus fruits.
However, Sunkist does have an active mobile program that focuses on building loyalty, engagement and awareness.
Sunkist is using mobile to help educate consumers about the many uses of citrus fruit. This includes providing education, usage tips and nutrition information via SMS, a daily diet app and a mobile Web site. The brand promotes the program in-store on its fruit display units.
“We are trying to teach people to let them know that there are a ton of uses for lemons,” said Julie DeWolf, director of retail marketing at Sunkist.
Loyalty and building new relationships are also key elements in restaurant chain Carrabba’s Italian Grill’s mobile strategy.
The chain has a partnership with Foursquare to help it build relationships with regular customers by offering rewards based on how many times they visit a specific location.
“For customers who are coming in two or three times a week, the manager should know them and our program with Foursquare helps because it is a conversation starter,” said Jamie Miller, brand marketing manager of Carrabba’s Italian Grill, during the Mcommerce Summit.
The chain also uses SMS to help it build engagement by sending messages that ask customers questions such as what they want to see at the restaurant and their favorite dishes.
In addition, Carrabba’s is using its loyalty program to engage with customers and tell them what is happening in the mobile space.
Tampa, FL-based Carrabba’s is also looking for more ways to bring together its loyalty and mobile efforts.
“The next logical step for us is to involve more CRM and integrate with the needs of consumers in the mobile space,” Mr. Miller said. “We’re already doing a excellent job of this in the online space, but evolving it for the mobile space is the next logical step.”
Original article found at: http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/2011/05/16/mobile-important-engagement-tool-for-retail-brands


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“Bitcoin has no unique value at all. It doesn’t produce anything. You can stare at it all day and no little bitcoins come out. It’s a delusion basically.”
Buffet, one of the world’s richest men, praised blockchain and its technology, saying “It’s a very ingenious thing to figure out how to have a limited supply and make it harder and more expensive to create.”
But the ‘Oracle of Omaha’ admitted he knows very little about the technology:
“This is explained to me by people a lot smarter than I am.”
Ben is a journalist with a decade of experience covering financial markets. His writing has appeared in The Huffington Post and he worked at Block Explorer, the world’s longest-running source of Blockchain data.

domain: news


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Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ: MYL) today announced that its U.S.-based Mylan Institutional LLC business is conducting a voluntary nationwide recall to the consumer level of one lot of Daptomycin for Injection, 500 mg/vial due to the presence of particulate matter found in one single-dose vial manufactured b
FDA warns lab staff that use of BD SARS-CoV-2 Reagents for the BD Max System may lead to false positive results.
Granules Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Chantilly, VA is voluntarily recalling twelve (12) lots of Metformin Hydrochloride Extended-Release Tablets USP, 750 mg, 100 and 500 count bottles within expiry to the consumer level due to the detection of NNitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) levels above the Acceptable Dail
ITECH 361 is voluntarily recalling 18,940 bottles of All Clean Hand Sanitizer, Moisturizer and Disinfectant sold in one liter bottles to the consumer level. The products are being recalled due to the potential presence of methanol (wood alcohol).
The FDA is providing the most recent, interim post-approval study results for Abiomed's Impella RP System.
Transliquid Technologies LLC is voluntarily recalling all Mystic Shield Protection Topical Solution, manufactured by Mystic Intl S.A. de C.V in Mexico City, and packaged in an 8.45 ounce (250 ml) bottles, to the consumer level.
Arrow International is recalling the pumps because both devices have a part that may break, char, and discolor the motor connector wires.
UVT, INC. is voluntarily recalling 38,830 liters of SANIDERM ADVANCED HAND SANITIZER, packaged in 1-liter bottles to the consumer level. The products are being recalled due to the potential presence of methanol (wood alcohol)
Saniderm Products (Saniderm) is voluntarily recalling Saniderm Advanced Hand Sanitizer, packaged in 1-liter bottles to the consumer level. The products are being recalled due to the potential presence of methanol (wood alcohol). In response to a recent news alert by the Food and Drug Administration
On June 18, 2020, Chengdu Ai Qin E-commerce Co., Ltd initiated a nationwide recall of 1362 pairs of colored contact lenses. The relevant series of contact lenses have been found to be distributed without FDA clearance and may pose a threat to health.
FDA warns lab staff and health care providers about using certain COVID-19 Serology/Antibody Tests.
GSK Consumer Healthcare is voluntarily recalling to the retail level two lots (listed below) of Children’s Robitussin® Honey Cough and Chest Congestion DM and one lot of Children’s Dimetapp® Cold and Cough, due to the inclusion of incorrect dosing cups.
FDA is warning health care providers that co-administration of remdesivir and chloroquine phosphate or hydroxychloroquine sulfate is not recommended as it may result in reduced antiviral activity of remdesivir.
Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc. is voluntarily recalling Metformin Hydrochloride Extended-Release Tablets USP (generic equivalent of Fortamet®), 500mg, lot G901203 to the consumer level. FDA analysis revealed that this lot exceeded the Acceptable Daily Intake Limit for the impurity N-Nitrosodimethylamine
Marksans Pharma Limited, India is voluntarily recalling Metformin Hydrochloride Extended-Release Tablets, USP 500mg, lot # XP9004, to the consumer level. FDA analysis has found the product to contain N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) levels in excess of the Acceptable Daily Intake Limit (ADI) of 96ng/da
Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. is voluntarily recalling fourteen (14) lots of Metformin Hydrochloride Extended-Release Tablets, USP 500 mg and 750 mg, 100 and 1000 count bottles, in the United States to the consumer-level due to the detection of N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) levels in excess of the
FDA warns lab staff that exposure to cyanide gas may result from a reaction between transport media and testing platforms that are not compatible.
FDA is notifying health care professionals about the temporary absence of the “paralyzing agent” warning statement embossed on the vial caps of two neuromuscular blocking agents.


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Introducing Secret Neighbor
Following on from a rating in Taiwan last month, tinyBuild Games has now officially announced Secret Neighbor for the Nintendo Switch. It first arrived in 2019 and follows on from the release of Hello Neighbor on the hybrid device in 2018. Secret Neighbor is a multiplayer spin-off of the original survival horror stealth...
Tales from the Borderlands, Secret Neighbor and SnowRunner, too
Taiwan's Digital Game Rating Committee has recently rated a total of four games for the Nintendo Switch. The first title is The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles - which is part of Capcom's Ace Attorney series (you know, Phoenix Wright) and is apparently a two in one release, according to...
Signature Edition Games does the business
To say nothing of 2020 itself, Switch owners have been going through hell recently and no, we don't mean the lack of big Nintendo Directs by that. Having seen DOOM Eternal's launch back in December, Cradle Games' sci-fi action-RPG Hellpoint
Reveals, demos and more!
Video game publisher and developer tinyBuild - responsible for games like Hello Neighbor, Graveyard Keeper and Streets of Rogue - has announced it'll be hosting its own "non-E3" press broadcast later this week, on 13th June. Here's what you can expect from it, according to the YouTube video description: This Saturday on...


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Fashion Week is moving! Bryant Park which has hosted the twice a year event since 1993 will no longer be home to Fashion Week by September 2010. The mayor's office just confirmed mayor in a press release:
The new venue at Damrosch Park, which is managed by Lincoln Center, will provide about 87,000 square feet of space for the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week shows, compared to the roughly 70,000 square feet available at Bryant Park – a 25 percent increase. The agreement between IMG Fashion and Lincoln Center is for five years. In addition to providing more space in Damrosch Park, Lincoln Center provides ample opportunity for its iconic indoor locations to be used for special events during the shows.
Mayor Bloomberg believes that the shows have outgrown the park and some have complained that it takes over public greenspace for too long. I'm going to miss Bryant Park. While I'm glad that the show's are not moving to Chelsea Piers, Bryant Park's midtown location is right beside the garment district and easy access for design teams and magazine folk (Conde Nast is at 4 Times Square) alike to get to. According to the Associated Press Fashion week generates hundreds of millions of dollars for the city each year, so I don't think that a move should be taken lightly given the dismal economy. Also given that many companies are scaling back on invites (aka Marc Jacobs going from 2000 guests last season to 700 this season) is more space really necessary?


