February 29, 2012

Once Film-Focused, Netflix Transitions to TV Shows

By BRIAN STELTER

Belying the “flix” in its name, Netflix is now primarily an Internet streaming service for television shows, not feature films.
TV series now account for more than half of all Netflix viewing. That helps to explain why this Wednesday — the long-awaited moment when motion picture classics like “Scarface” and newer hits like “Toy Story 3” will vanish from the streaming service — is not the doomsday that it was once expected to be.
The vanishing films are from Starz. Its three-and-a-half-year-old deal helped Netflix persuade millions of people to sign up for Internet streaming, hastening the company’s leap to digital distribution from physical DVDs.
It became clear about a year ago that the deal would not be renewed. By then, though, Netflix was bulking up on old TV episodes and, in a direct challenge to HBO, beginning to distribute its own original shows for the streaming service.
Analysts say the prioritizing of television partly explains why the company has been able to retain about 21.7 million streaming subscribers in the United States — totaling one in four households that have broadband — despite complaints about an inadequate feature film selection. It’s a transition that Netflix has made rather successfully in the last six to 12 months, in stark contrast to its botched plan to spin off DVD-by-mail into a separate company called Qwikster last fall.
While the end of the Starz deal is bad news for Netflix, said Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG Research, “given the significant increase in TV viewing, it’s not the catastrophic event that everyone thought it would be a year ago.”
The new-release movies provided by Starz account for just 2 percent of all viewing, Netflix says, down from 8 percent a year ago — illuminating the fact that the company has spent lavishly on new streaming titles that subscribers want to watch instead. (“I would contend Netflix spends wisely rather than lavishly,” a Netflix spokesman, Steve Swasey, said in response.)
Many of the new titles are full seasons of TV series like “Mad Men,” “Breaking Bad” and “Lost” that Netflix executives call “26-hour movies.”
The pivot to TV reruns was necessitated in part by the tightening of the movie spigot by major movie studios. Fearing that Netflix might grow too popular or powerful, the studios “have decided to dramatically raise prices” for films and shows, said Youssef H. Squali, a managing director for Jefferies & Company. “So in effect, the company is being forced into offering more (older) TV content because it’s cheaper,” he said.
The company’s next challenge is to come up with original shows — instead of reruns — that subscribers will latch onto, mimicking the HBO model. Such a model further distances Netflix from films and differentiates it from newfound competitors like Hulu and Amazon.
Reed Hastings, Netflix’s chief executive, told business school students in Manhattan last week that the company would try a couple of dozen original series in the coming years, but did not specify a timeframe; Netflix had previously said that five such series would premiere by the end of 2013.
A show from Norway, “Lilyhammer,” had its American debut on Netflix earlier this month, and an ambitious drama made just for Netflix, “House of Cards,” will have its debut later in the year. A revival of the Fox sitcom “Arrested Development” will come out sometime next year.
“While they are losing the Starz content later this week, and that could cause some people to cancel subscriptions to the service, the library will otherwise be generally improving throughout the year and then having a more significant step up with ‘House of Cards’ in late ’12 and ‘Arrested Development’ and Dreamworks films in ’13,” said Michael Olson, an analyst at Piper Jaffray.
Still, there is a persistent undercurrent of criticism about Netflix’s actual movie selection, and it was highlighted this week by the Starz disappearance. Mr. Olson’s firm reported last week that only four of the 50 top-grossing films of 2011 were currently available for streaming on the service, and that one of them, Disney’s “Gnomeo and Juliet,” would vanish on Wednesday.
John Hall, a graphic designer in Massachusetts, said he recently dropped the streaming service and started resorting to DVD rentals for that reason. Whenever he headed to Netflix to stream a film, he said, “more often than not, the film I wanted to see was only available on disc.”
Netflix is sensitive to that criticism — but says it doesn’t really matter. (And not just because Mr. Hall is still paying for DVDs by mail.) As long as its algorithms serve up something worth watching, even if it’s not the subscriber’s first choice, he or she will continue paying for and enjoying the service, the company believes.
“The cocktail party conversation in the media world is, the content’s terrible,” Mr. Greenfield said. “And yet the average subscriber is devouring over an hour a day, every single day. Obviously they don’t think it’s horrible.” He noted that films did not need to be box-office smashes to succeed on Netflix — in fact, some films have a second life online precisely because they were not widely seen in theaters.
Earlier this month, Netflix secured rights to “The Artist,” which won the best-picture Oscar at the Academy Awards ceremony on Sunday. It has earned just $32 million at the box office to date and will become available on Netflix in less than six months, the company said Monday.
Netflix can also replenish some of the vanishing Starz films by buying them separately. But for now, its rights to “Toy Story 3,” “Tron,” “Tangled,” “A Christmas Carol” and other films are drying up. Some TV series from Starz are vanishing too, including “Party Down” and “Spartacus,” creating new tests for Netflix’s recommendation algorithms.
Netflix declined to comment on exactly what proportion of total viewing that TV episodes make up, but its executives put the number at 50 to 60 percent last fall. Mr. Greenfield said he suspected that the percentage was 80 percent — an impressive triumph for TV over film.

