Author: bperez7

For those that are not aware of the low end high fashion retail store Primark you will know more as the retail store begins to move its retail operations deeper into the US. Today Primark operates retail stores on the East Coast in the city’s of Boston, New York, Burlington, Massachusetts. The role out will continue in the US to compliment its stores from Europe. What has made the Pimark stores so successful? Many customers and employee’s contribute the success to offering low prices, great fashion and stores that offer a very fun, design friendly environment.  Primark success has carried year over year with the last year sales increasing by 9% and almost reaching double digit growth.

The strategy behind Primark is to reach the customer by adds and drive the traffic into the brick and mortar of the stores in which they operate. The company is looking to drive foot traffic into the stores and today does not offer online shopping, so no real ecommerce strategy is in place.

Primark key competition comes from the likes of GAP and Zara. Primark retail locations will mimic those of other low end high value brand leaders.  Both Zara and GAP have been closing many of its retail locations due to competition from online clothing and other clothing retail stores. As Primark enters deeper into the back yard of GAP and Zara, brand and customer experience will become a  major factor towards US success for the retailer. Successful brand awareness through social networking sites along with hip fun store environments will drive shopping behaviors.

I have twelve year old  and one of the hot topics she talks about is the mall and spending money in trendy stores. Primark, if you move to Austin, Texas and place a store in Barton Creek mall Primark will soon see my household money.

Tesla announced it will soon change its offering with unlimited access to free fast charging stations starting in 2017. This is a strategic change to support the launch of its less expensive Model 3 electric car that is now being positioned for mass production.  Tesla originally invested in the Super Charge Network to help bring fast charging stations to the public through such distribution channels as large brand grocery stores such as Whole Foods, to Malls and other locations where the consumer spends a significant amount of time. While there if a strategic shift to take the spend away from the Super Charge Network and shift the cost over to marketing and advertising the new Model 3 to bring electric  car adoption rates to all time highs.

Today owners of vehicles can use unlimited amounts of electric at the super charge network, but beginning 2017 new customers  can only charge up to 400 kilowatts which is equivalent to 1000 miles. After that there will be a charge for electricity at these super charge stations.  Today most buyers will have an electric outlet at home and rely on this source to charge their vehicle, and the main purpose of the charging stations was the include the electric car owner to drive long distances without worry of running out of electricity.

The super charge network is worth $194 million and comprises of 734 charging stations world -wide.  There is an need to increase the Super Charge Network, in anticipation of the Model 3 deployment. There are already over 300,000 pre-orders for the vehicle and if there is not enough Super Charge locations there could be a dissatisfaction on the end of the consumer and the vehicle launch could become a disaster if the right resources to support the demand are not in place.

 

Austin is experiencing unprecedented growth and there is no end in site. Austin in being recognized as one of the fastest growing cities in the United States and the growth is not due to a particular industry, but rather a combination of the three P’s; people, purpose and partnership.

Back in the 50’s and 60’s city growth was due to a certain industry that drove economic activity that in turn grew population growth. With the world quickly changing and growing from its first two waves of the internet, and moving into the third wave of the internet city growth has changed from economic and industry stimulus to now what is being seen as cities that offer open collaborative environments where social and economical avenues are open to foster an environment of innovation.  The first wave of internet growth shows the likes of AOL, IBM and AT&T that were the beginning of the internet.  Then came the second wave that saw the like of FaceBook, Uber, Airbnb and other Start Up’s that introduced software that drove more innovation.  The third wave will bring further innovation such as the self driving cars, cure for disease such as cancer, and innovation of drones and robotics. Marketing has played a role in the second wave of the internet as analytics and big  data drove direct online marketing techniques that better understand the buying needs of the consumer.

What will the third wave of the internet bring? Marketing techniques will change as more analytics and big data plays a deeper role in our buying habits.

The  cities that are seeing the same sort of unprecedented growth are cities like Nashville, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans. These are cities where not a particular major industry is driving the population growth but rather the 3 P’s are playing a major factor.

 

Content is proving to be king to many Wireless & Cable providers.  As an employee working my 18th year at AT&T  I wash shocked and many around me to see out company no longer go after wireless and wire line assets, but rather shift position and go after one of the largest content providers in the world. Time Warner has full assets to HBO, CNN, Harry Potter, and many more titles. Content will be positioned for the first time with over the top TV to any device any time and any where on the US and Mexico. AT&T owns Direct TV and has access over most of Central and South America.

As revenues continue to shrink with Cable and Wireless providers for existing services such as voice, SMS and data,  new avenues for revenue need to be created. Video & content will lead the new path towards new ancillary services. With software and automation driving operations cost down new margin will be established with a on demand network and content.

AT&T is adjusting to the convectional means of TV moving from the living room to be viewed anywhere and anytime in the  world that most of us. The conventional cable services are losing ground to the like of Netflix and over the top  video and content provider’s.   AT&T and many other cable providers are on the opposite end of content, and that is why the new era of mega mergers between the cable/network providers look for their perfect match on the content side.