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Microsoft's intelligent keyboard, SwiftKey, announced a product update, whereby the existing Hub will be replaced with Toolbar, an expandable menu... ...http://www.dnaindia.com/technology/report-microsoft-brings-toolbar-stickers-to-swiftkey-70-2594449
Google announced the launch of Google Assistant in Hindi. The Assistant in Hindi is rolling out to Android phones 6.0+ (Marshmallow and above) and... ...http://www.dnaindia.com/technology/report-say-namaste-to-your-hindi-google-assistant-2594695
Samsung has recently resumed the roll out of Oreo update to the S8 and S8 Plus globally, and finally, it is now rolling out to the Galaxy Note 8 in... ...http://www.fonearena.com/blog/246736/samsung-galaxy-note-8-android-8-0-oreo-update.html
This week Xiaomi launched its budget Redmi 5 smartphone in India. Huawei's Honor brand introduced the Honor 7C in China, Huawei introduced the P20... ...http://www.fonearena.com/blog/246734/weekly-roundup-xiaomi-redmi-5-honor-7c-alcatel-1x-android-oreo-go-edition-fitbit-versa-and-more.html
Google introduced Quick Reply and Bundled Notifications with Android Nougat back in 2016, but devices running on MIUI didn’t get these features... ...http://www.fonearena.com/blog/246762/xiaomi-miui-9-5-new-notification-shade-quick-replies.html
I will share news on Android OS here.


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Gifts are often top of mind this time of year — but with Black Friday on the horizon, if you’ve been putting off any work on your home, you can cash in on the sales. True home improvement can be quite pricey, after all. But we’re in
Nov 14 (Reuters) – Home Depot Inc (HD.N) and Lowe’s Cos Inc (LOW.N) are likely to report rising sales in the third quarter as Americans continue to spend on home improvements in contrast to other retailers facing declining discretionary spending due to surging prices.
Wall Street analysts see the largest U.S. home improvement chains benefiting as rising interest rates encourage home owners to renovate existing properties rather than move on, while professional contractors have a backlog of work to clear.
“While the prevailing narrative would suggest otherwise, the sky is not yet falling across housing retail,” Wells Fargo analyst Zachary


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LONDON — European Union and British regulators stated Friday that they had been starting separate antitrust inquiries into Facebook, broadening their efforts to rein in the world’s largest know-how corporations.
The investigations by the European Commission, the chief arm of the 27-nation bloc, and Britain’s Competition and Markets Authority, take intention at a key enterprise technique utilized by Facebook and different massive tech corporations: to make use of their measurement and energy in one space to enter others. Amazon took its place as the most important on-line retailer to turn out to be a serious participant in video streaming. Apple leveraged the iPhone to be one of many world’s largest cellular funds with Apple Pay. Google parlayed its dominance as a search engine into many various areas.
The regulators stated they might begin formal investigations of Facebook Marketplace, an eBay-like service launched in 2016 for customers to purchase and promote merchandise. Under scrutiny is whether or not Facebook’s cross-promotion of Marketplace to the greater than two billion customers of its foremost social community gave the corporate an unfair benefit over rivals in violation of European Union competitors legal guidelines.
Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s govt vice chairman in cost of competitors coverage, stated Friday that Facebook collects “vast troves of data” on the actions of its customers, “enabling it to target specific customer groups.”
“We will look in detail at whether this data gives Facebook an undue competitive advantage in particular on the online classified ads sector,” she stated in a press release, “where people buy and sell goods every day, and where Facebook also competes with companies from which it collects data.”
“In today’s digital economy, data should not be used in ways that distort competition,” she stated.
In Britain, antitrust regulators are already investigating the corporate’s promoting practices. On Friday, the competitors regulator stated it was Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Dating, a service launched in Europe final 12 months. The British regulator stated it could work with the European Commission, although the investigations are unbiased of one another.
Facebook defended its enterprise practices in a press release on Friday. “Marketplace and Dating offer people more choices and both products operate in a highly competitive environment with many large incumbents,” a consultant of Facebook stated. “We will continue to cooperate fully with the investigations to demonstrate that they are without merit.”
Today in Business
The bulletins are the start of formal investigations which will take years to finish.
A preliminary investigation had already been underway, with the European Commission sending inquiries to Facebook’s rivals. Last 12 months, Facebook sued the European Commission over calls for made by regulators to show over paperwork and information, saying the supplies sought had been overly broad and included extremely delicate details about staff. Facebook stated it supplied multiple million paperwork associated to the Marketplace investigation.
The inquiry provides to the regulatory challenges Facebook is going through world wide. In December, the Federal Trade Commission introduced antitrust expenses in opposition to Facebook for illegally shopping for up smaller rivals to stamp out competitors. Australian regulators have filed an analogous go well with. German antitrust regulators additionally introduced expenses in opposition to Facebook over information assortment, a case now underneath enchantment.
Since leaving the European Union, Britain is ramping up its personal efforts to manage how massive tech companies use their measurement to enter new sectors and the issues that poses for laws. Last 12 months, the competitors authority revealed a report that referred to as for tougher oversight of Facebook and Google, significantly their dominance in internet marketing. Britain is contemplating the creation of a brand new regulatory company tasked with overseeing the most important tech corporations. This 12 months, Britain began antitrust investigations into Google and Apple’s App Store.
European Union regulators have been maybe the world’s most aggressive tech trade watchdog. In November, regulators filed preliminary expenses in opposition to Amazon for unfairly utilizing its measurement and entry to information to hurt smaller retailers. In May, expenses had been additionally filed in opposition to Apple over anticompetitive App Store insurance policies.
In addition to the antitrust investigations, Ms. Vestager is main an effort in the European Union to cross new legal guidelines to make the tech trade regulated extra like industries akin to banking or transportation, a course of that would take till 2022 or past to finish. The proposed legal guidelines would make it simpler for regulators to intervene in the digital economic system, together with potential restrictions round how corporations leverage their measurement to enter new markets. Facebook and others might additionally face new authorized necessities for moderating user-generated content material publish to their platforms.
Eshe Nelson contributed reporting from London.