My Comments: The reason I picked this article is because just yesterday I was asked how much netflix costs per month by a friend and while I don't pay the bill I couldn't answer but I said "it's definitely worth it because they have so many tv shows without commercials, I don't even use it for movies anymore". So when I saw that what I had said was exactly what Netflix has been going for I was shocked. Netflix's main competitor for online streaming of TV shows is Hulu (if I had to guess). I have watched shows on both websites and while Netflix only has previously aired shows, there are no commercials whereas Hulu has quite a few or streams you to the website of the channel the show was aired on to watch it and the tv channel websites have so many commercials sometimes it's not even worth it to watch the show! I think Netflix is doing a good thing but I will be sad if they completely drop out of the movie business because they really do have a great mail in DVD program. 

February 27, 2012

Marketing Doctor' John Tantillo's Winner and Loser of the Week: Jeremy Lin and Mitt Romney's Elephant

WINNER:

Success is where opportunity meets preparedness –and there’s always got to be a little bit of luck too. In Jeremy Lin's case, all of that is there, but what matters most is that there are solid sports branding reasons behind him. As a result, we are probably witnessing the birth of one of the greatest sports brands of all time.
First you have the “Call-u” effect. C for connectivity. A for attractiveness. L for longevity. L for likeability. U for uniqueness. This is a quick assessment tool to get a rough idea of the potential value of a personality brand. Lin has each of these five features in abundance.
Next, you have add the fact that Lin is an athlete and hence a performance brand (i.e., the fundamental support for his brand is his continued achievement on the court). Given that Lin seems to have arrived as a player and should maintain his dominance, then the “Call-u” factors should all support and add value to his brand.
For example, you can have a great performance brand –take Barry Bonds or Alex Rodriguez— but without the connectivity and likeability components, you simply can’t achieve stratospheric brand value. But Lin has more than either “Call-u” or performance. He has an inspirational story that has already made history. On top of that, he has the massive potential of combining an adoring Chinese audience globally with a huge and adoring non-Chinese audience. Sometimes a difference in degree is a difference in kind and the size of Lin's possible following could re-define what it means to be an international brand.
The bottom line is this: not only are we witnessing the birth of one of the greatest sport brands of all time in terms of total value, but we are also witnessing a brand that will raise the profile of other brands like Harvard, his alma mater, and should we even go a bit farther afield brand-wise? Why not? Lin’s heritage is Taiwanese. Will he use his personal brand and basketball to bridge the gulf between the mainland and the island of his heritage?
Stay tuned. Here's what I said about Jeremy on Fox.
LOSER:

Folks, Mitt Romney has an elephant in the room that is threatening his campaign. This particular elephant follows him onto the campaign bus, is at every event, stands behind him at each podium --in short, this elephant will never go away and can never be ignored no matter how much Mitt Romney may try to wish for it.

