November 15th, 2011
The Rise of the Reference Consumer
Check out my latest collumn on the Cossette blog called “The Rise of the Reference Consumer”: http://www.cossette.com/en/blog/2011/11/15/the-rise-of-the-%e2%80%98reference-consumer%e2%80%99/
November 7th, 2011
RIM: The beginning of the end?
Saw an interesting article off of Yahoo that said “In what could be the beginning of the end for Research In Motion (RIM) as we know it, Canada’s technology giant was hit with a one-two punch combination yesterday”. The Globe And Mail, citing fresh data from technology market research firm IDC Corp., reports the BlackBerry maker has officially suffered its first year-over-year decline in worldwide smartphone unit shipments in the third quarter of 2011.
“RIM slipped 4.8 per cent to last place among the top five smartphone makers. Its market share for all device shipments was only 10 per cent. Global unit shipments at RIM fell to 11.8 million devices in the quarter, down from 12.4 million in the same period a year before, even as RIM remained far ahead of those device manufacturers below it on IDC’s list.”
As the Waterloo, Ont.-based vendor watched its stock price fall below US$20 this past week (another first since 2004) it also saw another top executive depart: RIM’s managing director Frenny Bawa in India, the Toronto Star reports. “RIM has parted ways with a string of high-profile employees in recent months, including chief marketing officer Keith Pardy, head of developer relations Tyler Lessard, and Jim Tobin, senior vice-president for software and business services, who reported directly to co-CEO Jim Balsillie.”
RIM’s plight is the cause of much consternation in its hometown Waterloo, according to a letter to the editor of the Goderich Signal Star. “Families depend greatly on RIM, not only for communication services, but also for monthly income to support their families. It is sad to think that in the case of RIM’s great decline in shares, several inhabitants of Waterloo, and other cities around the world, will lose jobs and become unemployed.”
BusinessWeek suggests the future is bleak for RIM as the stock market and customers continue to lose faith in the company. “The market, at book value, seems to be saying not only is RIM going to not get bigger in the future, but it’s actually going to shrink,” Richard Fogler, portfolio manager, Kingwest & Co. in Toronto, told BusinessWeek. He added he sold his RIM shares in the third quarter. “Everyone’s frightened of what’s going to keep happening tomorrow.”
But others would silence the death knell and point to RIM successes in emerging markets. ComputerWorld says beyond fortress North America young folk are drawn to a wide range of new BlackBerry smartphones. However, prices for mobile devices are significantly less in emerging markets.
“RIM has saturated all of the North America carriers with products for years, but is still a newcomer to carriers in emerging African and Asian markets. Carriers in those countries can introduce BlackBerry smartphones as something new, different and exciting.” Armchair critics the world over are voicing opinions on what RIM needs to do to stop the bleeding. Laptop magazine said if RIM hopes to stay relevant, forget the gamers and focus on its enterprise business roots.
“It needs to make a compelling case for itself with productivity-oriented users, not gamers and media mavens. BlackBerry’s killer app has always been communication, but email and instant messaging have become commodities that most people are happy to get from Google, Microsoft, and other vendors. However, there’s still a very important niche that’s wide open to RIM: mobile conferencing.”
October 30th, 2011
Corning Glass Writes The Future
Great branded viral video called “A Day Made of Glass” that Corning glass has used to position itself as the glass company of the future. They show you how every facet of your life will hing off your interactions with their glass products. I don’t know about you, but I think differently about this company now after seeing this. I saw them before as the company that would just make your grandmother’s cookware… but this is different!
Very “Minority Report”, just a bit cheesier:
October 28th, 2011
Apple No Longer The Smartphone King
Steve Jobs must be rolling over in his grave (too soon?)! According to Yahoo, Samsung Electronics Co overtook Apple Inc as the world’s top smartphone maker in the July-September period with a 44 percent jump in shipments, and forecast strong sales in the current quarter in a clear warning to its rivals.
Samsung only entered the smartphone market in earnest last year, but its sales have skyrocketed thanks to a sleek production system that rapidly brings new products to market. Apple introduced its first iPhone in 2007.
“In the handset division, Samsung has no real rival models to challenge its products except for the iPhone 4S. Apple and Samsung will continue to dominate the market in the fourth quarter,” said Kim Hyun-joong, a fund manager at Midas Asset Management, which owns Samsung shares.
Profits from the South Korean firm’s telecoms division, announced on Friday, more than doubled from a year ago to a record 2.5 trillion won ($2.2 billion) and accounted for 60 percent of Samsung’s total profit, offsetting a plunge in earnings from its bread-and-butter memory chips.