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Stock analysts at Credit Suisse Group assumed coverage on shares of Lululemon Athletica (NASDAQ:LULU) in a research note issued on Monday, The Fly reports. The firm set an “outperform” rating on the apparel retailer’s stock.
Several other equities research analysts have also recently weighed in on the company. Zacks Investment Research cut Lululemon Athletica from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, March 6th. BidaskClub cut Lululemon Athletica from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, February 28th. Oppenheimer reiterated an “outperform” rating and issued a $88.00 target price on shares of Lululemon Athletica in a report on Tuesday, February 6th. Canaccord Genuity set a $75.00 target price on Lululemon Athletica and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Tuesday, February 6th. Finally, SunTrust Banks reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $95.00 target price on shares of Lululemon Athletica in a report on Friday, February 2nd. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, eighteen have given a hold rating, nineteen have assigned a buy rating and one has assigned a strong buy rating to the stock. The stock currently has a consensus rating of “Buy” and a consensus price target of $73.95.
Shares of Lululemon Athletica (LULU) traded down $0.67 during mid-day trading on Monday, hitting $80.33. The company’s stock had a trading volume of 1,528,236 shares, compared to its average volume of 1,690,480. Lululemon Athletica has a twelve month low of $47.26 and a twelve month high of $83.98. The stock has a market cap of $10,830.00, a PE ratio of 39.97, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.08 and a beta of 0.22.
In other news, major shareholder Dennis J. Wilson sold 722,134 shares of the stock in a transaction dated Monday, February 12th. The stock was sold at an average price of $77.47, for a total value of $55,943,720.98. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.29% of the stock is currently owned by corporate insiders.
Several hedge funds have recently made changes to their positions in LULU. Victory Capital Management Inc. increased its holdings in shares of Lululemon Athletica by 5.3% in the third quarter. Victory Capital Management Inc. now owns 299,647 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock valued at $18,653,000 after purchasing an additional 15,056 shares during the period. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board boosted its stake in shares of Lululemon Athletica by 304.3% in the third quarter. Canada Pension Plan Investment Board now owns 82,510 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock worth $5,136,000 after buying an additional 62,100 shares during the last quarter. Stevens Capital Management LP purchased a new stake in shares of Lululemon Athletica in the third quarter worth about $1,034,000. Prudential Financial Inc. boosted its stake in shares of Lululemon Athletica by 734.3% in the third quarter. Prudential Financial Inc. now owns 392,118 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock worth $24,410,000 after buying an additional 345,120 shares during the last quarter. Finally, Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund boosted its stake in shares of Lululemon Athletica by 7.5% in the third quarter. Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund now owns 15,390 shares of the apparel retailer’s stock worth $958,000 after buying an additional 1,075 shares during the last quarter. 80.18% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.
TRADEMARK VIOLATION WARNING: “Lululemon Athletica (LULU) Coverage Initiated by Analysts at Credit Suisse Group” was originally published by American Banking News and is the property of of American Banking News. If you are viewing this news story on another domain, it was illegally copied and republished in violation of U.S. and international copyright & trademark laws. The legal version of this news story can be accessed at https://www.americanbankingnews.com/2018/03/12/lululemon-athletica-lulu-coverage-initiated-by-analysts-at-credit-suisse-group.html.
Lululemon Athletica Company Profile
lululemon athletica inc. is a designer, distributor and retailer of athletic apparel. The Company operates through two segments: Company-operated stores and Direct to consumer. It is also engaged in the sale from outlets, showrooms, sales from temporary locations, sales to wholesale accounts, warehouse sales, and license and supply arrangements.
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CAIRO — Egyptian authorities began a steady advance on the streets of downtown Cairo last August, evacuating unauthorized street vendors and retaking main arteries and squares. The move is part of a project spearheaded by the Cairo governorate to clear the city from street vendors by enforcing the rule of law and displacing thousands.
“There are 5 [million] or 6 million street vendors in Egypt, around 3 million are in Cairo,” Mohamed Abdallah, the head of the independent national syndicate for street vendors of west Cairo, told Al-Monitor.
The authorities marched into Ramses Square on April 26, equipped with bulldozers, to remove the vendors. The state-run Middle East News Agency (MENA) reported that the governor of Cairo, Jalal Mustafa Saeed, was present, instructing police officers who were directing traffic to enforce the law firmly on everyone without exceptions and to arrest those who resisted.
Abdallah, who represents 3,000 street vendors, chose Ahmed Helmy as the new site for the vendors after negotiations with the governor, Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Urban Development. However, Ahmed Helmy — a parking area behind the central railway station in Ramses Square — can only accommodate 550 of the 1,250 street vendors of Ramses Square.
The day Al-Monitor visited Ahmed Helmy, business was slow. Men gathered around Abdallah, who wore a polo shirt with a pen hanging smartly from his collar. Sitting next to him were the elders of the street vendor community of Ramses Square, some wearing the traditional Upper Egyptian dress of a djellaba and headscarf. A large number of street vendors swarm to Cairo from the countryside in search for work. As a result, street vending communities operate under a system of internal politics, such as that in rural communities.
Before the evacuation of Ramses Square, around 1,750 street vendors in downtown were sent to Torgoman; a decision so catastrophic, street vendors considered it a death sentence. The main problem with Torgoman, a parking lot close to downtown, is that it is not a commercial area.
“Let’s say a person is looking for a tie that costs 20 Egyptian pounds [$2.62],” Abdallah said, “but to get there, he needs to pay 20 Egyptian pounds for a taxi. Why would he go there?”
The authorities offered Torgoman as a six-month temporary solution while an area at Wabur Al-Talg (a downtown mall yet to be constructed) was set up. But nine months later, vendors are still waiting. In light of the downtown evacuation, made public to avoid confrontation, Abdallah presented the Falaki Project to the government — a plan that would have sent vendors to a more attractive area in Babelouq, a downtown neighborhood. Abdallah´s project showed green spaces, kiosks with space for 340 vendors and a cafeteria. “[But] the government rejected my proposal,” he said.
Despite Abdallah´s failed attempts to propose a more desirable site, the government claims it has spent 18 million Egyptian pounds ($2.35 million) setting up Torgoman. Yet for Abdallah, the numbers do not add up. “The street vendors in Torgoman have hit a dead end,” he said, “they are finished.”
The desolate scene at Torgoman, dotted with vendors whose anger matches their despair, is a warning for all other street vendors across the country. There are similar areas all over Egypt, Abdallah said. Street vendors in Asyut, Alexandria and Suez are facing relocation along with their counterparts in Cairo.
"As of today there will be an extensive campaign by police to remove street vendors after they have been transferred to Torgoman. We will not allow them to remain on the streets," Ayman Abdel Tawab, the Cairo governorate's deputy leader, told MENA last August.
After the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak, unregulated street vending proliferated in the streets of downtown Cairo. “We have created problems before,“ Abdallah said. “We were taking a lot of space, 5 meters [16.4 feet] instead of one so people couldn’t pass by.”
Over the years, as street vendors took more space and downtown Cairo became saturated with hawkers selling all kinds of paraphernalia, public opinion of them decreased. “People see us as bullies, as if we are taking control of the streets,” he said, “but most of us are university graduates.”
Ahmed Moussa, a well-known TV presenter, has a negative view of street vendors and said the streets had to be cleaned with disinfectant after the street vendors were removed. “He said we were dirty,” Abdallah said. “Other people call us ‘dogs for the police,’ but we are not. All we want is to make a living.”
While the streets of Cairo are cleared of street vendors, they have yet to receive permits for their activities. Egypt’s unemployment rate, at 13.4%, forces people to resort to the informal economy, which represents about 40% of the country’s gross domestic product. According to Abdallah, the government’s past attempts to grant the vendors licenses failed. Instead, street vendors paid bribes to the authorities to stay on the streets. “No one knows when the government will give us a license,” one of the older vendors said. “One day of talking by the government means one year.”
Even though the government’s forced relocation of street vendors alleviates traffic, protects heritage and restores order, street vendors are skeptical the move will procure them with a legal status. Street vendors at Ahmed Helmy are willing to cooperate with the government as long as dialogue is established. Abdallah said, “The union is only asking for two things: health insurance and a license to operate legally.”
Today, penalties for street vending include hefty fines and a police file with charges of harassment, public space invasion and theft of electricity. “Back then, we would just pay fines to solve any problem, now we are facing lawsuits.”
The government’s next target is Attaba, a popular street market adjacent to downtown, which will be relocated to Matariya, a district in northeast Cairo, 15 kilometers (9 miles) from downtown. According to Abdallah, Attaba holds about 4,000 vendors. “People don’t believe they will be relocated,” he said. “They still think they can resist the government.”


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Interpublic Group has to like its odds in the Kmart creative review.
Two of the three finalists—McCann Erickson in New York and incumbent Draftfcb in Chicago—are units of Interpublic, according to sources. The third is Dentsu’s mcgarrybowen in Chicago.
Final presentations took place this week at Kmart’s headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Ill. and a decision is expected in the next few weeks. The retailer spent $175 million in media last year, according to Nielsen.
(Interestingly, Interpublic could have had yet another contender for the business—Hill Holliday in Boston—but the shop withdrew before the final pitches, sources said.)
Kmart is a unit of Sears Holdings, so the presence of Sears lead agency mcgarrybowen in the search comes as no surprise. But will Kmart executives want to employ the same shop as their Sears colleagues?
McCann has ample retail experience, having worked for Staples since 2004. Staples also is in review now, so it appears that McCann is hedging its bets. The agency declined to comment and Kmart could not immediately be reached.
Kmart’s search comes less than a year after Sears Holdings reviewed its media planning and buying business across both Sears and Kmart. Havas Media, the agency formerly known as MPG, retained that account.
Draftfcb has handled Kmart since 2007, when the agency wrested the account from WPP Group’s Grey.


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According to data from Barclaycard, which processes nearly half of the nation’s credit and debit-card transactions, spending on the ‘experience economy’ remained a bright spot, as consumers continued to prioritise leisure activities.
Entertainment spend recorded growth of 9.4%, as consumers splashed out in pubs with a growth of 12.8% - beating restaurants which grew 10.5%.
Altogether, consumer spending grew 3.9% year-on-year in January, also driven by a 4.1% increase in spending on everyday essentials.
Yet despite this increased propensity to spend on social occasions, concerns around the wider economic picture are "evident", said Barclaycard.
In the wake of a broadly positive December, when six in 10 Brits expressed confidence in their household finances, just 54% now say the same.
Confidence in the UK economy is also deteriorating - just 29% of consumers say they feel confident. At the same time, almost half (46%) of Britons worry that the ongoing Brexit talks will leave them worse off.
Barclaycard managing director Paul Lockstone said: "January’s uplift in spending represents a strong start to the year.
"But faltering confidence levels across the board suggests that consumers are feeling the effects of a post-Christmas slump, as well as the wider impact of inflation, on their everyday lives.
“While spending on the ‘experience economy’ proved to be a natural and welcome antidote to the January blues, the dip in sentiment revealed by our consumer confidence data, allied to concerns over economic and political uncertainty, is quite telling.
"It suggests that caution will continue to be the watchword for many consumers as they allocate their household budgets in the months ahead.”


