Sales & Marketing news

• The world's largest mutual fund provider is pushing companies to disclose how climate change could hurt their business

  28-11-2017 23:10 via feedproxy.google.com
  Vanguard, the world's largest provider of mutual funds, is pushing companies to disclose the risks climate change poses to their business.
  Vanguard is a top shareholder in many large US corporations, so it can impact how companies are run at high levels. 
  It's a sign that investors are taking climate risks seriously. 
   
  The world's largest mutual fund provider is pushing companies to disclose the risks climate change will pose to their business.
  Vanguard, which is also the second
  
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• Thanks to Thanksgiving shoppers, Jeff Bezos is now the world's only living $100-billion man

  28-11-2017 23:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  Jeff Bezos had a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving weekend. After record-breaking weekend sales, Amazon's stock price hit an all-time high of $1,213.41 a share on Monday. That pushed Bezos' net worth to over $100 billion, which is up 35% from the same period last year, according to Bloomberg.
  Thanks to that recent surge, Bezos has once again passed Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates as the richest person in the world, as we can see in this chart from Statista, which is based on data fro
  
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• Republicans are considering massive last-minute changes to their tax bill to try and win over holdouts

  28-11-2017 22:49 via feedproxy.google.com
  Senate Republicans held their weekly policy lunch on Tuesday to discuss their tax bill, and President Donald Trump was in attendance.
  The group discussed a slew of changes to the bill, including a "fiscal trigger," adjustments to the state and local tax deduction repeal, and a follow-up bill for Obamacare.
  Whether these changes will win over enough Republicans to get the bill through the Senate remains to be seen.As Republicans' final push for tax reform picks up steam, Senate GOP leaders are c
  
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• STOCKS SOAR: Here's what you need to know

  28-11-2017 22:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  US stocks rallied big on Tuesday, even shrugging off North Korea's latest missile test during the trading session. 
  Here's the scoreboard: 
  Dow: 23,836.71, +255.93, (1.09%)
  S&P 500: 2,627.04, +25.62, (0.98%)
  Nasdaq: 6,912.36, +33.84, (0.49%)Roark Capital Group, the owner of Arby's and Cinnabon, has agreed to buy Buffalo Wild Wings for about $2.9 billion. The private-equity firm will pay $157 a share in cash for Buffalo Wild Wings, which is 34% above t
  
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• NBCUniversal may start running fewer ads on its TV networks

  28-11-2017 21:19 via feedproxy.google.com
  NBCUniversal hosted a collection of top executives in the media and advertising business on Tuesday in New York, promising to tackle some of the thornier issues facing the industry – such as people increasingly trying to avoid ads.
  The group included leaders from Google, Twitter, Facebook, AT&T and Fox.
  NBCU's sales lead Linda Yaccarino urged the industry to embrace data, push for better transparency, and better respect consumers. She even hinted at running fewer ads on NBCU's TV
  
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• The GOP tax bill just cleared another huge hurdle

  28-11-2017 21:05 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Senate Budget Committee voted 12-11, along party lines, to move the GOP tax bill to the full Senate.
  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said GOP leaders were still trying to get enough votes to pass their tax bill.
  McConnell said that trying to get 50 votes for the bill was like "sitting there with a Rubik's cube."The Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday voted to move the GOP's massive tax bill to the full Senate, clearing the last procedural hurdle before the whole chamber can debate it.
  
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• HPE's new supercomputer will be used by Stephen Hawking's research group to crunch 14 billion years of information (HPE)

  28-11-2017 20:37 via feedproxy.google.com
  Hewlett-Packard Enterprise will supply the the University of Cambridge Mathematics department, Stephen Hawking’s Centre for Theoretical Cosmology (COSMOS), with its fancy new supercomputer called the HPE Superdome Flex.
  The supercomputer will be joining other supercomputers in the COSMOS facility to study 14 billion years worth of data gathered by COSMOS to study the origins of the universe, the phenomenon of black holes and decipher the nature of space and time.Hewlett-Packard
  
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• CITRON RESEARCH: 'Time to pop some real bubbles. $ROKU, total joke' (ROKU)

  28-11-2017 20:33 via feedproxy.google.com
  Roku shares have soared more than 200% since their initial public offering in September to more than $45 apiece.
  Short seller Andrew Left's Citron Research says the stock is a "total joke" and that it will slide back below $40.
  Shares of Roku slumped as much as 2.5% on Tuesday afternoon following some downbeat commentary from short seller Andrew Left's Citron Research. They have recouped those losses and are now higher by 2.45% at $47.66 apiece. 
  "Time to pop some real bubbles," the firm's
  
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• One photo shows how the Keystone pipeline is living up to activists' biggest fears

  28-11-2017 19:51 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Keystone Pipeline has spilled far more oil than TransCanada Corp, the company that operates the project, predicted.
  President Donald Trump gave the go-ahead for an extension, called the Keystone XL pipeline, to be built after former President Barack Obama rejected the proposal.
  The frequent and large spills confirm activists' fears about the pipeline. 
   