We will most likely see the likes of Netflix and other content providers stock such as Walt Disney  rally as content is king.

What does this mean from an advertising perspective. Direct marketing will increase, and conventional marketing through conventional commercials will slow  as the broad audience begins to narrow and direct commercials will increase.

WellsFargo CEO is booted out for the company and the replacement has a hard task ahead of her. With the image of Wells Fargo  tainted and the consumer banking customer having many questions around the integrity of their bank accounts, what are the next steps for Mary Mack, Wells Fargo Banking Chief?

The first step is a change in the sales culture from one that has left in imprint of scandal to one that needs to represent trust and servitude of its customers.  How can this be done? Its needs to first start with how to incentivize its sales force without out the unneeded pressures for cheating to meet heavy sales goals at the cost of a fragile customer base.  The bank has been fines $185 billion million dollars and an image that is extremely tarnished.

In the wake of the bank’s settlement the company scrapped all sales goals but will keep its cross selling initiatives in place that helps its customer with purchasing other services from Wells Fargo and what now appears to be the culprit to the misconduct of its employee’s.  There are 100,000 employee’s at Wells Fargo and over 6000 branch stores and figuring out the retail-branch initiative structure it vital in next steps for the bank. What caused the problem were sales goals were set so high that they were unobtainable and this caused immense pressure for low wage employee’s that felt they needed to cheat to keep their jobs. This seems to be a problem not only at Wells Fargo but in many company’s.  What was the outcome, over the past five years branch employee’s opened over 2 million accounts without customer knowledge.

Wells Fargo has a $185 million dollar fine, an image that will cost marketing millions of more dollars to turn the impression of Wells Fargo around and an employee base that is lost in direction and still wondering if they will lose their jobs. This time not because of lofty SALES goals but rather s shrinking customer base.

I bank at Wells Fargo and I can say there has been some thought for the first time on my long marriage with Wells Fargo to leave the bank. The only reason I do not is because Wells Fargo has done a great job in keeping me happy through their cross sales efforts and I have multiple service through the bank.

 

AT&T signed a major, exclusive multi-year, multi-faceted deal featuring performances and content with 10-time Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, musician and producer Taylor Swift.

AT&T already has high brand recognition but plugging in Taylor Swift will not only help its brand globally but will also help with brand awareness amongst the millennial population which is the up and coming workforce and new household revenue generators. How does AT&T bridge its products with the most popular singer on the planet, through technology and the evolving video streaming platforms such as Uverse, Direct TV and it s4G LTE wireless network.

As part of the deal with AT&T, Taylor Swift will headline DIRECTV Super Saturday Night in Houston the night before the Big Game. This is the 12^th annual DIRECTV event leading up to the biggest sporting event of the year, and the 1^st time Taylor Swift will perform during the festivities.

Taylor Swift, the only woman in Grammy history to ever win Album of the Year twice, will provide fans with the ultimate experience Saturday, Feb. 4, at a custom made 64,000 square foot venue in Houston created especially for this event. Fans will have access to tickets through a series of exclusive AT&T promotions and campaigns, and it’s almost certain these campaigns will be tied to huge marketing initiatives around the iPhone 7 and AT&T over the top 4G/LTE Network.

The money spent to have exclusive right to Taylor Swift during the Super Bowl is is just one area AT&T likes to co brand. There are multiple stadiums around the country that are barded with AT&T’s logo. Sport and Music is a huge area what catches the attention of the world the AT&T have right to both stages only increases its brand awareness which drives customer loyalty.

 

Facebook caught in a lie.  Many questions surfaced last week when Facebook Inc. overestimated by up to 80% the average time people spent watching video ads on its platform.  There has been a huge move from traditional media spend to Mobile Platform media spend over the past 5 years.  Measuring the return on investment has not been easy for most companies. Facebook shares how many clicks an ad receives and how long an ad video is watch; however, this does not always lead to a sale.  Facebook admitted  that the metric used its used for reporting for the past two years was artificially inflated because it only captured video view for more than three seconds. It has since been determined Facebook may have overestimated view by as much as 60-80%

Today Facebook owns 22% of a $46 billion dollar mobile U.S. ad market and Facebooks mobile ad market jumped 80% in the last quarter as most people have move form the conventional desk top and laptop to powerful handheld devices.  The problem the Mobile Ad industry faces is there is not a true measurement by a third party that can estimate the true clicks or views of video. These metrics are measured by the platforms and can sometimes be misconstrued. In other words the online platforms are telling customer what the ad platforms are worth without a third party measurement.  there ARE NO TRUE CHECKS AND BALANCES such as Nelson rating for conventional television.