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Though AT&T has yet to concur, Samsung has added a new AT&T cell phone to its Web site. Samsung originally told us about the new phone earlier this week, but we were expecting that they wouldn't actually launch it for a few days. But in any case, the SGH-A137 isn't too much to get excited about. The simple flip phone is so basic that it doesn't even offer an external display. The feature set is centered squarely on making calls and messaging but it offers a couple of extras including a music player and Bluetooth. Pricing isn't available yet but it should be headed for AT&T's Go Phone prepaid service. The SGH-A137 is the fifth new phone that Samsung has introduced this week. Though none of the new handsets are groundbreaking, there is plenty of room in cell phone land for basic handsets.
Mozilla is working on a major overhaul of its web browser. Its official release is still months away, but you can take Firefox 57 for a spin today.
by Matt Elliottby Jason Pepper
Apple to invest $1B in content, Essential phone to ship within a week
The biggest news in the world of tech include Apple's $1 billion dollar commitment to original content, Essential finally shipping preordered phones and Google's Home smartspeaker now allowing for phone calls.


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It’s difficult to reconcile McDonald’s recent commentary with a recent survey on British eating habits.
A Horizons consumer survey has indicated that frequency of eating out in Britain is at its highest for two years. While Brits are eating out more often, according to the survey, spend for those who had eaten out in the two weeks prior to the survey had declined to £12.30 versus £12.69 a year ago.
Horizons’ director of services Paul Backman said: “It is surprising, given the difficult economy and the fact that retail spending remains low, that the respondents to our survey are still eating out on a regular basis, and in fact more regularly. Pub restaurants and takeaways are the most popular choices, perhaps as diners downgrade from more expensive establishments. “We expect the quick service and takeaway sector to receive a significant boost over the next few weeks with the start of the London Olympics”.
Why does this matter for McDonald’s?
CFO Peter Bensen noted that McDonald’s is seeing “constrained consumer behavior” in global markets, but particularly in Europe where the downturn has persisted for so long. While Bensen did not single out the U.K., he did say that in “several of the markets” in Europe, “the eating out market is simply declining. People are staying at home.” It can be a red flag when companies blame macroeconomic factors for sluggish performance and don’t offer any other company-specific factors as possible reasons.
We continue to struggle with what is behind the recent results from McDonald’s. A company of this size should have better intelligence than what was offered on the conference call on Monday. If frequency of consumers in the U.K. eating out is up, but McDonald’s is not seeing a proportionate boost in its traffic, then perhaps there is a value perception issue for McDonald’s to address in the U.K. We don’t know for sure, but we would appreciate more color from management.


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Wherever consumer attention goes, so must businesses' investment in captivating that attention. This may be obvious, but it's worth underlining now, as digital consumer habits rapidly evolve. Brands that successfully adapt will do so by radically rethinking their methodology for both developing and targeting ads. And that's where brands find themselves with short-form video right now.
As far as users are concerned, video is no longer just a fun extra feature to stumble upon as they browse the web. Video, and particularly short-form video, is the thing that is bringing them to the web in the first place -- repeatedly.
A lot of people active in the online video space are familiar with Cisco's forecast that 79 percent of all online consumer traffic will be video by 2018, and that's starting from a position where video was already accountable for 66 percent of online consumer traffic in 2013. Much of that growth has been around short-form video.
We see this in a number of ways:
Views on mobile devices account for nearly 40 percent of the time users spend on YouTube. According to eMarketer, consumers now spend about 50 percent more time watching video on mobile devices than they do on computers -- that's 33 minutes per day on mobile, 22 on desktops or laptops. Consumers' adaptation to and reliance on mobile certainly drives consumption of short-form video, as mobile is more conducive to the smaller format.
Diversity in short-form video sites is emerging. In addition to the more established content distribution players in short-form video -- YouTube and Vimeo on desktop; Facebook, Vine, Instagram, and Snapchat on mobile -- there are also many emerging media companies whose models depend on a widespread audience hunger for the format. Vessel is taking on YouTube as a high-quality short-form "celebrity" platform, while companies like AnyClip, Perform, and NDN are busting into the comScore top 10 for video thanks to their unique video distribution models.
Willingness of brand advertisers to use short-form video is up. This willingness is fueling profits for digital properties that specialize in delivering it at scale across multiple devices. Industry experts estimate YouTube alone generated $3.7 billion in ad revenue in 2013, and about $4 billion in 2014. The total revenue in 2015 for short-form video, across all providers, has been forecasted at $5 billion and $13 billion by 2019. The reasons for this explosive growth come from both the publisher side and the advertiser side. Savvy publishers understand advertising is simply the best way to monetize this content. Long-form video providers can rely on subscriptions for revenue, but that's clearly not an option for short-form providers.
The most popular short-form videos -- like viral or music videos -- can garner many more views in total than longer-form content because they are much more convenient to watch repeatedly -- and across multiple devices. Brands' investment in short-form pays off. According to an IAB-sanctioned report, 78 percent of the ad views for "digital pure-play" publishers (that is, content providers that don't act like programmers) comes from short-form videos, and overall, 73 percent of viewers will watch an ad in a short-form video all the way through.
However, with every great opportunity there will always be a few hurdles to clear, and short-form video is no different.
Short-form video presents a number of strategic challenges for brands. For instance, content distributors, whether platforms or individual publisher sites, need to mitigate the risk of having to provide costly make-goods in the event campaigns delivered on inventory that doesn't meet brand criteria around viewability and brand safety. The onus is on publishers and content distributors to take charge of their inventory and ensure that the opportunity is safe and targeted for brands, in order to grow their own revenue and to deliver advertiser ROI.
Targeted short-form video advertising lies at an ideal juncture for brand advertisers -- an engaged and increasing audience, in a scalable environment where advertisers have only begun to really get smart. But as content providers who are seeing real revenue know already, the value lies in understanding audience behavior, audience interest, and the contextual environment in which the video is found. Understanding these elements will open the floodgates of business opportunity around short-form video and help brands deliver their ads at scale to consumers in the right mindset for their messages.
On Twitter? Follow iMedia at @iMediaTweet.


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EU produced 13.5 million bicycles in 2021
The sold production of bicycles greatly varies among EU Member States for which data are available. The largest number of bicycles produced was reported in Portugal (2.9 million), Romania (2.5 million), Italy (1.9 million), Germany (1.4 million) and Poland (1.2 million).
Cycling promotes personal health and well-being; it is economical and, to the extent that it can replace the use of private cars, helps reducing air pollution.
EU exported €921 million worth of bicycles in 2021
Data for 2021 show that the EU exported 1 487 700 non-electric bicycles, worth €433 million, and imported 5 743 700, worth €1 046 million. Compared with 2020, the number of non-electric bicycles exported increased by 16% in 2021 and imports increased by 17%.
In 2021, 315 800 electric bicycles worth €488 million were exported by the EU. Meanwhile, the EU imported 1 148 600 electric bicycles, worth €849 million, from countries outside of the EU. Compared with 2020, the number of electric bicycles exported increased by 15% in 2021, while imports of electric bicycles increased by 37%.


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Haven’t finished your holiday shopping yet? Don’t fret – you aren’t alone.
According to a new report published by the National Retail Federation and Prosper and insight Analytics, about 44 percent of people expect to finish their holiday shopping by Saturday. That’s compared to about 24 percent who plan to finish by Sunday, and 7 percent who will be shopping all the way through Christmas Eve.
“Holiday shoppers have been out in full force these last few weeks,” NRF President and CEO Matthew Shay said in a statement. “But many are still waiting to complete their shopping this weekend.”
The weekend before Christmas -- known as “super Saturday” -- has become increasingly popular among customers. According to the survey, about 134 million plan to shop this weekend, up from 126 million in 2017.
Respondents largely said it was because they were still figuring out what to buy, while others were waiting on family members to share their requests. About 26 percent cited other financial responsibilities.
Despite the tight deadline, more than half (51 percent) of people will still make their purchases online.
“They are making sure to research everything from shipping deadline to the best deals,” Prosper Executive Vice President of Strategy Phil Rist said.