Many candidates for high office in our great land are familiar with Romney's kind of elephant. For the most part they, too, try to ignore it and for the most part this is successful because their elephants are fed on professional salaries and speaker fees. Not so for Romney. I'm speaking about his huge personal wealth and the fact that if he hopes to win the GOP nomination, let alone the presidency, it is high time for him to not only acknowledge this elephant, but praise it.
That's right, Mitt Romney needs to be honest and admit that he's rich --no, he needs to trumpet this fact (please excuse the pun). You see, Romney is a likeable man but because he's not being upfront about this one issue, he has erected a wall between himself and the American people.
Since when has being rich been a crime in America? Romney must deliver the speech. Not about religion and not about a grand vision for America. Mitt Romney must endorse himself, all that he is, by saying something like this: I'm rich and I'm proud of it. I'm not proud of it for selfish reasons, but for what it says about this country and opportunity. I'm rich because I was given a chance to work hard and get rewarded for that work.
From there Romney needs to underscore that wealth in America must not become fodder for class warfare and that income mobility has and will be one of the defining qualities of our nation. The Romney campaign has to ask itself why it is that Michael Bloomberg's vast wealth, many multiples ahead of relatively poor Mitt, was a virtue for the New York mayor.
The answer is pretty straightforward. Bloomberg was smart enough never to make it an issue by never, ever, denying the obvious. Moreover, he harnessed his curriculum vitae to drive the perception that he was a great manager and a superb businessman who could breath fresh life into city government.
Bloomberg didn't even curtail his Bermuda getaways. Why should he --he essentially argued--this is America and there is no law against using the fruits of one's labor however one chooses? After all, we celebrate the monetary success of those in other areas like sports and entertainment -- most people would never think of going after Oprah for her wealth or Tom Cruise for his.
If Romney has religious scruples around this question (such as appearing to lack humility), he can use them for the broader message that his personal wealth is ultimately not about him. Romney can tie his wealth to the immigrant story and the goal of economic freedom and freedom from too much government regulation and interference.
In marketing, the core features of a product can never be denied. Romney is a rich man. That is a core feature. And for Romney being rich is a virtue not a vice --but only if he embraces it. It's time that the elephant gets out of the living room and begins pulling this campaign.
And remember, it's always easier when you keep marketing and branding in mind.
TODAY'S TANTILLO TAKEAWAY-- If you have feature that is central to your brand, you can never ignore it or act as if it doesn't exist.

John Tantillo is a marketing and branding expert who has a doctorate in applied research psychology. He is president of the Branding and Marketing Group and markets his own services as "The Marketing Doctor." He is also the author of People Buy Brands, Not Companies, an AMA member, and the host of BrandTalk, Wednesdays from 3 to 4 p.m. ET on radio station WVOX 1460 AM, and streaming at www.brandtalkradio.com.
The opinions expressed in this post are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the American Marketing Association.

Posted by Christine Birkner on February 22, 2012 1:44 PM |

My Comments: I really liked the analysis this author made of Jeremy Lin and Mitt Romney's Personal brands. Jeremy Lin has been all over the news as being a great basketball player and it's lucky for him that his agents are marketing him so well. The Call-U features are also very interesting! As for Mitt Romney, it's interesting that the author made him the "loser" because he hasn't acknowledged the fact that he is rich to his campaign. I understand that he should have said it but I don't think it's essential and also, it's hard to acknowledge that you know that about yourself without people thinking you are pompous.

February 24th, 2012

Selecting a Seatmate to Make Skies Friendlier

By NICOLA CLARK

PARIS — On his eight-hour flight to New York from Switzerland last month, Jeff Jarvis, a well-known blogger and journalism professor, found himself seated next to a woman eager to discuss the finer points of management theory.

“Normally, it would have been fine to chat, but I had work to do,” he said. When, after a while, the conversation failed to find a natural end, Mr. Jarvis resorted to the road warrior’s tried-and-true trick: He donned his headphones.

Mr. Jarvis, whose book “Public Parts” argues about the virtues of engaging with people online, conceded that such experiences made him wary about doing the same in an airplane setting. “So often we do sit next to utter strangers,” he said. “And the lottery does not have great odds.”

But what if those odds could be improved with access to the information that passengers already share about themselves online?

This month, the Dutch carrier KLM began testing a program it calls Meet and Seat, allowing ticket-holders to upload details from their Facebook or LinkedIn profiles and use the data to choose seatmates.

The concept is a step beyond the not always successful efforts a few years ago by some airlines — including Air France, Virgin Atlantic and Lufthansa — to build “walled” social networks out of their existing frequent flier memberships.

“For at least 10 years, there has been this question about serendipity and whether you could improve the chances of meeting someone interesting onboard,” said Erik Varwijk, a managing director in charge of passenger business at KLM. “But the technology just wasn’t available.”

Relative latecomers to the social media party, airlines are quickly becoming sophisticated users of online networks, not only as marketing tools, but as a low-cost way to learn more about their customers and their preferences. With Facebook alone claiming nearly 500 million daily active users — more than 60 times the eight million people who fly each day — KLM and others are betting that many of them would be willing to share their profiles in exchange, say, for a chance to meet someone with a common interest or who might be going to the same event.

