Sales & Marketing news

• John Lewis puts focus on social media with 360 ad trial and new hire

  20-09-2017 17:39
  John Lewis is trialling 360 video as part of a broader focus on social marketingJohn Lewis is in the process of hiring a head of brand and social marketing as it looks to up its focus on social media and differentiating the shopping experience.
  The move comes after Rachel Swift, who was head of brand marketing, left to take on a new role as brand director and head of creative at O2. She has been at John Lewis since 2010 and spent four years in her most recent role, but John Lewis looked externa
  
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• Mark Ritson: Spreadsheet jockeys are misunderstanding the marketing funnel

  20-09-2017 16:13
  In an era when many traditional marketing and advertising conferences are underwhelming it’s clear that Dmexco – the digital marketing exposition and conference – is rising in both its influence and attractiveness. The annual event in Cologne is rapidly acquiring a marquee place not only in the calendars of the digerati but also the broader marketing community too.
  Among the 570 speakers last week in Germany were some of the biggest names in the business including senior media
  
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• The Body Shop on how its new owners are trying to revive its ‘activist spirit’

  20-09-2017 15:50
  The Body Shop is looking to return to its roots as a purpose-driven retailer after admitting it has struggled in the market amid newer rivals that are “speaking louder”.
  Earlier this year, The Body Shop was sold by L’Oreal to Brazilian firm Natura in a deal believed to be worth £885m. Sales at the company sank 5% to £813m in 2016, down from £854m the year before. In truth, its performance outside of the UK has been suspect for quite some time, while many of it
  
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• Traders are making huge bets that the Toys R Us bankruptcy will crush one of its main suppliers (MAT)

  20-09-2017 15:21 via feedproxy.google.com
  Toys R Us isn't a public company, but its bankruptcy filing two days ago is already sending shockwaves through the stock market.
  Feeling the heat is Mattel, the retailer responsible for the wildly popular Barbie and Transformers brands, and also one of Toys R Us' most important suppliers. The company's stock dropped 6% on Monday amid news of the retailer's Chapter 11 filing, hitting its lowest level since 2009.
  And traders are betting that the pain is just getting started. Short interest on Matt
  
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• The dollar is hovering in suspense ahead of the Fed

  20-09-2017 15:09 via feedproxy.google.com
  The dollar isn't budging ahead of the conclusion of the Federal Reserve's September meeting.
  The US dollar index was little changed at 91.73 at 8:48 a.m. ET.
  On Wednesday, the Fed is expected to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged between 1% and 1.25% and announce the process for unwinding its massive balance sheet.
  The greenback has fallen 9.4% versus a basket of its peers since President Donald Trump's inauguration on January 20.
  As for other FX news, here was the scoreboard a
  
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• Trump attacks Rand Paul as 'such a negative force' trashing 'GREAT!' Republican healthcare bill

  20-09-2017 15:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered an endorsement for the momentum-building Republican healthcare legislation, while also taking time to slam one of the new bill's opponents.
  "Rand Paul is a friend of mine but he is such a negative force when it comes to fixing healthcare," Trump tweeted. "Graham-Cassidy Bill is GREAT! Ends Ocare!"
  The Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson (GCHJ) legislation would shift Medicaid funding to states in a block-grant system — a set am
  
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• Morrisons on how staff are inspiring its marketing and its turnaround

  20-09-2017 15:02
  With seven consecutive quarters of growth under its belt, the turnaround at Morrisons is in full flight. For the first six months of the year, its pre-tax profits jumped 40% to £200m while like-for-like sales rose 3%, compared to a rise of just 1.4% in the previous year.
  Morrisons has prospered by creating a consistent price strategy and prioritising its fresh food offer in-store. It has also been boosted by its deal to supply Amazon Fresh with own-label products, with the partnership lead
  
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• Morrisons on how staff are inspiring both its marketing and turnaround

  20-09-2017 15:02
  With seven consecutive quarters of growth under its belt, the turnaround at Morrisons is in full flight. For the first six months of the year, its pre-tax profits jumped 40% to £200m while like-for-like sales rose 3%.
  Morrisons has prospered by creating a consistent price strategy and prioritising its fresh food offer in-store. It has also been boosted by its deal to supply Amazon Fresh with own-label products, with the partnership leading Morrisons CEO David Potts to confidently claim he
  
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• BLOOMBERG: 'I cannot for the life of me understand why the market keeps going up'