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SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) - Shares of Palm Inc. slipped Tuesday after the wireless device maker posted a first-quarter loss and issued a disappointing forecast for the current period.
Wall Street maintained its relatively bearish view on the stock, which fell as much as 5% in early trading and was last hovering at $15.61, down 37 cents from the previous close.
"While the Elevation [recapitalization deal] may be an anchor for the stock, we think the market is tougher than management is preparing for," Jonathan Goldberg of Deutsche Bank wrote in a note to clients.
Goldberg kept his sell rating on the stock and trimmed his price target to $13 from $13.50.
Tim Long of Banc of America Securities maintained his neutral rating and cut his price target by $1 to $15, saying in a note that "we are not convinced that the upcoming product portfolio will be enough to enable share gains and margin improvements."
A note of support came from Tavis McCourt of Morgan Keegan, who rates Palm shares as outperform even though he admitted that the company's profitability trend was "ugly."
"However, it is important to note that this is the big 'sell-in' quarter for the lower-priced Centro and 500v products," McCourt wrote. "We expect that Palm will have a number of products in the future that will sell-in at prices well above current [average selling prices]."
First quarter loss
After Monday's closing bell, Palm reported a net loss of $841,000, or 1 cent a share, for the quarter ended Aug. 31. For the same period last year, the company said earnings were $16.5 million, or 16 cents a share.
Excluding charges related to stock options and restructuring, the company said earnings were $9.7 million, or 9 cents a share, for the quarter.
Revenue came up slightly to $360.8 million from $355.8 million last year.
Analysts were expecting earnings of 8 cents a share on revenue of $360.3 million, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Financial.
The results were largely in line with a pre-announcement by the company last month. The company said its smart-phone sell-through for the quarter totaled 689,000 units, up 21% from last year.
Forecast weak under newer, cheaper products
Palm's forecast for the current period came in below Wall Street's expectations. Revenue for the quarter is expected to come in between $370 million and $380 million.
Analysts were expecting revenue of $407.5 million for the quarter, according to Thomson.
Earnings are expected to come in between 6-8 cents a share, excluding charges. Analysts were expecting earnings of 10 cents a share.
In a conference call, Palm executives said the lower-than-expected results are partly the result of new products "being introduced at aggressive price points to expand our reach into the market."
Last week, Palm debuted a new $99 smartphone dubbed the Centro. The device -- set to be launched in mid-October exclusively with Sprint -- is aimed at cell phone buyers looking for smartphone features but are unwilling to pay the $200-$300 price tag seen on many other such models. See full story.


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Customers wanting to sink their teeth into the legendary and elusive Golden Arches McPizza will have to do some traveling.
Fans of McDonald’s hoping to take a bite out of the Italian fast food dish will have to visit the only place in America that still offers the McPizza: Orlando, Florida. According to Today, a McDonald’s in the Sunshine State, which is also known to be America’s largest McDonald’s, is the lone restaurant that still sells the elusive dish.
The McPizza is one of McDonald’s most mythical menu items. The mega-popular item was added to menus in the late ‘80s, but the chain stopped making the pizza in the 1990s because people had to wait too long for their pies.
Until Aug. 31, fans of the McPizza were still able to get their hands on the cheesy goodness at three locations — Pomeroy, Ohio; Spencer, West Virginia; and Orlando, Florida. The restaurants offered the gone-but-never-forgotten item in a personal-sized pizza or a family-sized pizza, with toppings that ranged from plain cheese, pepperoni, sausage, onions, mushrooms, and green peppers.
The nostalgic days of the McPizza, and the many road trips that people planned just to try it, came to an end for the Ohio and West Virginia locations, though.11comments
“Our menu is always changing, and we will no longer be serving pizza at our locations. However, we continue to offer a wide variety of items for our customers to try and enjoy,” a McDonald's Corporate representative said in a statement from Greg Mills, the franchise operator for the West Virginia and Ohio locations.
While making a pilgrimage to Orlando may not be feasible for every lover of the McPizza, there is hope. Avid fans of the long-gone menu item have turned to social media in a campaign urging the return of McPizza. And before writing off Bring Back the McPizza on Facebook, consider a similar movement helped bring back a limited supply of Szechuan sauce.


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Now that more mainstream grocery stores and big box retailers like Walmart and Target have expanded their organic offering, Whole Foods has pumped money into a new brand campaign to remind people that they stand for more than organics, homeopathics and new age thinking. And because consumers now have more access to lower cost organic food, Whole Foods has much work to do to overcome the perception of being an overpriced, exclusive, luxe grocery store to the wealthy (perhaps you've heard the store referred to by the tongue-in-cheek moniker Whole Wallet). In some cases, they will have to justify why their prices are higher for certain items. This is where the campaign's focus on corporate values comes in.
Whole Foods is placing a hefty bet on the Conscious Consumer trend. According to a study by the Hartman Group, Gen X (the often overlooked middle child of generation-focused marketing) holds much purchase power when it comes to grocery shopping, and have strong opinions about the food they buy. And let's not forget that most coveted group of consumers, Millennials - who in 2013 represented 20% of US spending. According to a 2013 Boston Consulting Group study, up to 10% of Millennials are Clean-and-Green Millennials who make purchases because they are cause-driven or environmentally-minded. But the largest classification of Millennials - 29% - are Hip-ennials who "...seriously believe one can have a positive impact on the world." Our own study about Sustainability and generational opinion revealed that Millennials felt personally responsibility for driving environmental changes, while also believing in sharing responsibility with others. They also want to have their voices/opinions heard in terms of influencing companies’ Sustainability efforts.
If Whole Foods can capture the minds, hearts and wallets of these consumers, the investment on this latest brand campaign will be money well spent.
For more information on our Sustainability study, click here.


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The Return of the Google Panda Update
Thought that Panda was a thing of the past? Nope. It turns out that round two is fast approaching or may have already been implemented, Google has yet to fill us in. “Panda 2.2” will supposedly target poor content websites that somehow survived round one.
If you’re into SEO at all, you probably remember what went down last February. However, for those that aren’t aware, here’s a quick recap of the original Google Panda Update:
• It targeted content farms, or sites that had poor quality content, that were ranking well.
• It affected nearly 12% of search queries, which is a pretty big number.
• The results were felt immediately, resulting in lots of freak outs, dropped rankings, and even lost jobs.
• Numerous article submission/document sharing sites were hit hard and some have since changed their submission guidelines in order to try and appease Google.
The Google Panda update was a reminder to website owners, developers, and internet marketers that content on the web should be about quality rather than quantity. Whereas the previous content marketing strategy for some was to pump out lots of content and submit the same article to numerous sharing websites, Panda hit the message home that high quality and originality is important.
According to Search Engine Land, Panda 2.2 will target “scraper sites”, or sites that pull content from elsewhere on the web (copy it, basically) and outrank the original content. The article also points out that Google manually runs the Panda algorithm. It’s not constantly running, which means that making changes to a site hit by the update won’t produce any immediate change in Google. The changes won’t register until the next Panda assessment. In addition, there are rumors floating around the industry that Panda 2.2 will fix “false positives” of the first update, or sites that were unfairly penalized. This hasn’t been confirmed.
As we’ve been saying all along, if you’ve been practicing white hat SEO there is nothing to worry about with the new update. In fact, you should be looking forward to it. These changes benefit those that have been following the rules all along. It’s not the end of web spam, but it’s certainly another step in the right direction.
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New Air Jordans cause buying frenzy
SEATTLE — The release of Nike's new Air Jordan basketball shoes caused a frenzy at stores across the nation Friday as scuffles broke out and police were brought in to stamp out unrest that nearly turned into riots in some places.
Shoppers stood in long lines through the night to get their hands on a retro version of one of the most popular models of Air Jordans ever made. The fights were reminiscent of violence that broke out in the early 1990s on streets across America as the shoes, named for NBA basketball star Michael Jordan, became popular targets for thieves.
Disturbances were reported Friday at shopping centers from Washington state to Georgia.
In suburban Seattle, police used pepper spray on about 20 customers who started fighting at the Westfield Southcenter mall.
The crowd started gathering at four stores in the mall around midnight and had grown to more than 1,000 people by 4 a.m., when the stores opened, Tukwila Officer Mike Murphy said. "Around 3 (a.m.) there started to be some fighting and pushing among the customers," he said. "Around 4, it started to get pretty unruly and officers sprayed pepper spray on a few people who were fighting, and that seemed to do the trick to break them up."
Murphy said no injuries were reported, although some people suffered cuts or scrapes from fights. An 18-year-old man was arrested for assault after authorities say he punched an officer. "He did not get his shoes; he went to jail," Murphy said. Shoppers also broke two doors.
In Richmond, Calif., police say crowds waiting to buy the Air Jordan 11 Retro Concords at the Hilltop Mall were turned away after a gunshot rang out around 7 a.m.
No injuries were reported, but police said a 24-year-old suspect was taken into custody. The gun apparently went off inadvertently.
The frenzy over Air Jordans — the new pair retails for about $180 — has been dangerous in the past. Some people were mugged or even killed for early versions of the shoe, created by Nike Inc. in 1985.
The Air Jordan since has been a consistent hit with sneaker fans. A new edition was launched each year, and release dates had to be moved to the weekends at some points to keep kids from skipping school to get a pair.
No one anticipated the hysteria around the original Air Jordan, which spawned a subculture of collectors willing to wait hours to buy the latest pair. Some collectors save the shoes for special occasions or never take them out of the box.
But the uproar over the shoe had died down in recent years.