The idea is catching on. Last year, Malaysia Airlines introduced MHBuddy, an application that allows users who book and check in via the carrier’s Facebook page to see whether any of their “friends” will be on the same flight or in their destination city at the same time. The platform, which claims 3,000 monthly active users, also enables existing friends to select seats together.

And airlines are not the only ones betting on the concept.

Planely, a Danish start-up, allows registered users who submit their itineraries to view the Facebook and LinkedIn profiles of others who will be on flights with them. Since it began in late 2010, Planely has connected more than 1,500 travelers, according to its chief executive, Nick Martin.

Satisfly, based in Hong Kong, allows users to submit profile information as well as their flight “moods” — whether they would prefer to talk shop or chat casually — and other details like languages spoken and preferences about potential seatmates. The information is then shared with its airline partners, which incorporate the data into their own seat-assignment platforms.

KLM’s service is available only to travelers with confirmed reservations who are willing to connect their social profiles to their booking. After selecting the amount of personal information they wish to share, passengers are presented with seat maps that show where others who have also shared their profiles are seated. You can then reserve the seat next to anyone who seems interesting — provided it is available — and that person will receive a message with your profile details.

On a flight from Amsterdam to São Paulo this week, for example, you could have chosen the director of a British answering service, who has a passion for reggae and jazz; an Italian chemical engineer fluent in Dutch, English, Spanish and Portuguese; or a Norwegian alternative-rock fan en route to visit family in Argentina.

While it is not possible to “reject” a person who has chosen to sit with you, you can select another seat as long as two days before the flight. Those feeling awkward about moving can delete their data and select new seats using the standard — anonymous — online platform.

Dan Nainan, a comedian from New York, said he was eager to try it out.

“If people are able to choose whom they sit next to, they’re more than likely going to be friendly and outgoing and easy to talk to,” said Mr. Nainan, 30, who said he had no reservations about making his personal data available to fellow passengers. “I’ve met some wonderful people on airplanes and made some great connections. I would love to be able to see the selection of people that I could potentially sit next to.”

But not everyone is enthusiastic.

Kaamna Bhojwani-Dhawan, the founder of a Web site for parents traveling with young children, said she found the trend “puzzling.”

“My goal is to get through the flight without losing my mind — or either of my children,” said Ms. Bhojwani-Dhawan, 32, who recently traveled from San Francisco to India and Dubai with her 3-year-old son and 6-month-old daughter. “I can’t imagine being very good company, nor am I particularly interested in sitting next to another mom with kids so that we can compare notes.”

Analysts conceded that “social seating” was likely to appeal more to business travelers en route to trade shows, or backpackers looking for travel companions — although even those situations present potential pitfalls.

“Pity the poor venture capitalist who gets seated with the start-up guy who talks his ear off for four hours,” Mr. Jarvis said.

Mr. Varwijk of KLM said his airline was not yet actively promoting the seating program, which is being offered initially only on flights between Amsterdam and New York and San Francisco and São Paulo. Only about 200 passengers have participated so far, he said, but barring any major hiccups, the airline hopes to roll out the service — which can be arranged from 48 hours to 90 days in advance of a flight — on all of its intercontinental flights by the spring.

The airline, a member of the SkyTeam alliance, also plans to share feedback from the trial with its partners, which could choose to offer the service as well.

Analysts noted that KLM already had a reputation for using social media in innovative ways. In 2010, for example, the airline teamed up with a Dutch filmmaker who successfully used Twitter to get 350 people to book seats on a direct flight to Miami — a destination KLM did normally not serve — to attend a music festival. Last year, it invited its one million Facebook fans to convert their profile photos into traditional Delftware-style images. The carrier selected 4,000 of the photos and used them to adorn a Boeing 777.

“KLM really sees social media as a way to tap into a different part of their customers’ lives,” said Henry H. Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst and a founder of Atmosphere Research Group in San Francisco. “They want to be viewed as more than just a flying piece of metal.”

The seating program’s value could also extend beyond pure public relations. “This will give them great insights when they eventually aggregate the passenger data behind it,” he said.

Some airlines are taking the opposite tack and catering to passengers who just want to buckle up and be left alone.

For fees of $6 to $60, Air New Zealand , AirAsia X in Malaysia and Vueling in Spain, for example, let passengers request empty seats next to theirs. If a flight turns out to be full, the extra charge is refunded.