In a world where technology, mobile broadband continues to be more an more pervasive, its important to have measurements where real data can be captured so true return on investment can be measured, and this needs to be accomplished by a third party software provider that has right to all social platforms, big and small where marketing dollars are spent.

 

Yahoo….500 Million email accounts were hacked in 2014!!  The increasing threat of Cyber attacks on websites is not slowing down as the internet and broadband continues to grow around the globe.  As the internet expands so does the threat against every person private or maybe not so private information.  As vulnerabilities grow for many companies how do companies large and small protect their image and most of all their customer information? The best type of defense is a great offence and in the cyber world this means making sure a companies network, data center, intellectual properties and customer information has the best cyber security measures on place.

Too many times we read on the news how companies fail to protect their greatest asset, their customers information.  It took Target many years to recover from their network being hacked and millions of customer credit card information being stolen.  Home Depot followed suite year later and hand their network hacked and jeopardizing critical customer information. Today, its Yahoo that has ended up announcing that over 500 million email addresses had been hacked in 2014.  This news comes out months after Verizon agreed to purchase Yahoo for 4.83 Billion dollars. The breach has been LABELED as the larges cyber security breach to date.

Companies large and small are in a mode of hiring security experts in an industry where few experts exist. There is a shortfall of this specialized cyber security talent and with this sort of GAP we can be sure the bad guys will not slow down in gaining personal information to sell on the cyber black market.

The image of companies are tarnished when these sorts of attacks take place and the recovery time can be years. The end result is loss revenue, a tarnished image and customers losing trust in companies. Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other become a platform where customer voice their concerns. Companies can also use the social network platforms to communicate to their customer what they are doing to correct the problem. A key marketing avenue to help recover a tarnished brand.

General Motors announced the new Chevy Bolt will drive 238 miles without a charge.  Tesla has always been the leader when it comes to battery powered vehicles, but that appears there is competition on the horizon.  As the world see’s batteries and technology begin to take over the auto industry the electric vehicle will soon gain more popularity as the fear of range anxiety goes away for the drivers. There are more and more electric powered stations at grocery stores and gas stations along with other shops, malls and restaurants.

Technology and the electric battery in the car is very new to the auto industry. The technology is primarily driven by the Cellular and GPS capabilities in the vehicles and its only been in the past 10 years where the internet found its way into the vehicle of the consumer. The internet has been used in other vehicles such an police, emergency, business small and large fleet, along with others.  The internet and the electric battery are transforming the vehicle. As for the battery powered technology Tesla has primarily lead the industry with cutting edge technology that is now enjoying it’s 5th birthday since the first Tesla Model S hit the road. The Model 3 has  a premium battery that gives the vehicle over 300 mile range without a charge.

There are other benefits in purchasing electric vehicles, such as federal rebates up to 20%. The Chevy Bolt will be priced at close to 30K after the 7.5K rebate from the federal government.

The 228 mile range is determined by the  Environmental Protection Agency’s testing cycle for electric cars. The cars are tested in both city and highway’s.  General Motors and other auto manufacturers are committed to the electric car to comply with federal fuel economy standards.

The marketing for the Chevy Bolt began a year ago with the anticipated launch of the Bolt, and now the marketing will capitalize on the long range capabilities and other rich technology features.

Fun Facts: Current Range for electric vehicles:

• Chevy Bolt – 238 Miles
• Tesla Model 3 – 215
• BMW i3 – 114
• Nissan Leaf SV – 107
• Fiat 500e – 84
• Volkswagen e-Golf – 83
• Ford Focus electric – 76

 

 

As Apple prepares to launch the iPhone 7, and inventory for the phones hit the retail stores Samsung is scrambling to pull inventory for the Note 7 out of the retail stores.  As one manufacturer executes to perfection to make sure the big launch of the iPhone 7 is captured the other has a nightmare on their hands with a handful of bad publicity and market share that can easily move from Samsung to Apple during a huge launch for both companies.  And a product launch for the Note 7 could not of happened at a worst time,  right before Q4 and the Holiday Season.

Samsung released a statement on Tuesday September 13th informing the public that a software update will be available shortly that will only allow the new Samsung Note 7 battery to charge to 60% max.  Who wants a phone that will only charge to 60%. Not only has the Samsung put a recall out for the Note 7, but the fix for the problem is a 60% battery charge?  No thanks!

What set off the alarm for Samsung’s Note 7?  There were several cases around the country where the Note 7 would catch on fire from the battery overheating during charging and in one case a family came home to a house that was also caught on fire due to the Note 7 battery.

Apple, the only thing on fire for you is your hot iPhone 7 sales and your stock price. Product execution and delivery is a key ingredient along with great marketing when it comes to successful product launches. Samsung is dealing with the opposite; a manufacturers flaw, bad execution, marketing dollars wasted and a 14% stock decline since the incident.

 

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/galaxy-note-7-everything-we-know-about-samsung-s-too-n647901

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