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Modernizers reported better outcomes across the board compared to migrators, according to IDC’s paper.
The most popular digital transformation initiatives for IBM i shops, according to IDC’s survey.
IDC questioned all four cohorts (IBM i shops that modernized, IBM i shops that migrated, System z shops that modernized, and System z shops that migrated) about their satisfaction across a range of metrics before and after their move, including: customer experience; overall performance; security, availability, and disaster recovery capabilities; agility, microservices, and DevOps; ease of finding talent; ability to incorporate AI and IoT; and API, mobile, and Web enablement.
Across all seven metrics, the IBM i and System z shops that modernized their “legacy” systems scored higher than their IBM i and System z colleagues who chose to migrate off their systems. What’s more, organizations that modernized instead of migrated reported paying less on hardware, software, and staffing, and reported higher revenues to boot.
Making software better rather than just lifting and shifting it usually works out better.
Source: Modernization Trumps Migration for IBM i and Mainframe, IDC Says e
The reality, though, is that many European organizations are only at the beginning of the journey to achieve elite delivery performance. From IDCs point of view, the ability to transform application estates and accelerate application delivery is one of the most critical business objectives for organizations in the next five years, with European organizations forecast to spend $80 billion on accelerated application delivery by 2022.
Source: DevOps-Led Business Transformation
36% of developers cited “resource allocation and management” as their chief impediment to productivity, while 34% cited the “lack of automated collaboration between software developers and IT operations.”
Source: VMware Modernizes Its Approach to Kubernetes, Increasing Its Appeal to Developers and DevOps
An IDC “survey of global organizations that are already using artificial intelligence (AI) solutions found only 25% have developed an enterprise-wide AI strategy.”
“More than 60% of organizations reported changes in their business model in association with their AI adoption.”
Source: IDC Survey Finds Artificial Intelligence to be a Priority for Organizations But Few Have Implemented an Enterprise-Wide Strategy
Worldwide spending on customer experience (CX) technologies will total $508 billion in 2019, an increase of 7.9% over 2018, according to the inaugural Worldwide Semiannual Customer Experience Spending Guide from International Data Corporation (IDC). As companies focus on meeting the expectations of customers and providing a differentiated customer experience, IDC expects CX spending to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.2% over the 2018-2022 forecast period, reaching $641 billion in 2022.
Source: Spending on Customer Experience Technologies Will Reach $641 Billion in 2022, According to New IDC Spending Guide
“The adoption of cloud platforms is a movement that will not be stopped,” says Jerry Silva, research director, IDC’s Financial Insights Group. “But there will be a slowdown as regulators step in to ensure that the security and resiliency structures that have always applied to banks directly are applied to the cloud providers with which they do business.”
Source: The Cost of Banking Is About to Go Up: What the Capital One Breach at Amazon Could Mean for the Industry
Beyond the first quarter, IDC anticipates the global smart home market will reach 840.7 million units by the end of 2019 and grow to 1.46 billion units by 2023
Source: Growing Acceptance of Smart Home Devices Will Drive Double-Digit Growth Through 2023, According to a New IDC Forecast
The market for wearable devices is on track to reach global shipments of 222.9 million units in 2019, growing to 302.3 million units in 2023 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.9%
Source: Earwear and Watches Expected to Drive Wearables Market at a CAGR of 7.9%, Says IDC
“Industry spending on DX technologies is being driven by core innovation accelerator technologies with IoT and cognitive computing leading the race in terms of overall spend,” said Eileen Smith, program director with IDC’s Customer Insights and Analysis Group. “The introduction of IoT sensors and communications capabilities is rapidly transforming manufacturing processes as well as asset and inventory management across a wide range of industries. Similarly, artificial intelligence and machine learning are dramatically changing the way businesses interact with data and enabling fundamental changes in business processes.”
Some 75 percent of the total digital transformation spend will go to hardware and services. Chinese and U.S. companies together will account for more than half the overall spend.
What? No blockchain?
Original source: Enterprises to spend almost $2 trillion on digital transformation by 2022
For if you need some IT TAM time.
Original source: IT Spending To Boom In 2018, Tails Off In 2019
IDC survey on digital transformation says organizations are motivated to get more “productivity” and be more competitive, among other survey findings. And, as always, “the biggest barriers are people oriented.”
Original source: What’s really driving digital transformation globally? IDC has answers
“One answer is in a straightforward metric—how new technologies like cloud, cognitive, mobile, IoT, mobile, etc., impact industries via the gross domestic product (GDP) by industry by region. Looking at the improvement opportunities in healthcare, energy, government, and the supply chain, among other domains, IDC has identified $18.5 trillion in annual economic value add by 2020. That’s a 25% increase in global GDP.”
Original source: Modeling the future enterprise: people, purpose, and profit
“Worldwide spending on security-related hardware, software, and services is forecast to reach $91.4 billion in 2018, an increase of 10.2% over the amount spent in 2017.” Also, a breakdown of spending per industry and type of security product.
Original source: Worldwide Spending on Security Solutions Forecast to Reach $91 Billion in 2018, According to a New IDC Spending Guide
For companies under 1,000 people, IDC “forecasts total IT spending by small and medium-size businesses (SMBs) to be nearly $602 billion in 2018, an increase of 4.9% over 2017. With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.7% for the 2016-2021 forecast period, spending by businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees on IT hardware, software, and services, including business services, is expected to reach $684 billion on in 2021.”
Original source: Worldwide SMB IT Spending to Pass $600 Billion in 2018, Driven by Mid-Market Demand for Software and Services, According to IDC
“Datacenters certainly came to the fourth quarter of last year hungry, and according to the latest statistics from IDC, they consumed 2.84 million units of iron, a 10.8 percent increase over the prior year’s final quarter. Thanks to IBM’s big bump up with System z14 mainframe sales and to a general trend of buying beefier boxes for hefty machine learning, analytics, and HPC workloads (admittedly but a slice of the server shipment pie), revenues for those servers shipped rose by 26.4 percent to $20.65 billion. This is the first time ever that server sales broke through the $20 billion barrier, and after IDC finishes restating its ODM server revenues for the first quarter of 2017, it is likely that it will report revised sales for all of 2017 to kiss $67 billion. Over that same period, Intel’s Data Center Group will account for $19.1 billion in sales and $8.4 billion in operating profit, just to give you a sense of the chip giant’s slice of the pie. If you are generous and assume that there is a 10 percent operating margin on servers – and that is because big iron NUMA machines and mainframes bring up the class average bigtime even as the ODMs do maybe 5 points of profit at best – that is a potential operating profit for the server industry of around $7 billion. If that is close to reality, then Intel will have around 27 percent of server revenues passed back to it by its OEM and ODM partners as a cost for compoents. If you add Intel’s profit to the server industry’s aggregate profit, and then add in the profit for memory and flash makers, Intel could account for 40 percent of the profit and as much as 50 percent back when memory and flash cost half as much as it did a year ago.”
Original source: The Server Market Booms, And It Could Last For A While
Includes an interesting chart that lists the types of services/features (like data management and appdev platforms) that compose vendor revenue. Plus geographic and vertical rankings. But, just a press release.
Original source: Worldwide Public Cloud Services Spending Forecast to Reach $160 Billion This Year, According to IDC
Corporate departments outside of the IT department, globally, are forecast to spend $609bn in 2017:
A new update to the Worldwide Semiannual IT Spending Guide: Line of Business from the International Data Corporation (IDC) forecasts worldwide corporate IT spending funded by non-IT business units will reach $609 billion in 2017, an increase of 5.9% over 2016. The Spending Guide, which quantifies the purchasing power of line of business (LoB) technology buyers by providing a detailed examination of where the funding for a variety of IT purchases originates, also forecasts LoB spending to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.9% over the 2015-2020 forecast period. In comparison, technology spending by IT buyers is forecast to have a five-year CAGR of 2.3%. By 2020, IDC expects LoB technology spending to be nearly equal to that of the IT organization.
Meanwhile, all in, global IT spend was estimated at $2.4tn in 2016, but that includes telco and consumer tech. And, this demographic breakdown for enterprise IT spend:
In terms of company size, more than 45% of all IT spending worldwide will come from very large businesses (more than 1,000 employees) while the small office category (the 70-plus million small businesses with 1-9 employees) will provide roughly one quarter of all IT spending throughout the forecast period. Medium (100-499 employees) and large (500-999 employees) business will see the fastest growth in IT spending, each with a CAGR of 4.4%.
Sources: Technology Purchases from Line of Business Budgets Forecast to Grow Faster Than Purchases Funded by the IT Organization, According to IDC, March 2017 and Worldwide IT Spending Forecast to Reach $2.7 Trillion in 2020 Led by Financial Services, Manufacturing, and Healthcare, According to IDC, Aug 2016.
That chart is in millions, i.e., 260m in 2016; the write-up on Quartz is a little wonky in that respect.
From IDC: “Annually, shipments of traditional PCs slipped to 260 million units, down 5.7% from 2015.”
Source: Worldwide PC sales are exactly where they were in 2008 — Quartz


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- Cristiano Ronaldo singled out Man United’s Chicharito for praise v Malaga [Video]
- PSV’s Marcel Brands says big teams are circling Memphis Depay. Man United & Spurs name-checked [VI]
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- Arsenal fans slam Wojciech Szczesny after the FA Cup win v Reading [Videos]
Barcelona star Andres Iniesta sells smartphones to the Spanish public in new Sony commercial
- December 26, 2013
Sony have released a sweet new video on Thursday featuring Andres Iniesta selling smartphones.
The new commercial sees Iniesta play the role of a salesmen in a Sony store, and unsuspecting members of the public received advise on buying a new handset from the Catalans and Spanish hero.
It didn’t take long for people in the store to work out what was going on.
Watch Andres Iniesta star in a new Spanish ad for Sony below.