My Comments: I really love this idea. I think it would be so cool to be able to meet new people while on board a flight. While sure, maybe it's risky if you choose bad but it's not as if that person is required to talk to you.  Airlines have all become pretty similar recently. Now that technology is advanced. It is basic to have tv, snacks and/or meals. To make themselves different companies need to implement and obviously then advertise for these new features. This feature is also relatively inexpensive which is a great bonus for the company because they have a step ahead yet it's all paper free (because it's online profiles) and in the consumer's "own hands"

February 22, 2012

Using Rap to Teach Pithy Lessons in Business

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Silicon Valley, where engineers in khakis write software code, might not at first glance have much to do with the world of rap music, where artists in sagging pants write irreverent lyrics.

But Ben Horowitz, a prominent venture capital investor here, says rap holds a trove of lessons for tech entrepreneurs. Throw business classes and books out the window, Mr. Horowitz says, and listen to rap lyrics instead.

He applies his theory on his blog, where he has attracted a following of tech readers and other executives by offering business lessons, almost all of them preceded by a rap lyric that summarizes a moral, and with recordings from Grooveshark, the music site.

In the process, he has linked two cultures in Silicon Valley, which is not exactly known for its racial or cultural diversity.

Entrepreneurs may do well to listen to Mr. Horowitz’s advice. He started the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz with Marc Andreessen, the co-founder of Netscape, and the firm made vast amounts of money on investments in companies like Groupon and Skype, and stands to make more on Facebook’s initial public offering.

Late last month, the firm announced that it had raised its third fund in three years, $1.5 billion in fresh capital, a large amount even in Silicon Valley. The two men previously started Opsware, a data center software company, and sold it to Hewlett-Packard in 2007.

Mr. Horowitz uses rap as an introduction as he philosophizes about business challenges like how to fire executives, why founders run their companies better than outside chief executives and how to stand up to difficult board members.

“All the management books are like, ‘This is how you set objectives, this is how you set up an org chart,’ but that’s all the easy part of management,” Mr. Horowitz said in an interview in his spacious office here on Sand Hill Road, the epicenter of tech investing.

“The hard part is how you feel. Rap helps me connect emotionally.”

How to deal, for instance, with the stress of the 11th-hour, late-night auditing mishap that almost stymied the $1.6 billion sale of Opsware?

Listen to the Kanye West song “Stronger”: “Now that that don’t kill me/Can only make me stronger/I need you to hurry up now/’Cause I can’t wait much longer/I know I got to be right now/’Cause I can’t get much wronger.”

Much of rap is about business, whether the drug business, the music industry or work ethic, said Adam Bradley, an associate professor specializing in African-American literature at the University of Colorado at Boulder who wrote “Book of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop” and co-edited “The Anthology of Rap.”

“It comes out of the fact that rap is such a direct mode of expression, maybe more so than any other music lyric, because of the emphasis on language, of words above melody or harmony,” Mr. Bradley said.

People think of rap lyrics as being only about money, women, status and cocaine, he said, but more pervasive themes are leadership, collaboration and the vulnerability beneath the swagger — all relevant in business.

Mr. Horowitz said he made that discovery in the early 1980s, when he was introduced to rap as one of few white players on the Berkeley High School football team.

He began using lyrics to make his points when he became a chief executive.

Recently, for instance, one of the entrepreneurs that Andreessen Horowitz financed clashed with a disparaging board member. Mr. Horowitz advised the executive that he was being too deferential and needed to show his strength.

He said he sent the executive “Scream on Em,” a rap song by The Game, because its “superaggressive” lyrics — so aggressive that none can be printed in a family newspaper.

“I couldn’t have explained what I was talking about quite right, but he called and said, ‘I’ve been listening to that song every day, and everything is better,’ ” Mr. Horowitz said.

When he explained on his blog why his venture firm favored founding chief executives, as opposed to those hired to run companies, he had trouble explaining one of the more subtle reasons — people care more about something they started, while outsiders care more about money.

Then he remembered a lyric by Rakim from the song “Follow the Leader:” “You’re just a rent-a-rapper, your rhymes are minute-maid/I’ll be here when it fade to watch you flip like a renegade.”

Mr. Horowitz said, “Because it’s Rakim, and he’s like the greatest rapper of all time, he could fit into two sentences what it took me three pages to explain.”

