Things to think about...
|
 |
Tesco in Beijing sells live turtles. |
 |
The Scandinavian founders of Kazaa and Skype Niklas
Zennström, a Swede, and Janus Friis, a Dane have launched a new peer to peer service for TV. Will it disrupt the traditional TV
advertising industry in the same way that Kazaa overturned the music industry and Skype threatens telecommunications? Joost is
based on P2P software that runs on people's computers and combines TV with the internet. Unlike many other TV internet
businesses, Joost is a free service with advertising breaks but offers viewers playlists rather than scheduled programmes. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Larry Page, Google's co-founder believes newspapers have a good future.
"A laptop runs out of battery and you can't tuck it under your arm," he says. (See the Q&A section for an interview with Google
marketer Dan Cobley.) |
|
The total value of the 250 most valuable global brands is $2,087
trillion, according to a study by Brand Finance. In the same report, Coca-Cola is cited as the world's most valuable brand, with
a value of US$43,146m, followed by Microsoft at $37, 074m. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Toya Williams, a 41 year old administrator from Coca-Cola, faces up to
10 years behind bars for stealing vials of new products and offering them to Pepsi for $1.5 million (£800,000.) |
|
Chief executives who understand and represent their brands are crucial.
As Michael Dell returned to his troubled PC company, the Gap CEO Paul Pressler resigned. Dell's return to the helm led the share
price of the company to leap by 5%. Meanwhile, Pressler resigned following sluggish sales and pressure from his board. Pressler
was never a natural fit for Gap and admitted in an interview that it took him weeks to get used to wearing jeans at work. |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
As the FT predicts a wave of 'green' advertising, supermarket research
shows that brands need to extend their environmental policies to packaging. In an internet survey, 77% of consumers said they
were trying to reduce food and packaging waste and 57% said they made sure products and packaging were environmentally friendly and could be composted. |
|
This month, the year of the pig begins in China. But there's a pig
problem for advertisers wanting to use the animal in their advertising. China Central Television, the national state-run TV
network has banned all images and spoken references to the animal in commercials, including those tied to the Lunar New Year,
China's biggest holiday. It says it wants to avoid offending Muslims, who consider pigs unclean. " |
 |
| |
|
|
 |
Before joining the world of marketing, Jim Hytner, brand and UK marketing director, Barclays was a trained chef who’d done time at l’Escargot. Hytner, alongside Jonathan Warburton from Warburtons, Greg Nugent from Eurostar and Adam Morgan from eatbigfish will be talking at The Marketing Society’s Northern Forum on 24 May. |
|
And finally.Guerrilla marketing can be dangerous.A publicity stunt for a
Turner cartoon show closed down Boston. In the biggest security scare in the city since 9/11, police and other units found 10
packages left on bridges and outside a medical centre, each with a blinking electronic device. The bomb squads leapt into action
blowing up some of the devices and closing roads and bridges. The packages were in fact magnetic lights to promote the adult
cartoon show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Two of the cartoon characters featured on the packages |
 |
