Sales & Marketing news

• Delivering a personalised shopping experience to surprise and delight

  04-05-2018 18:16
  Retail today has become about far more than buying things; it has reached a stage where a retailer’s success no longer depends on the transaction alone. It is certainly important to have a well-stocked online product page and a smooth checkout process but, in the age of Amazon, even these are not enough. Indeed, we have seen two high-profile retailers – Toys R Us and Maplin – go out of business in the first few months of 2018 despite ticking both of these boxes.
  The future of
  
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• Adidas plays down Russia World Cup opportunity

  04-05-2018 14:26
  Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted has admitted there is “no doubt” the World Cup, which kicks off in Russia in a little over a month, offers less of a sales opportunity for the brand compared to the same event in Brazil four years ago.
  In 2014, Adidas sold more than €2bn (£1.7bn) in football gear helped by Germany (one of the team it kits out) winning the World Cup. But speaking on Adidas’s Q1 2018 financial conference with investors, Rorsted acknowledged Russia doesn’
  
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• Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Starbucks: 5 things that mattered this week and why

  04-05-2018 14:12
  Sainsbury’s and Asda merger throws up brand challenges
  The UK’s second and third biggest supermarkets confirmed they will be merging their businesses earlier this week, bumping Tesco from the top spot to create a new mega-player in the grocery space.
  Sainsbury’s chief executive Mike Coupe described the deal as a “transformational opportunity” to create a new force in UK retail, saying that it will create a business that is “more dynamic, more adaptable, more r
  
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• The dealmaking boom of 2018 could shape up to be one of Wall Street's greatest years on record

  04-05-2018 12:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Wall Street dealmaking is having a record year, with mergers and acquisitions volumes at nearly $1.7 trillion.
  Top M&A execs told Business Insider the pace may not continue at this level of intensity, but given the market trends, they expect deals to continue to flourish. 
  "Other than a major shock to the system, I foresee the current M&A trends playing out for some time," Navid Mahmoodzadegan, co-president of Moelis & Company told Business Insider.
  Wall Street broadly expe
  
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• 10 things you need to know before the opening bell (SPY, SPX, QQQ, DIA, SHAK, SNAP, AAPL)

  04-05-2018 12:29 via feedproxy.google.com
  Here is what you need to know. 
  Here comes the jobs report. The US economy is expected to have added 192,000 nonfarm jobs in April as the unemployment rate slipped to 4%, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg. 
  US-China trade talks wrap up. The two sides have reached an agreement on several trade issues, but disagreements still remain, Bloomberg says. 
  Interest rates in Argentina have shot up to 33.25%. Argentina's central bank raised interest rates to a new
  
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• Traders are turning their backs on stocks at the fastest pace since the financial crisis — and it's a situation that's threatening to spiral out of control

  04-05-2018 12:02 via feedproxy.google.com
  Bernstein highlights a stock-market sentiment indicator that just dropped to its lowest level since the financial crisis.
  The reading suggests a tough road ahead for equities, and perhaps helps explain why the stock market has seen such a subdued reaction to a strong earnings season.
  When stock market's mood starts to flag, things can get dicey in a hurry.
  That's been especially true in 2018, as pent-up volatility positions have exacerbated losses during turbulent times. There are also plentiful
  
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• A brief history of selling guitars

  04-05-2018 12:00
  Iconic guitar maker Gibson went bust last week. Here, Tom Dougherty of Stealing Share looks at the science of guitar branding.The market for buying a guitar – whether an electric or an acoustic – is...
  
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• Wall Street's most gruelling exam is only 50 days away — here's how to prepare for the CFA

  04-05-2018 11:07 via feedproxy.google.com
  The annual Chartered Financial Analyst exams are only 50 days away.
  The CFA is considered to be one of the most difficult exams in finance, with a pass rate of around 40%.
  Speaking to eFinancial Careers, a senior member of the CFA Institute said that taking full mock exams is one of the best ways to prepare.In just over six weeks time, hundreds of thousands of aspiring financiers around the world will sit down to take the notoriously gruelling Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) exam.
  The tes
  
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• A hidden gauge of the jobs market is approaching historic lows — and it reveals the most underrated story of the US economy

  04-05-2018 07:15 via feedproxy.google.com
  When the jobs report for April is released on Friday, economists forecast it will show that the unemployment rate fell to a new post-recession low of 4%. 
  A less obvious metric — the gap between this rate and the underemployment rate that includes discouraged workers — has also been shrinking since the financial crisis. 
  It backs up claims by several companies that skilled workers are more expensive and harder to find, according to Tobias Levkovich, Citi's chief US equity s
  
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• WeWork's 'entirely new, nonsense' way of evaluating its profits is eerily similar to the tech bubble

  04-05-2018 06:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  WeWork reportedly invented a unique way to evaluate itself: "community-adjusted EBITDA."
  That emerged last week in documents prepared for investors ahead of its $702 million high-yield bond offering.
  Community-adjusted EBITDA, and the bond's slide in its first week of trading, is reminiscent of the last tech bubble and crash, according to Albert Edwards, a strategist at Société Générale.Albert Edwards, the ever-bearish markets strategist at Société
  
