Sales & Marketing news

• Publicis gets a boost from its U.S. performance this quarter while Omnicom gets dragged down (OMC)

  20-07-2017 17:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Publicis Groupe and Omnicom group Inc. both kicked off earnings season for ad-holding companies on Thursday, with both firms exhibiting organic growth.
  Publicis’ organic growth was up by 0.8%, versus estimates of a 0.5% decline in the second quarter, with revenue amounting to €2.52 billion ($2.9 billion). On the other hand, Omnicom said it posted organic growth of 3.5% in its second quarter. Overall revenue totalled $3.79 billion, which was down 2.4% compared to the sam
  
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• FED ADVISORY COMMITTEE: Trump's budget 'will exacerbate disparities' in wages, housing and jobs

  20-07-2017 17:23 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The Federal Reserve’s Community Advisory Council (CAC), created two years ago to counter criticism that the central bank was overly dominated by banking and corporate interests, has offered a rather somber assessment of the economy that conflicts with policymakers’ optimism about growth and jobs.
  In its most recent report, the council said a decent pace of overall economic expansion and employment growth masked deep pockets of weakness among the country’s most vulnera
  
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• The CEO of Morgan Stanley took a shot at the startups shaking up investing (MS)

  20-07-2017 17:17 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Morgan Stanley has taken notable steps to expand its digital offerings in its wealth-management business.
  James Gorman, the firm's CEO, thinks pure robo platforms only appeal to a certain segment of the industry. He also questions the cost savings associated with going robo. 
  Roboadvisers claim they're going to dominate money management. Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman isn't convinced.
  The financial giant has announced a number of new digital offerings including a goals
  
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• International round-up: Gillette’s targeting errors & Facebook’s subscription news service

  20-07-2017 16:28
  
  Audi criticised for comparing a wife to a used car in ad for ChinaComparing women to any inanimate object in advertising is never a good idea, but sadly brands are still falling foul of this.
  This week, car marque Audi landed itself in hot water after comparing a wife to a used car in an ad for its Chinese market.
  The ad goes like this: A mother-in-law interrupts a wedding ceremony to inspect the bride, checking whether she’s up to standard. The older woman grabs the bride’s nose an
  
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• 'The president is a distraction': Republican lawmakers start to turn on Trump as his agenda flounders

  20-07-2017 16:23 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  When Donald Trump was elected president and Republicans retained control of both chambers of Congress, there was a sense that the Republican agenda — lowering taxes, repealing Obamacare, decreasing regulation — would be unleashed.
  Roughly six months into the Trump presidency, however, little movement on that agenda has started to lead to boiling frustration within the party.
  The repeal of Obamacare, a central tenet of the last seven years of GOP policy, has become bogged do
  
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• Blue Apron's VC backers have made gobs of money — while regular investors have taken a bath (APRN)

  20-07-2017 16:20 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Blue Apron has been decimated since going public in June, losing 35% of its value thanks to a direct assault from Amazon and troubling customer-retention issues. 
  The company, which was courting an IPO price of as much as $17 a share for a valuation of $3 billion in early June, has lost more than half of its value since then.
  Blue Apron closed at $6.65 per share Wednesday for a market valuation of $1.32 billion. 
  That doesn't mean investing in Blue Apron has be
  
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• MORGAN STANLEY: 12 stocks that are set to skyrocket this earnings season

  20-07-2017 16:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Earnings season is here, and traders everywhere are betting on how companies have done over the last four months.
  Morgan Stanley is no exception, but its analysts have a couple standout ideas. In a list the bank recently released, Morgan Stanley put together what it calls its "high conviction" stocks.
  "For each of these stocks, our analyst has high conviction in a view that diverges from the Street’s, and expects a near-term event to drive the stock as the market’s view moves c
  
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• An unprofitable yoga chain is the latest failed IPO

  20-07-2017 16:12 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  This one didn't even make it to market.
  YogaWorks, a chain of 50 studios spread across six US metropolitan areas, pulled its initial public offering on Thursday, the day it was originally expected to price, citing market conditions.
  The offering's underwriters — led by Cowen, Stephens and Guggenheim — set a range of $10 to $12 a share in a regulatory filing on July 10. A pricing at the top of the range would've marked a valuation of roughly $70 million.
  It's certainly an interes
  
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• Bitcoin explodes above $2,500

  20-07-2017 15:59 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Bitcoin is soaring on Thursday, trading up 13.01% at $2,576 a coin. The cryuptocurrency continues to rally as traders look ahead to the August 1 decision on whether or not bitcoin will be split in two. 
  Thursday's gain has the cryptocurrency up 40% from its July 17 low of $1,852. That's the day bitcoin tumbled 20% amid renewed fears it would be split in two. 
  The recent rally has bitcoin within 16% of its all time high near $3,000 set on June 12. In a recent note to clients,
  
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• Sears is popping after saying it will sell appliances on Amazon (SHLD, AMZN)