Shipments of smartphones jumped 44 percent from the preceding quarter to 27.8 million units, up nearly four times from a year ago, according to research firm Strategy Analytics.
Apple’s iPhone sales shrank by 16 percent to 17.1 million units in the third quarter. Samsung had 23.8 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter, 9 points higher than Apple. Samsung’s flagship Galaxy line of products is powered by Google’s Android software.
Apple sold fewer phones in the third quarter, missing street expectations for the first time in year, as customers held off buying iPhones until the October launch of the latest version.
The world’s biggest technology firm by revenue reported a 4.25 trillion won operating profit for the July-September quarter, broadly in line with its earlier estimate of 4.2 trillion won.
That was down from 4.9 trillion won a year ago but up from 3.8 trillion won in the preceding quarter. Samsung said its fourth-quarter earnings could be better than the third, boosted by one-off gains from its $1.4 billion sale of its hard disk drive business to Seagate Technology.
“I am cautiously optimistic on the fourth quarter outlook at this point,” Robert Yi, head of Samsung’s investor relations, told analysts.
“Looking ahead into the fourth quarter, when industry demand is traditionally at its peak, Samsung expects sales of mobile devices to remain strong and flat-panel TV shipments to increase,” the company added in an earnings statement.
Apple, whose iPhone sales account for nearly half the firm’s total sales, reported a 40 percent gross margin, or the percentage of sales left after subtracting the cost of goods sold. Samsung’s phone division reported a 16.9 percent operating margin, which further takes account of marketing costs.
Nevertheless, Samsung faces challenges as the new iPhone introduced earlier this month is notching up strong sales.
Nokia is also fighting back with its first phones based on Microsoft’s Windows software. And Sony Corp announced on Thursday it would take full ownership of its mobile venture, Sony Ericsson, in a bid to exploit its music and video library.
Samsung on Thursday announced the launch of its Galaxy Note mobile device, adding to the flagship Galaxy lineup of products. The device, powered by Android, will square off against a series of new models released by Apple, Nokia and HTC Corp.
The iPhone, introduced in 2007 with the touchscreen template now adopted by its rivals, is still the gold standard in the smartphone market.
Samsung may not have come up with the concept, but it has adopted Apple’s breakthrough smartphone idea perhaps better than any other handset maker. It tries to offer the Apple experience at a better price with better functionality.
“Samsung’s rise has been driven by a blend of elegant hardware designs, popular Android services, memorable sub-brands and extensive global distribution,” said Alex Spektor at Strategy Analytics.
“Samsung has demonstrated that it is possible, at least in the short term, to differentiate and grow by using the Android ecosystem.”
Profits from Samsung’s chip business more than halved to 1.59 trillion won, but the division held up well as its relatively high exposure to lucrative mobile chips helped the firm offset a sharp plunge in prices of commodity computer memory chips.
Samsung was the sole profitable firm among major global dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip makers in the third quarter.
Samsung’s chip business is also benefiting from strong demand for mobile processor chips used in Apple’s iPhone and iPad tablet as well as its own Galaxy smartphones.
Samsung expected demand for PCs to remain weak in the fourth quarter because of weak seasonality, while demand for mobile devices and servers will be relatively strong.
“I see some signs that chip prices have hit bottom as inventories are running out. However, we don’t yet know when the industry is going to pick up since macroeconomic uncertainties overshadow the demand outlook,” said Park Hyun, an analyst at Tong Yang Securities.
Samsung’s display business posted losses for a third consecutive quarter on weak demand for TVs and PCs. But losses narrowed from the previous quarter, helped by strong earnings from the OLED display, which is widely expected to replace LCD as the next-generation flat-screen in mobile devices and TVs.
October 6th, 2011
Getting Started In the Ad Industry: How Hungry Are You?
This is my featured column on Cossette’s new website by yours truly on how to break into the advertising industry!
http://www.cossette.com/en/blog/2011/09/08/getting-started-in-the-ad-industry/
October 3rd, 2011
Why Agencies Have To Buy Online Ads To Go With TV Ads
50% of people remembered a brand they saw in TV ads. That’s nice, but 74% of people remembered the same brand after they saw in TV and online ads, reports Nielsen.
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September 5th, 2011
Sears Canada Realizes its already 2011!
According to Marketing Magazine (and the surprise of no one), consumers spent less at Sears Canada last quarter, prompting the department store chain to say Tuesday that it wants to “re-energize” and provide a better shopping experience across the country.