  20-09-2017 14:52 via feedproxy.google.com
  Stocks keep climbing and climbing, but Michael Bloomberg isn't sure why.
  "I cannot for the life of me understand why the market keeps going up," the former New York City mayor said in an interview with CBS News' Anthony Mason.
  "Our economy has some real challenges: the infrastructure's falling apart; we're destroying jobs with technology; we are keeping the best and the brightest around the world from coming to America to create new jobs, new businesses," he continued.
  "All of those things would
  
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• Jimmy Kimmel slams new Republican healthcare bill, says its author lied to him

  20-09-2017 14:22 via feedproxy.google.com
  Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel once again waded into the healthcare debate on Tuesday, blasting the newest Republican attempt to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act and saying one of its authors lied directly to his face.
  Kimmel drew attention in June when he gave an emotional monologue about his newborn son's emergency open-heart surgery and how it gave him clarity on Congress' healthcare debate.
  Following the first plea, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana told Kimmel he would write a bill th
  
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• Trump’s attempt to rewrite NAFTA pushes a provision that is 'senseless — and unnecessary'

  20-09-2017 14:09 via feedproxy.google.com
  Donald Trump campaigned for president on the premise that he would rip up US trade deals including the North America Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and Canada, which he has dubbed "the worst trade deal ever made."
  While he was quick to renege on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement with 11 Pacific-Rim nations that President Barack Obama and US trade negotiators spent several years working out, Trump was more daunted by the long-standing NAFTA. Rather than pull out, as he had promised, Trump
  
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• The Fed risks repeating a ghastly mistake it made right before the past 2 recessions

  20-09-2017 12:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  A decade ago this week, traders cheered news that the Federal Reserve was cutting its key interest rate by an assertive 50 basis points. Back then, the central bank was getting more worried about how borrowing costs could speed up the collapse in house prices.
  The tenor of the two-day meeting this week is very different, as the Fed discusses an economy headed in the opposite direction. The Fed is now considering when to resume raising rates.
  "One thing that concerns me more than anything is the
  
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• The Fed risks repeating a ghastly mistake it made right before the last 2 recessions

  20-09-2017 12:43 via feedproxy.google.com
  A decade ago this week, traders cheered news that the Federal Reserve was cutting its key interest rate by an assertive 50 basis points. Back then, the central bank was getting more worried about how borrowing costs could speed up the collapse in house prices.  
  The tenor of the two-day meeting this week is very different, as the Fed discusses an economy headed in the opposite direction. The Fed's now considering when to resume raising rates.
  "One thing that concern
  
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• An investing legend who's nailed the bull market at every turn shares the hidden secret of future stock gains

  20-09-2017 12:03 via feedproxy.google.com
  It's conventional stock market wisdom that when investors run out of fresh cash to deploy, the end of a rally is near.
  Luckily, we're nowhere near that extreme scenario.
  As Goldman Sachs pointed out in a recent research note, the current cash position of 3.2% for mutual funds is "normal," showing that "skepticism abounds." In other words, the stock market lacks the type of overexuberant sentiment that can leave it vulnerable.
  Legendary investor Laszlo Birinyi — who has nailed the eight-yea
  
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• We're officially in the 2nd-largest bull market since World War II

  20-09-2017 11:53 via feedproxy.google.com
  We're officially in the second-largest bull market since World War II.
  A week ago Monday, the S&P 500 index's bull market became the second-best performing in the modern economic era. Stocks have climbed by about 270% from their March 2009 low over the past eight years, according to data from LPL Financial.
  Today's bull market has eclipsed the 267% gain seen from June 1949 to August 1956. But the bull market from October 1990 to March 2000 remains in the top spot.
  "The logical question we co
  
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• How marketers are stepping up to take control of media

  20-09-2017 08:30
  Just a year ago, YouTube was seen as a safe place to put ad dollars and the idea that Facebook could miscalculate the success metrics it gave to advertisers seemed out of the question. However, after well-publicised advertising scandals hit both Google and Facebook in 2017, as well as the Association of National Advertisers’ investigation into rebates and Procter & Gamble marketing boss Marc Pritchard’s seminal speech about media transparency, marketers have realised they have lo
  
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• World hunger is on the rise despite ample food supplies — and the implications are dire

  20-09-2017 07:35 via feedproxy.google.com
  World hunger spiked last year, worsened by a number of factors like global conflicts, climate change, and political crises, according to a new report from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.
  The increase comes after a decade-long decline, the FAO said, and leaves some 11% of the world’s population suffering from hunger and malnutrition that have documented long-term health and cognitive effects."There is more than enough food produced in the world to fee
  