  20-07-2017 15:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Sears is making big gains Thursday morning, up 22.70% in premarket trading Thursday, after announcing it would begin selling its Kenmore appliances on Amazon.
  Selling on Amazon will give the company access to its largest customer base outside of Sears brick and mortar stores, which could boost sales at the company.
  The former retail giant has been in the news recently for a huge number of store closures. Its stock is down 10.66% so far this year. 
  Sears also announced it would be
  
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• A wave of staffers has left hedge fund Folger Hill as the firm searches for fresh money

  20-07-2017 15:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  There has been a wave of departures from hedge fund Folger Hill as the firm searches for fresh money, Business Insider has learned.
  The departures include at least four portfolio managers, an analyst and staffers who worked in risk and compliance. Two of them have left the hedge fund industry.
  Nick Marino, a portfolio manager, has moved to Citadel's Surveyor Capital. He started this month, a Citadel spokesperson confirmed.
  Ryan Novak, a portfolio manager, has moved to Man GLG, acc
  
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• Sears just dealt a huge blow to its stores — and the company's stock is skyrocketing (SHLD)

  20-07-2017 15:13 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Sears just gave its customers one more reason not to shop in its stores.
  The company announced Thursday that it's planning to start selling its Kenmore-branded appliances — such as refrigerators, dishwashers, and washing machines — on Amazon. 
  The deal will lead to the broadest distribution of Kenmore products outside of Sears stores, and should give the company access to new customers and revenue. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
  Sears' stock price soared mo
  
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• Bill Gross compares Fed policy to an umpire who died on the field

  20-07-2017 14:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  A note from Bill Gross, portfolio manager at Janus Henderson, would hardly be complete without a wild anecdote.
  His July investment outlook published on Thursday was no different.
  Gross again criticized the Federal Reserve's decisions to recover the economy from the Great Recession. This time, he compared the Fed's bond-buying program to John McSherry, a Major League Baseball umpire who suffered a heart attack on the field in 1996. Here's Gross:
  "'Kill the Umpire', the fan cried to ope
  
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• Tackling Gender stereotypes: Are new ad rules the answer?

  20-07-2017 14:45
  
  You only have to go back a few years to see what marketing teams once thought made good advertising. Women falling at the feet of attractive men or slaving away in the kitchen were commonplace, while men were all too often portrayed as hapless morons literally unable to figure out how to work a washing machine.
  Progress has been made since then. Lynx has dumped its ‘Lynx Effect’ ads in favour of showing a more progressive brand purpose. And brands such as Always have taken up the man
  
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• Trump once called the jobs report 'one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics' — now he accepts 'those numbers very proudly'

  20-07-2017 14:24 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he had seen the light when it comes to the US's official unemployment and jobs numbers.
  For years, Trump attacked the Bureau of Labor Statistics' reports on the US labor market, but now that he is in charge he's singing a different tune.
  Here's what Trump said at a meeting with business leaders at the White House on Wednesday:
  "And when we got those great reports, I kept saying, you know, those numbers — whether it's 4.2, 4.3 — I said, for a
  
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• Unilever credits in-house content agency U-Studios as marketing savings ‘bear fruit’

  20-07-2017 14:22
  
  Unilever says the savings it has been making to its marketing have started to pay off, crediting its in-house production division Unilever Studios for creating more cost-effective digital campaigns.
  The company released its results for the first of half of 2017 today (20 July), and claims to have delivered its savings “faster than expected”. It has made more than €1bn in savings in the first six months of the year, which it called “a strong start” to reaching its tar
  
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• Unilever credits in-house content agency U-Studios as marketing cuts ‘bear fruit’

  20-07-2017 14:22
  
  Unilever says the cuts it has been making to its marketing have started to pay off, crediting its in-house production division Unilever Studios for creating more cost-effective digital campaigns.
  The company released its results for the first of half of 2017 today (20 July), and claims to have delivered its savings “faster than expected”. It has made more than €1bn in savings in the first six months of the year, which it called “a strong start” to reaching its target
  
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• Sears is now selling appliances on Amazon (SHLD)

  20-07-2017 14:21 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Sears is planning to start selling its Kenmore-branded appliances on Amazon, the company announced Thursday. 
  Sears' stock price soared more than 20% in early morning trading following the news.
  The move will lead to the broadest distribution of Kenmore products outside of Sears stores, and should give the company access to new customers. 
  But it also gives shoppers one more reason not to visit Sears.com or Sears' stores, which have been battling declining traffic for years.
  The d
  
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• An investing legend is making a killing after putting 1% of his net worth in bitcoin

  20-07-2017 13:06 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  The legendary investor Bill Miller is apparently bullish when it comes to cryptocurrencies.
  Miller told Forbes he invested 1% of his net worth into bitcoin in 2014, determining that the potential gains from a cryptocurrency boom outweighed the risk of a complete loss.
  Forbes reporter Antoine Gara writes that the investment has grown tenfold and that bitcoin is one of the top holdings of Miller's hedge fund.
  In 2014, bitcoin traded between $183 and $914. Currently, it's trading at $2,340, up near
  