  The Keystone pipeline has leaked far more oil than the Canadian company that operates the project initially predicted
  
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• We checked out a Victoria's Secret store in New York City to see why the brand is struggling — and what we found surprised us (LB)

  28-11-2017 19:41 via feedproxy.google.com
  The Victoria's Secret of today is a far cry from the fun, sexy, high-quality brand it was five years ago.
  And customers are ditching in droves. Weak sales at L Brands, the parent company, have dragged the stock down 23% in 2017. The shares dropped as much as 45% year-to-date through August 30, hitting their lowest level since 2011, before rebounding slightly heading into the holiday shopping season.
  In honor of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show airing on Tuesday night, we went back to the stor
  
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• Buffalo Wild Wings' new owner has an empire of restaurants, gyms, and auto repair centers

  28-11-2017 19:34 via feedproxy.google.com
  Roark Capital Group has acquired Buffalo Wild Wings for $2.9 billion.
  The private-equity firm helped turn around Arby's after buying a majority stake in 2011.
  The firm has a diverse portfolio that includes restaurants, gyms, and auto repair centers.
   
  After struggling to deal with historically high chicken wing prices and millennial disinterest, Buffalo Wild Wings has been acquired by Roark Capital Group for $2.9 billion. Known for rescuing Arby's from a similar position in
  
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• Bitcoin clears $10,000

  28-11-2017 19:26 via feedproxy.google.com
  Bitcoin, the scorching-hot digital currency, cleared $10,000 a coin on Tuesday.The digital currency, which many Wall Streeters have said is in a massive bubble, is up more than 875% this year.Bitcoin, the red-hot digital currency, has cleared $10,000 for the first time.
  The virtual currency, which has gripped the attention of Wall Street and Main Street, reached the much-anticipated threshold at about 1:26 p.m. ET on Tuesday, according to data from Markets Insider. It's trading up 2.85%, at $10
  
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• Ben Davis: AI is much hyped but often misunderstood

  28-11-2017 16:01
  Artificial intelligence continues to garner much attention from marketers eager to learn how it can make their lives easier. Of the 12 stages at the Festival of Marketing 2017, for example, the AI stage was perhaps where audiences were most rapt. Marketers were dutifully listening to industry experts and wondering whether off-the-shelf machine learning solutions exist to match their needs, or indeed if such solutions are everything their vendors say they are.
  Marketers now have the daunting task
  
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• Mark Ritson: Which sponsors would trust the World Cup to protect their brand in 2018?

  28-11-2017 15:04
  In the mighty world of sports sponsorship there is no such thing as a small deal. But there are only two properly gigantic opportunities that dwarf all others: the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. There is simply no comparison in terms of gigantic cost, global reach and the potential brand impact of being associated with one of the ‘big two’.
  And yet, for all its glory, things are not looking too perky over at FIFA for next year’s World Cup. With the draw for the tourname
  
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• Marketoonist on machine learning

  28-11-2017 13:06
  Tom Fishburne is founder of Marketoon Studios. Follow his work at marketoonist.com or on Twitter @tomfishburne
  See more of the Marketoonist here
  The post Marketoonist on machine learning appeared first on Marketing Week.
  
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• One marketer on the challenges of building a cannabis brand

  28-11-2017 13:03
  There was a time when seeing the headline above was about as likely as reading a Marketing Week story about the Power Rangers. However, over recent years, the tide of opinion around cannabis has changed so dramatically, it’s becoming a subject that’s far more palatable in the UK.
  In the US, there are now 29 states that have legalised cannabis (whether for medical or recreational use), with many of these states talking positively about the taxes weed has allowed them to invest back in
  
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• Thomas Barta: You should never ask for a promotion

  28-11-2017 08:00
  Not long ago, I spoke at one of Europe’s largest technology conferences. The hall was crowded, full of tech-savvy marketers. After my keynote, a young marketer kicked off the Q&A by saying: “I’ve been a brand manager for two years. My reviews are good. So I’ve asked my boss when I’ll be promoted. But she wouldn’t say. What should I do?” When he finished, the audience spontaneously applauded. The young marketer had obviously hit on a hot topic.
  I was
  
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• UK customer experience falls to record low

  28-11-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  LONDON: UK brands lag way behind US brands in terms of delivering world-class customer experience, according to a new survey that attributes part of the problem to many of them continuing to organise themselves along “Victorian” lines. ...
  
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• TV start-up Cheddar launches into Europe

  28-11-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  NEW YORK/LONDON: Cheddar, a business news TV network that live-streams from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, has been broadcasting for just 18 months but it already has firm plans to expand into Europe.The start-up, which was founded by...
  
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• Social conversations and WOM drive sales

  28-11-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  NEW YORK: Social conversations and word-of-mouth, both online and offline, have a measurable business impact and are a major driver of consumer sales, a new study has revealed.According to Engagement Labs, a firm that analyses conversation data,...
  
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• Jakeman questions marketing research

  28-11-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  NEW YORK: Marketing research is failing the community it needs to serve in some important ways, according to Brad Jakeman, a Senior Advisor and Consultant to PepsiCo.Jakeman, who was President of PepsiCo’s Global Beverage Group until October...
  
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• Indian brands reach US consumers via Amazon

  28-11-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  MUMBAI: Amazon operates the second-largest e-commerce site in India, but the country is important in another respect because it is a source of cheap, but high quality, products that can be sold to US consumers on its American site.American...
  
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• In social, your brand needs to be the 'cute kitten'

  28-11-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  LONDON:Brands have a stark choice when creating a social strategy – create something that stakeholders approve but which is unlikely to make an impact or take a risk and produce work that makes people sit up and take notice, a senior...
  
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• 'Blue ocean brands' score instant advantage

  28-11-2017 01:00 via warc.com
  SINGAPORE: Thinking outside traditional category norms and being where other competitors aren’t can put a brand at an instant advantage, according to analysis of more than 180 Asian campaigns.WARC’s Asian Strategy Report, released last...
  
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