He has a simple response to those who say Silicon Valley is in the midst of another bubble, including those who have criticized his firm’s large investments as having played a role in inflating the bubble. It’s LL Cool J’s song “Going Back to Cali:” “I’m going back to Cali ... hmm, I don’t think so.”

“It’s totally about the way he said it — ‘Hmm, I don’t think so’ — which is how I was feeling about the bubble talk,” Mr. Horowitz said.

Mr. Horowitz’s use of rap connects two cultures that are rarely linked. African-Americans hold only 6.7 percent of computer jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and their representation among Silicon Valley entrepreneurs is even smaller.

Last fall, Mr. Horowitz’s posts led to an appearance before the Congressional Black Caucus. He talked to the group about how the Internet brings different cultures together and about the role African-Americans have played in social media and mobile technologies.

Silicon Valley “can leave a lot of people on the outside looking in,” said Jason Lee, a follower of the blog who helped organize the panel and is the son of Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat and a caucus member.

“The fact that he begins with a relevant hip hop lyric immediately contextualizes the narrative into something familiar and accessible to people from a wide variety of experiences,” Mr. Lee said. “To the extent that more people read his blog, relate to his posts and can place themselves in the situations he describes, I think more people will feel like Silicon Valley has room for them as well.”

 My Comments: I especially liked this article because I feel I can relate to it. This music is the music of my generation and to find out it's being used in the business world is something I'm happy to hear.  I definitely encourage readers to look at Ben's Blog (link above, in first paragraph) and see what this article means. My favorite blog by Ben is the one where he talks about Microsoft buying Skype and he quotes the song "Bill Gates" by Lil Wayne. It's really a great idea. I felt a lot of truth in this statement, "People think of rap lyrics as being only about money, women, status and cocaine, he said, but more pervasive themes are leadership, collaboration and the vulnerability beneath the swagger — all relevant in business" I hear it from my parents all the time that rap isn't real music it's just yelling about crime but if you actually listen you will hear other themes, as mentioned here.

February 20, 2012

Reports: Apple to tighten app privacy rules

Melissa Hoffmann

February 17, 2012

Apple will require application developers to obtain explicit permission from iPhone and iPad users before they can store the users' contact lists, according to several media reports.

The tech giant's decision was reportedly a response to a letter drafted last week by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) — both of whom serve on the House's Energy and Commerce Committee — and sent to Apple CEO Tim Cook, asking for clarification regarding Apple's developer guidelines and asking whether privacy guidelines were being followed, MacNewsWorld reported. Although those guidelines are supposed to restrict the collection of user data, Apple reportedly said it will be more specific in explaining that contact lists cannot be accessed and stored without user consent.

The letter was reportedly spurred by the discovery of the loophole in the social networking app Path by iOS developer Arun Thampi, who then blogged about it, according to The Chicago Tribune.

Twitter, Foursquare, Path and Yelp have all recently been mired in similar privacy issues regarding their apps collection and storage of users' contacts, according to reports.

Apple did not respond to requests for comment.  

My Comments: This article interested me because I, along with many others, am an Iphone user and I agree that apps shouldn’t be allowed to take people’s private information and use it for marketing. I believe marketing needs to be ethical and taking advantage of people’s trust is not fair. If apps are saving people’s private information to use without asking them, this could be a major issue of trust in the future between people and technology.

February 15, 2012

Forbes.com

Social Media Marketing Enters The B2B Marketing Mix

Lopez Research in conjunction with The Software Industry Association (SIIA) recently surveyed 106 marketing executives about their company’s use of email, mobile marketing and social media to build their brand, gain leads, and improve customer support. The findings were quite interesting. While social media is driving a small portion of revenue and engagement today, almost 90% of companies believe social media marketing will benefit business. As a result, many firms are investing in numerous social media channels that range from blogs, to Twitter to LinkedIn. The survey results indicate that companies which service B2B firms are as interested in social media as companies that service business to consumer (B2C) firms with roughly 90% of all respondents stating they are using social media marketing. This is a far cry from several years ago where many businesses were questioning the value of social media.
Social media marketing has matured to the point where companies are looking at a mix of quantitative ROI measures such as revenue and web site traffic but also qualitative measures such as brand awareness. Time spent on social media marketing varies widely by companies but many are spending under 10 hours per week on these efforts. To date, most marketers are still managing their social media efforts themselves. While many businesses will continue to do their own posts, Lopez Research expects social media analytics to be an area where many firms will consider purchasing a managed service.
As expected, email marketing continues to be a main marketing tool for a majority of the companies interviewed. Mobile marketing use was low amongst the respondents, which isn’t surprising given that a high percentage of companies surveyed serve the business-to-business (B2B) and business to government (B2G) groups. A majority of the respondents, 88%, stated their primary geographic market is in North America but only 12% of the respondents considered consumers part of their target market segmentation. In general, Lopez Research believes mobile marketing is in its infancy and will experience double-digit growth over the next two years. It will be interesting to see how social media and mobile marketing evolve as tools for B2C and B2B communications.