Sears Canada suffered a drop in revenue, lower same-store sales and a net loss of $2.7 million or three cents per share for the 13 weeks ended July 30, versus a profit of $20.5 million or 19 cents per share in the same 2010 quarter.
“The leadership team and I are working on longer-term initiatives planned to bring out the potential in Sears Canada to re-energize and transform the company into a more meaningful shopping choice for Canadians coast to coast,” chief executive Calvin McDonald said in a statement.
Sears had $1.15 billion in revenue, a 5.3% decline from $1.21 billion for the year-ago period. Same-store sales, for locations open at least a year, decreased 5.8 per cent.
Retail analyst Wendy Evans said Sears’ obvious strength is its home furnishings and accessories, appliances and services and not fashion.
“Their fashion has been ailing for some time,” said Evans, head of retail consultant firm Evans and Co. in Toronto. Evans suggested cutting the size of Sears’ department stores, noting the Sears store in Toronto’s Eaton Centre has too much space devoted to fashion.
Like all retailers, Sears Canada has been squeezed by tighter consumer spending and a highly competitive retail economy. The Toronto-based department store operator has also been losing business to competitors with retail strategies focused either on discounting, in the case of Walmart, or better women’s fashion such as at The Bay.
And with new U.S.-based chains such as Target and Marshalls entering Canada, the competition will become even more intense.
If Sears focuses more on home furnishings it could “eliminate a lot of non-productive space,” she said, noting there would be restructuring costs. Sears could become more of a specialty store than a “broad department store” with a focus on the home, she added.
Evans also said Sears could also put more emphasis on the home services it provides such as servicing appliances or installing blinds customers have purchased from the department store.
“Sears is a very trusted name. You know that they’re going to back the brand and you know they’re going to back service. There is a real void in good, reliable service and they can provide that right from handymen right through to larger jobs.”
Operating EBITDA, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, was $26.7 million for the quarter ended June 30 versus $68.5 million last year.
Sears Canada has 122 department stores, 48 Sears Home stores and more than 1,900 catalogue merchandise pick-up locations as well as 147 dealer stores and 12 outlet stores. It also has a countrywide home maintenance, repair and installation network.
I went into a store a few months ago and saw a Tractorama promotion right near their fashion secton. I think it accurately sums up their dilemma. How could you have a TRACTOR sale at a downtown location?!?!?!? I feel like i’m taking crazy pills. Hahaha
August 8th, 2011
Shameless Plug- McDonald’s ups its cool factor in Alberta
August 4th, 2011
iPhone Still Beating Android in Ad Arena
Read an interesting article about how the iPhone was a media darling from the get-go, quickly surpassing earlier smartphones like the BlackBerry in terms of marketer interest and appearing in the pockets and purses of creatives around the country. But Google’s Android operating system has since taken off, and its availability on a variety of devices by several manufacturers has helped it outpace the Apple devices this year.
Still, research shows that marketers continue to focus more on the iPhone. A Q2 2011 survey from media buying solutions provider STRATA found that nearly 87% of US ad agencies considered the iPhone of great interest to their clients as an advertising venue. That was up more than 10 percentage points from Q1. Nearly half said their clients were also interested in advertising on the iPad.
Interest in Android was smaller. Just under two-thirds of clients wanted to direct their mobile campaigns toward Android devices, although that did represent a significant increase in interest since Q1.
Figures from The Nielsen Company show that while marketer interest in Android is on the rise, it still lags behind the market significantly. Among smartphone owners, 39% had a device running Android as of May 2011. Just 27% had a device running iOS, including iPhones and iPads.
The STRATA poll found that clients were focusing most of their mobile efforts on display advertising, with 44% of agencies reporting they were creating more mobile display ads than any other type, up from 37% in Q1. SMS advertising and rich media placements rounded out the top three, with rich media edging out location-based ads and apps.
July 5th, 2011
Infographic: What Makes People Want to Follow a Brand?
On Twitter, Facebook, and dozens of other social sites, normal consumers often choose to keep tabs on the brands they love.
In fact, many brands have highly optimized their marketing and PR strategies to accommodate that behavior, even going to far as to do one-to-one CRM (that’s customer or consumer relationship management) through avenues such as Facebook and Twitter.
As social CRM specialists Get Satisfaction found, many consumers who follow brands online are only in it for the perks. Around 40% of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter users in a recent study said they followed brands to get access to discounts and special deals.
Check this informative infographic out: http://mashable.com/2011/06/30/why-people-follow-brands/
SEE ALSO: The Biggest Brands on Facebook [INFOGRAPHIC]
