Archive for November 15th, 2011

A college degree is still worth it …

November 15, 2011

Interesting piece in Business Week …

Punch line: Sure, it costs more, and technology is threatening high-paying jobs. But the Great Recession shows postsecondary education is more valuable than ever

Supporting factoids:

The share of jobs in the U.S. economy requiring postsecondary education went up from 28 percent in 1973 to 59 percent in 2008… … and is projected to increase to 63 percent over the next decade.

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Median earnings in 2008 …

  • College graduate with a BA working full-time  … $55,700
  • Associates Degree (typically awarded by community and technical colleges)  … $42,000.
  • High school-only grads  … $33,800
  • Without a high school diploma ….$24,300

* * * * *

Earnings Power

About 25 percent of those in the top 40% of wage earners have only a high school diploma.

About 20 percent of workers with a college degree are in the lowest 40% of wage earners.

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Unemployment rates:

  • 4.3% for college graduates and above who are 25 years and older.
  • 9.5% for high school graduates
  • 13.9% for those with less than a high school education

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Chevy Volt’s battery catches fire … oops.

November 15, 2011

The Detroit Free Press reports that a Chevrolet Volt caught fire several weeks after a crash test.

The electric vehicle had been subjected to a low speed (20 mile-per-hour), side-impact test for its crash safety rating.

Apparently, the crash punctured the Volt’s lithium-ion battery, and though it took a couple of weeks, the vehicle eventually self-combusted – i.e. it went up in flames.

General Motors believes the fire occurred because the testers didn’t drain the energy from the Volt’s battery following the crash, which is a safety step the automaker recommends.

Government officials are weighing the need for new safety rules that could require first responders to drain electric vehicles’ batteries after a crash.

Note, they’re not investigating how to make the Volt safer, they’re determining whether fire-fighters have to drain the batteries when they arrive at an accident scene.

Cmon man …

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Want a free sample? … OK, here’s a gift card.

November 15, 2011

TakeAway: A promotions company is trying to use prepaid cards to push product samples, but CPG firms are hesitant to get on board.

Ken’s Take: Geez, just what consumers need … another credit or gift card in their already too fat wallets. This one will get leapfrogged pretty quickly – with a mobile app that’ll do the same thing – without another card to carry.

* * * * *

Excerpt from AdAge: “A Prepaid Card Good for … One Full-Size Frozen Pizza?”

Young America, promotion-services company is joining with Citi Prepaid Services to create prepaid cards redeemable for full-size product samples at stores.

The idea is to open up sampling alternatives for product categories such as frozen foods, over-the-counter drugs and laundry detergent, where it’s either impossible or impractical to send samples through the mail or insert them into newspapers.

The prepaid cards are programmed to be redeemable only for specific SKUs and only up to the price of the item.

One advantage of using cards over using paper coupons for the same purpose is reducing the risk of redemption fraud.

Other advantages include not having to pay to ship full items to homes, not having to manufacture a special sample size and the potential for tying sampling programs to shopper-marketing programs that can induce retailers to stock and prominently display the featured products.

Young America is in talks with several marketers on the tactic but hasn’t signed any up yet.

“The con is that the brand ends up paying the retailer price vs. the manufacturer price” said a former P&G sampling-promotion executive.

Edit by ARK

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