My Comments:  This article contains so much of the things we discuss in class, it was awesome! B2B marketing is in there as well as B2C and social media. I always understood that social media online was used for B2C but it was awesome to learn that B2B is using it as well. In the third paragraph it's stated that "email marketing continues to be a main marketing tool for a majority of the companies interviewed". Maybe it's just me but I really dislike email marketing. I would much prefer to see an ad on the side of my facebook page that I could choose to ignore or click and I have clicked in the past. The new generation, X, doesn't like to be targeted, we can see past it but if it's on our facebook page it is our choice what to do with it.

February 13, 2012

McDonald’s Vows to Help End Use of Sow Crates

By STEPHANIE STROM

Published: February 13, 2012

The McDonald’s Corporation said on Monday that it would begin working with its pork suppliers to phase out the use of so-called gestational crates, the tiny stalls in which sows are housed while pregnant.

Animal rights advocates have singled out the crates, known as sow stalls, as inhumane, and several states have moved to ban or restrict their use not only in pork production but also in the production of eggs and veal.

“McDonald’s believes gestation stalls are not a sustainable production system for the future,” Dan Gorsky, senior vice president for supply chain management for McDonald’s North America, said in a statement. “There are alternatives we think are better for the welfare of sows.”

Mr. Gorsky noted that several of the company’s large suppliers, including Smithfield Farms and Cargill, have already begun reducing their use of the crates.

He said that McDonald’s had asked its pork suppliers to provide their plans for reducing reliance on sow stalls and that the company would assess those plans and announce what steps it might take in response in May.

The Humane Society of the United States has worked for the last decade to raise awareness of the problems caused by the use of restrictive crates in the meat and poultry industry. Several states, including Florida and California, have passed laws banning the use of restrictive crates in meat and egg production. The Humane Society has been in contact with McDonald’s over the years about the crate issue but had stepped up the intensity of its discussions over the last month, according to Wayne Pacelle, the society’s president.

The buying power of McDonald’s adds a significant new dimension to the war on the practice. “I would go so far as to say that while we’ve been able to pass laws against gestation crates that are very important, this announcement by McDonald’s today does more to put the writing on the wall for the pork industry than anything that’s happened previously,” said Paul Shapiro, senior director for farm animal protection at the Humane Society.

Burger King was the first large fast-food chain to reduce its purchases of pork produced in facilities that use gestation crates, taking that step in 2007 at the same time it began adding cage-free eggs to its supply chain, according to the Humane Society.

Before that, the celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck announced that he would stop serving foie gras, which is the liver of force-fed geese, and no longer buy veal, pork or eggs from producers that use restrictive crates.

At a little more than 2 feet by 7 feet, sow stalls are too small for a pregnant pig to turn around. Being confined in a stationary position for the four months of an average pregnancy leads to a variety of health problems, including urinary tract infections, weakened bone structures, overgrown hooves and mental stress, according to animal rights advocates. About 60 to 70 percent of five million breeding sows in the United States are kept in the crates.

In 2007, Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, pledged to end the use of gestation crates by 2017, a date it postponed during the economic downturn. The Humane Society then conducted an undercover investigation, releasing video of pigs in Smithfield’s stalls, and the company once again pledged to stop using the crates by 2017.

In January, Hormel Foods announced that it would match Smithfield’s pledge after the Humane Society released similar video of its operations.

My Comments: I couldn’t help but be reminded of the lifestyle trends we learned about in Chapter 5 while reading this article. Obviously McDonalds realizes it is getting some bad feedback from customers for treating their animals poorly so they have decided that it is worth it to change. It reminds me of our key term, environmentalism. The cruelty to animals that McDonalds previously had in place was resulting in people who cared about such issues to not eat at McDonalds which obviously is something the company does not want. Thus leading to the change.