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- PayPal is introducing a feature for buying and selling crypto.
- The price of Bitcoin shot up at the news, with speculation that mass adoption is around the corner.
- However, PayPal is stripping several salient Bitcoin features from its product.
News broke this morning that PayPal, the company that kickstarted the online money transfer industry, will start allowing users to buy Bitcoin via its app and website.
Some have hailed the move as a decisive moment for Bitcoin adoption and cryptocurrency markets have responded favorably, with the price of BTC briefly hitting $13,000 today. But others think PayPal's forthcoming feature is a bad look for the world’s largest cryptocurrency, primarily because of what it lacks.
PayPal’s new feature will allow users in the United States to buy, sell, and hold Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, and Litecoin on its platform.
But there are a few things missing—for starters, private keys. While that’s something exchange users may not scoff at, they may be more troubled that “the crypto in your account cannot be transferred to other accounts on or off PayPal.” Which is something you would expect from an asset you supposedly own.
Blockstream CEO Adam Back and Kraken's Dan Held pointed out that PayPal could follow the lead of other platforms, such as eToro, and add withdrawal features after the fact.
However, for the moment PayPal's proposal is like Bitcoin without the Bitcoin.
Thus, according to Casa CTO Jameson Lopp, it’s not really crypto that PayPal is making available, but IOUs. In other words, and say it with me, not your keys, not your coins.
SatoshiLabs, the creator of the Trezor hardware wallet, wasted no time telling people not to use PayPal for Bitcoin (which would, of course, cut into their core offering).
“When a household brand like PayPal starts selling Bitcoin, it’s probably not because they want to spur healthy adoption,” it said in a blog post.
It continued: “The only reasons to own Bitcoin which cannot be used would be to invest for the long term, which is incredibly reckless to do when your funds are held by a third party, or speculate on its price, which again, would be introducing the masses to financial mechanisms they do not understand.”
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse admitted it was “great to see a payment pioneer leaning in,” but noted it was “disappointing [that] some fundamental tenets/benefits of crypto are spurned.” He then pivoted to a common refrain at Ripple, speculating that PayPal is remaining cautious because of crypto’s regulatory uncertainty within the US. (Ripple execs have publicly stated they are considering relocating the company outside the US.)
If Garlinghouse is right, then one might reasonably expect PayPal’s cryptocurrency features to evolve and expand, as Back and Held apparently do. Indeed, next year, PayPal plans to allow users to actually use Bitcoin for payments, though merchants will receive dollars rather than BTC.
Regardless, these battle lines have been drawn before, and they’ll continue to divide cryptocurrency users. However, the question is: When more giants like PayPal get into the game (and perhaps drive the price up), how many people will stand with the cypherpunks on the other side?
Stay on top of crypto news, get daily updates in your inbox.


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Minnesotans planning to order takeout meals could have the option to add beer, wine or cider to their meal as early as this weekend under a proposal that passed the state Senate on Thursday.
The proposal would allow restaurants to sell a six-pack of beer, hard seltzer or cider or a bottle of wine with takeout food orders under the proposal. It would not apply for delivery orders and the customer picking up an order would have to be 21 or older.
The Senate approved the plan on a 65-2 vote and the House was set to take it up on Friday. Gov. Tim Walz has said he supports the bill as it could help restaurants generate more revenue during the pandemic, something restaurant owners have said they urgently need.
Walz last month issued an order requiring restaurants and bars to close except for takeout and delivery food options due the COVID-19 pandemic and the businesses had so far been unable to offer alcoholic beverages with customers’ orders.
“It’s tough, these are really really tough times and I wish this bill could open up Minnesota while keeping us all safe, but this is what we can do at this time,” the bill’s author Sen. Karin Housley, R-St. Marys Point, said. “This is what it is for today.”
Some restaurant owners raised frustrations about not being able to offer mixed drinks or components of cocktails as part of the plan, which they said, could help bring in even more money while their dining rooms are shuttered. Municipalities would be able to opt-out of the provision if they wanted.
Housley and Rep. Jon Koznick, R-Lakeville, said they still supported those options but wanted to quickly pass a proposal to free up options for restaurants and some senators said they couldn’t support the bill without the tighter restrictions. The Minnesota Craft Brewers Guild also raised concerns about not being included in the extended off-sale bill.
“That was the only thing that we could get agreement on,” Housley said. “We barely got this much.”
Opponents on Thursday said the state should be doing more to support other businesses during the pandemic and they raised concerns about prioritizing alcohol sales over other issues.
“I understand that our businesses need help, but I don’t think this is the best way of doing it,” Sen. Mark Johnson, R-East Grand Forks, said, noting that alcohol addiction can be deadly.


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MIDAS DIRECTORS DEALS: Eight Pru directors sell shares worth more than £20m. Time to buy, sell or hold?
While companies love to trumpet directors’ share purchases, they are rather more bashful when it comes to directors selling stock.
Late last month, eight directors at life insurer Prudential sold shares worth more than £20million in total.
Chief executive Tidjane Thiam sold just over 30 per cent of his stock, generating a one-off gain of £4.7million.
Selling stock: Prudential chief executive Tidjane Thiam sold just over 30 per cent of his stock
Other sellers included Mike Wells, head of the Pru’s US business, and Barry Stowe, head of the group’s Asian business. All sold at 1193p and the shares are 1118p today.
Prudential has come a long way in recent years. Back in 2010, it was forced to abandon a bid for Asian group AIA, after big investors protested that the deal was too ambitious.
At the time the shares were about 510p and questions were raised about Thiam’s leadership.
Ultimately, he stayed and the company has gone from strength to strength, boosting sales and profits and expanding its Asian business organically.
Last month, Thiam delivered a strong first-quarter trading statement and said he was confident about future growth. That was on May 7, three weeks before the directors sold nearly two million shares.
The company maintains the sales arose simply because directors had not sold any shares in years. They were keen to raise some cash and have some fun.
Reassuringly, all eight directors retain substantial holdings and most City analysts rate the business.
Midas verdict: Investors who bought shares when they were half today’s price may wish to follow the directors’ lead. However, the Pru does offer good, long-term potential, so existing shareholders should keep most of their stock while potential investors could take a closer look.
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Guangdong Rolls Out Massive Electric Bus Upgrade
(Beijing) — Three of the four largest cities in affluent Guangdong province will upgrade their entire public-bus fleets to electric-powered vehicles by 2020 — part of an ambitious plan to make three-quarters of all provincial public buses powered by clean energy over the next five years.
The provincial capital of Guangzhou, along with the adjacent city of Foshan and the boomtown of Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, lie at the heart of the determined upgrade, which is part of the province’s Five-Year Plan that runs from 2016 to 2020. China has been aggressively promoting new-energy vehicles over the last five years in a bid to clean up the nation’s polluted air and develop cutting-edge technologies that can be exported.
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Maison Margiela‘s creative director, John Galliano, announced that he is going fur-free. He’s the latest to join the fur-free fashion team, which currently includes brands like Gucci, Michael Kors, DKNY, and Versace among others, as well as designer Giorgio Armani.
The announcement was made during an interview with French Elle, after a meeting with PETA Senior Vice President Dan Matthews.
“I was swimming in the sea with Penélope Cruz in Saint-Tropez. And just then, Dan’s face popped out of the water. It was like in ‘Jaws’ – very frightening!” the designer said during the interview. “I knew PETA’s work, I respected them, but their reputation preceded them. You can be outrageous and fun without fur! Come and party with us, you’ll see!”
When asked, “Fur used to be associated with luxury. . . what is luxury today?” Galliano said: “It’s authenticity. And inventiveness. . . Today we don’t want a product, we want ethics, a firm that defends the values that we admire.”
Not only is Galliano dropping fur, but he was also prompted to go vegetarian during his meeting with Matthews – an encounter that happened just by chance!
“My life is more balanced,” Galliano said regarding his new diet. “I really became a vegetarian in order to get into better shape. I play sports, I take care of myself and I’ve never been more clear-eyed. The energy that I get from having fewer toxins in my body is extraordinary. The pressure in the fashion industry is the same, but now I know how to step away and meditate, and my life has gone from black to white!”
Galliano has also been thinking a lot about what women want in fashion, and he is becoming more and more convinced that the answer is not fur. We have a feeling he’s right, considering the list of major fashion houses that have gone fur-free keeps on growing. Even the city of San Francisco is implementing a ban on selling fur, which will come into effect in 2019.