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• North Korea's biggest trading partner is China — and it's not even close

  20-09-2017 07:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  China has historically been North Korea's biggest trading partner — and it's not even close.
  Business Insider put together two charts comparing North Korea's imports and exports by country using 2015 data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), a project conducted at the MIT Media Lab Macro Connections group.
  In 2015, 85% of imports came from China, according to the OEC. The isolated nation's next biggest trade partner was India, from which North Korea got 3.5% of its
  
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• There's one big question mark hanging over OPEC heading into 2018

  20-09-2017 07:14 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Saudi oil minister, Khalid al-Falih, has worked hard over the past year to get the majority of the world's biggest producers to combat a global supply glut by honoring agreed-upon output cuts. 
  Now, some are beginning to wonder what will happen with compliance when al-Falih finishes his one-year term as the president of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
  "One question mark hanging over OPEC for 2018 will be what will happen when al-Falih hands off th
  
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• Here's why the crackdown on bitcoin in China is 'not a real problem' for the digital currency

  20-09-2017 05:13 via feedproxy.google.com
  Cryptocurrency investors are shaking off reports of a regulatory crackdown on bitcoin in China.
  That's because traders view recent news and rumors as peripheral to the digital coin's future success and potentially temporary.NEW YORK — The cryptocurrency market appears to be unconcerned about a Chinese crackdown on bitcoin, the largest digital coin by market cap.
  On Thursday reports that Chinese regulators would require exchanges to shut down bitcoin trading triggered a sell-off of nearly $
  
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• Understanding category buying behaviour

  20-09-2017 01:52 via warc.com
  LONDON: Brands need to understand buying behaviours in their particular category – and the role of signifiers such as quality, price and utility –in order to create effective marketing across the customer journey, according to two...
  
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• Smartphones dominate online access

  20-09-2017 01:52 via warc.com
  LONDON: Smartphones are the most popular device for going online at every hour of the day, according to new research, a trend that savvy brands are exploiting in a variety of innovative ways.An analysis by Verto Analytics, a research company that...
  
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• Quality pays for the NYT and brands

  20-09-2017 01:52 via warc.com
  COLOGNE: The newspaper President Trump frequently derides as “the failing New York Times” is actually doing rather well at a time when, according to CEO Mark Thompson, “the importance of high-quality journalism couldn't be...
  
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• Pharma leads brand activation growth charts

  20-09-2017 01:52 via warc.com
  NEW YORK: Pharmaceutical marketers posted the greatest increase in brand-activation spending last year, according to a report from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), the trade body, and PQ Media, the research firm.This finding came...
  
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• Marketers divided on India's mobile future

  20-09-2017 01:52 via warc.com
  MUMBAI: As millions of rural Indians connect for the first time with feature phones, marketers in the country remain wary of what the actual opportunities for brands will be.WARC spoke to experts on India’s rural segments and discovered that...
  
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• Brands seek long-term relations with influencers

  20-09-2017 01:52 via warc.com
  NEW YORK:Brands such as Target and Band Aid are moving beyond simple transactional interactions with influencers, which can be fraught with issues around brand safety and transparency, to develop longer term relationships that can include product...
  
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• Australians respond to 'Unilever effect'

  20-09-2017 01:52 via warc.com
  SYDNEY: A majority of Australians expect brands to take a stand on important issues, according to research which describes the shift in consumer mindset over the past decade as the ‘Unilever effect’.That is in reference to the actions...
  
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• Aviva campaign designed to ‘make Britain’s roads safer’ banned for promoting dangerous driving

  20-09-2017 01:01
  An Aviva campaign designed to “make Britain’s roads safer” has been banned by the ASA for encouraging unsafe driving.
  The ‘Good Thinking’ campaign, which was created by Adam&EveDDB, featured ex-Formula 1 driver David Coulthard disguised as a rogue taxi driver who disturbs unwitting passengers with his unsafe driving. The customers are then shocked as Coulthard demands a payment for the ride before revealing his true identity.
  The idea behind the campaign was tha
  
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• The bipartisan effort to fix Obamacare just collapsed

  20-09-2017 00:11 via feedproxy.google.com
  Negotiations between GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander and Democrat Sen. Patty Murray on a bipartisan bill to stabilize the Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges collapsed Tuesday, Alexander said.
  "Senator Murray and I had hoped to agree early this week on a limited, bipartisan plan to stabilize 2018 premiums in the individual health insurance market that we could take to Senate leaders by the end of the month," Alexander said in a statement. "During the last month, we have worked hard and
  
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