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• Thomas Barta: A leader’s biggest asset is their ability to inspire

  20-07-2017 13:00
  
  When I’m not speaking at conferences, I sometimes teach masterclasses to help marketers raise their boardroom profile.
  Not long ago, a technology firm asked me to extend one of my marketing leadership keynotes into a class for 30 of their senior marketing clients. The firm had come to realise that the best marketing software goes nowhere unless marketers get buy-in internally. I couldn’t agree more.
  Why waste money on artificial intelligence in online campaigning when your sales team
  
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• 10 things in tech you need to know today (MSFT, INTC, GOOG)

  20-07-2017 13:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Good morning! Here is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.
  1. Former Yahoo boss Marissa Mayer has said she still wants to be a CEO — but Uber hasn't called yet. Mayer is rumoured to be on a list of candidates that could replace Uber's chief executive Travis Kalanick after he stepped down.
  2. Intel has laid off its entire wearables division, which made its Basis smartwatch. The company is now focusing on augmented reality, according to CNBC.
  3. Microsoft has built a smart thermosta
  
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• 10 things you need to know today (SPY, SPX, QQQ, DIA, WFM, AXP, QCOM)

  20-07-2017 12:31 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Here is what you need to know.
  The Bank of Japan upgrades its growth forecast. Japan's central bank kept policy on hold and said it expected growth of 1.8% this year, up from its previous forecast of 1.6% growth.
  The European Central Bank meets. Expectations are for the central bank to remain on hold and give clues as to when it will begin tapering its asset-purchase program.
  Australia's jobs report misses. The Australian economy added 14,000 jobs in June, a bit below the 15,000 that economists
  
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• GOLDMAN SACHS: There's still a killing to be made this earnings season

  20-07-2017 12:07 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Earnings season has the potential to be more lucrative than ever for stock traders, yet investors still haven't caught on.
  In recent quarters, reporting companies have seen their shares move four times the normal daily average, the most in the past 18 years, according to data compiled by Goldman Sachs.
  Yet options are implying an earnings move of just 4.6% in either direction, near the lowest on record. So what traders should be doing, Goldman says, is placing strategic options bets designed to
  
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• US stocks haven't been this unpopular since the financial crisis

  20-07-2017 03:54 via feedproxy.google.com
  
  Investors are souring on US stocks to an extent not seen since the start of the financial crisis.
  Global fund managers have a 20% net underweight allocation to US equities, which is the lowest since January 2008, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch survey of 207 money managers with almost $600 billion under management.
  That means they're looking to other geographies and even other asset classes for returns — perhaps due to outright bearishness on stocks, b
  
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• Why brands are expanding investment in performance agencies

  20-07-2017 02:00
  
  NEW YORK: As big brands move more media budget to digital and the upper funnel becomes more measurable, performance agencies are reaping the rewards.The change reflects the direct returns that brands now expect to see from every marketing...
  
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• US marketers must prepare for EU rules

  20-07-2017 02:00
  
  JERSEY CITY: Marketers in the US must ensure they are ready for the General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR) and ePrivacy Regulation which are set to come into force in the European Union next year, a leading legal expert has warned.Reed Freeman, a...
  
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• Travel brands need to adapt to changing Chinese travellers

  20-07-2017 02:00
  
  HONG KONG: The preferences and behaviours of Chinese travellers overseas continue to evolve as new research shows them becoming more adventurous in their choice of destination and accommodation.In May 2017, Hotels.com carried out a survey of 3,000...
  
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• Segment your way to a better media strategy

  20-07-2017 02:00
  
  LONDON: Brand segmentation efforts should never be compromised by whether the resulting consumer target audience can be easily found in media or media surveys, an industry figure advises.In a WARC Best Practice paper,
  
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• How P&G's Ariel created 'acts, not ads' with Share the Load

  20-07-2017 02:00
  
  CANNES: For the agency team behind Ariel’s WARC 100 topping Share the Load campaign, a point of view remains central to communications, as the strategy depended on spurring people to act.The campaign, which made international headlines with...
  
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• Facebook, Snapchat expand news offers

  20-07-2017 02:00
  
  NEW YORK: Social platforms Facebook and rival Snapchat are integrating news with their products with significant implications for publishers, as the social network says it will begin testing subscription options in October, according to reports. ...
  
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• Can Aussie retailers rise to the Amazon threat?

  20-07-2017 02:00
  
  SYDNEY: With e-commerce giant Amazon set to hit Australian shores, local retailers will need to lift their game to compete or risk losing customers, according to an industry expert.Carl Hartmann, founder of Temando, an e-commerce software...
  
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• Ads 80% more likely to be seen on newsbrand sites

  20-07-2017 02:00
  
  LONDON: Advertising on digital newsbrand sites is 80% more likely to be viewed than advertising on non-newsbrand sites, according to new research.An eye-tracking study by Lumen asked 300 panellists to browse a range of newsbrand and non-newsbrand...
  
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