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Europe’s car industry says it is facing an unprecedented crisis as the coronavirus emergency halts production and shuts off retail outlets. Crude oil prices have slumped below $30/bl for the first time in four years. So where does this all leave the electric vehicle (EV) revolution, which only three months ago looked poised for its big breakthrough in 2020?
Setting aside the automotive industry’s deepening crisis and its potential impact on EV development, plunging crude prices alone would once have been enough to sideline the EV project. Even before the recent crude price retreat, drivers across middle America were citing cheap fuel as a reason to stick with the internal combustion engine, delegates to the Argus Metals Week event in London last month heard.
Before this month’s price collapse, crude last slipped below $30/bl in early 2016 as OPEC tussled with shale producers for market share. But a lot has changed since then. The weight of pressure on governments and industry to achieve net zero carbon has increased exponentially. For many investors, action on carbon has gone from nice-to-have to deal breaker. More importantly, carbon has become seriously unacceptable to growing numbers of mainstream consumers. Before coronavirus, climate action was centre stage.
China, emerging from its own coronavirus crisis, last week signalled its new energy vehicle ambitions remain intact, with top planning officials floating the idea of subsidies at regional levels to speed up growth.
The growth of EVs in Europe and in the US — still in its infancy but gaining momentum until coronavirus struck — will obviously slow this year and possibly beyond as the whole vehicle market contracts. And governments that had started cranking up subsidies and tax breaks to support the uptake of EVs now have much bigger economic priorities on their agenda. On the ground, recently emerging supply chains for the manufacture of batteries in Europe will face temporary setbacks as the commodity markets for key metals such as lithium, nickel and cobalt are rattled by the coronavirus crisis.
But the long-term commitment to going electric will not be reversed by the current turmoil.
Argus Metals International provides a suit of price assessments for key battery materials including lithium hydroxide and carbonate, nickel sulphate, cobalt hydroxide, graphite and manganese sulphate. For further information check out argusmedia.com/argusmetals.


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Pop-up agency for college-leavers launches
By Ian Darby, campaignlive.co.uk, Thursday, 26 July 2012 10:45AM
Commercial Break, a new initiative to encourage young college-leavers from under-privileged backgrounds to enter the ad business, has launched a pop-up agency.
The Commercial Break agency has opened its doors with a brief from the video game company Ubisoft, which is behind releases including Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed.
Thirty students, aged 18 and 19, from colleges across London applied for the eight positions on the team and will work in space provided by Southwark College. The aim is to create an ad campaign to support the launch of a Ubisoft game in the autumn.
The Commercial Break initiative is the brainchild of James Hillhouse, a freelance planner who previously worked at DDB, and Susie Burdekin, a consultant at the coaching company Drill.
A second phase of the initiative will support the team in finding paid internships following work on the Ubisoft brief. Hillhouse is in talks with agencies in an attempt to secure placements.
Mark Slaughter, the head of brand marketing at Ubisoft, said: "We believe the participants will bring a fresh perspective."Follow @Darbs73
This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk
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The huge new Puerto Rico mall, dubbed the Mogán Mall, is set to open next year and will contain over 140 shops plus bars, restaurants and a large Hiperdino supermarket.
Tipping in Gran Canaria and all over the Canary Islands is straightforward and the rules are the same for locals and tourists.
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2K Sports has announced their new Boxing IP Don King’s Prizefighter has been cleared for a June 10 release on Xbox 360.
Don King’s Prizefighter puts players in the shoes of a relatively unknown fighter who must punch his way into stardom.
The action takes place both in and out of the ring where players will follow their fighter’s career via a documentary starring the likes of g Ken Norton, Larry Holmes, Andrew Golota, Joe Calzaghe and others.
Temptations of wealth and women will test players in the documentary including Heather Vandeven, the reigning 2007 Penthouse Pet of the Year, and video babe Bria Myles.
Order Don King’s Prizefighter for Xbox 360 from Amazon.com.
Later this year, Don King’s Prizefighter will be available for Nintendo Wii and DS.


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Amazon has announced that its Prime service, which offers free two-day shipping and $3.99-per-item one-day shipping, is now available in Canada. While Americans benefit from the $79/year service a little more than we do — Canadians don’t have access to the Kindle Lending Library or Instant Video Streaming — but the pros certainly outweigh the cons for perennial shoppers.
For places where one- or two-day shipping is not available, free standard shipping is available. The deal is not valid in Quebec, either.
There is a month-long free trial to the service for the trepidatious, and there is no commitment to continue the service after the first month. I have a lot of friends in the U.S. who say they can’t live without Amazon Prime, and if you’re anything like them, it would be a good idea to try it out. Amazon.ca offers a ton of mobile accessories including cases, chargers and other stuff that is often cheaper than on
Check it out at Amazon.ca


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Theorem, a digital marketing solutions provider, today launched Upward, which transforms ad operations by making common pain points, including make-goods, obsolete.
Upward enables organizations to scale ad operations workflows via tailored automation. It is a customizable white-glove solution that enhances the ad operation process by doing the following:
- Speeding up order cycles;
- Automating manual processes; and
- Changing workforce dynamic to focus on creative production, business development and strategic thinking.
Upward enables automation of advertising operations across the order-to-cash process, including trafficking, reporting, brand safety and campaign management.
“Our mission is to revolutionize ad operations and promote the role of automation in increasing business profitability,” said Jay Kulkarni, founder and CEO of Theorem, in a statement. “Our role as a strategic partner to media companies is to drive change and enhance efficiencies across their organizations. Outside of revenue growth, the impact Upward and automation is having on teams is exciting. AdOps professionals are inspired by the opportunities to grow their careers in new ways. Teams now can focus on proactivity, building stronger relationships, client growth and satisfaction, team empowerment, as well as greater productivity and cost efficiencies.”


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MG Rover expects to supply the West Bromwich Building Society with “hundreds” of cars under a new exclusive supply deal.
The scheme, dubbed 'Brum Brum', will see people who borrow more than £90,000 on a West Bromwich mortgage offered the keys to a new £7,995 Rover 25 1.1i 3dr. But they will be tied into a higher interest rate – 5.99% – for five years.
The building society has committed to purchasing an unspecified number of cars from MG Rover to secure as low a price as possible. That is likely to be about £5,600 – a discount of about 30%.
Neither company would reveal full details, although David Johnston, general manager of marketing at the West Bromwich, says: “We have a preferential deal for very good discounts with MG Rover – that's the sole deal for us, there is no turn on the car.
“The campaign will last for several months and we might shape another deal at the end of that.” MG Rover dismisses suggestions that the agreement could affect residual values, currently 35% over three years/30,000 miles, pointing out that the volumes are relatively low. “We also don't expect customers to take a shortcut to a fast buck by selling the car as soon as they get the keys – they are paying for it from their mortgage so it's not an astute thing to do. But that is a possibility and it's entirely up to them,” says a spokesman for the carmaker. “This is simply an opportunity for us to sell some cars – and that's likely to be in the hundreds, not the thousands.”
One industry analyst was sceptical about the deal. “It's better than having them stuck on an airfield somewhere, but then why build them in the first place?” he asked. However, those claims are rejected by MG Rover, which says that all the cars are being built to order. “We do not have loads of these cars in stock waiting to be sold,” says the spokesman.
Once the mortgage is completed, MGR takes control of the customer. It also has the opportunity to upgrade the buyer to a higher model spec, with the customer paying the difference in price.
MGR has embarked on a number of alternative ways to get its models to market. The Streetwise has been offered as a competition prize on a number of TV shows and local radio programmes.
One car was even given away each day of the week by retailers during a recent promotion. “There's no point in us following the same old routes to market – we have had to change the parameters of our operation and be more innovative in our thinking,” says the MGR spokesman.