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• Elon Musk doesn't care about you

  04-05-2018 05:39 via feedproxy.google.com
  Elon Musk doesn't care about you.
  If he did, he would have details about the things that matter to customers and shareholders — the progress of the Model 3, his company's profitability, and continued efforts to make his cars as safe as possible.
  Sorry.I'm about to tell you something that might break your heart. Elon Musk doesn't care about you.
  By you I mean his customers, Wall Street, his shareholders, his creditors, his employees, and anyone who just might be interested in learning more
  
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• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway goes even bigger on Apple, buying 75 million more shares in Q1 (AAPL)

  04-05-2018 05:30 via feedproxy.google.com
  Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway added 75 million more shares of Apple stock to its portfolio in the first quarter of 2018.
  According to a report from CNBC published Thursday night, the new shares add to the more than 165 million shares Berkshire held at the end of 2017.
  The news comes ahead of the legendary investor's annual Q&A meeting set to begin in Omaha on Friday, and days after Apple reported blockbuster earnings this week.Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway upped its stake in Appl
  
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• 'Earnings are not all that matter' — A Wall Street chief strategist breaks down the story he says the market is ignoring

  04-05-2018 02:52 via feedproxy.google.com
  Peter Cecchini, chief market strategist and head of equity derivatives at Cantor Fitzgerald, tells Business Insider what he sees as the big markets story most investors are ignoring. 
  He argues traders are disproportionately focused on one market catalyst that's overshadowing other important drivers.
  If you speak to any investor about the state of the market, you probably won't get very long before the topic of earnings comes up.
  That's because profit growth has been the undeniable MVP of t
  
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• Goldman Sachs has hired a senior chemicals banker from Barclays (GS)

  04-05-2018 02:00 via feedproxy.google.com
  Goldman Sachs has hired a senior chemicals investment banker from Barclays.
  Ken Grahame will join the Goldman as a managing director.
  He spent roughly a decade at Barclays.
  Goldman Sachs has hired a senior chemicals banker away from Barclays, according to people familiar with the matter. 
  Ken Grahame, a managing director who focused on chemicals companies at Barclays, is joining Goldman in a similar role, the people said. 
  Grahame started his Wall Street career at Lehman Brothers and j
  
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• Elon Musk has completely stopped hiding his contempt for Wall Street — and he's paying the price (TSLA)

  04-05-2018 01:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  Tesla CEO Elon Musk conducted a deeply strange conference call with analysts after the company reported its first-quarter earnings on Wednesday.
  At one point, Musk cut off an analyst and turned the call over to a YouTuber.
  Musk described questions about Tesla's business issues as "boring" and "dry."
  Tesla's stock plunged in after-hours trading.
  I've listened to a lot of earnings calls with automakers and more than my fair share of Tesla calls presided over by CEO Elon Musk with a mixture of chee
  
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• Say 'bye' to cash (and traditional banking?)

  04-05-2018 01:11
  NEW YORK/BEIJING: Seven in ten millennials in the US and China rarely use cash, according to research which also highlights how consumers in these countries want more diverse financial products that are better suited to their needs and lifestyles. ...
  
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• Pizza Hut India goes hyper-local

  04-05-2018 01:11
  SAN SEBASTIAN: Looking at individual restaurants as a local business was an “aha” moment for Pizza Hut India, according to its chief marketing officer.“Actually, 80 to 90% of all our business happens within a 3km radius of where...
  
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• Online media time to pass linear TV in 2018

  04-05-2018 01:11
  NEW YORK/LONDON: The amount of time consumers around the world spend online each day will overtake that spent watching linear TV this year, according to new projections from GroupM.In a new report, State of Digital, the media investment group of...
  
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• How to do digital transformation like John Lewis

  04-05-2018 01:11
  MADRID: For John Lewis, the British retail partnership, investment in digital transformation is not about tech so much as creating services that people love and are willing to pay for.This is according to John Lewis’ Group Development...
  
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• How Pernod Ricard incentivised an online community

  04-05-2018 01:11
  BOGOTÁ: Pernod Ricard, the drinks business, gathered a wealth of information from an online community in Colombia, and attributed part of that success to a program of incentives that encouraged participants to complete a range of tasks.In...
  
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• Celebrity endorsers can boost market value

  04-05-2018 01:11
  NEW YORK: The proper match of a product and endorser not only can move consumers along the path to purchase but can also positively affect financial market performance, according to new research published in the Journal of Advertising...
  
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• Record number of ad complaints sees online overtake TV

  04-05-2018 01:01
  A record number of ads were amended or withdrawn in 2017, with the internet overtaking TV as the most complained about medium.
  Last year the UK’s ad watchdog, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), received 27,138 complaints about 19,398 ads, up 14% year on year – 73% of which concerned potentially misleading ads.
  A total of 10,932 complaints were made about 9,951 online ads, while 9,466 complaints were made about 4,666 TV ads, resulting in 7,099 ads either being amended or
  
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