Earlier this week we posted that JCP CEO Ron Johnson insisted at an investor conference that Penney’s “marketing is really starting to connect” with customers … and that in 2013, Penney will become “a happening place.”
That was 2 days ago. Then yesterday …
According to USA Today: CEO Ron Johnson announced a strategic evolution to its plan to offer everyday low prices that customers could count on rather than the nearly 600 fleeting discounts, coupons and sales events each year.
OK, let’s start with the garden variety doping allegation.
Several news sources reported that Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees was “ensnared in a doping investigation once again when an alternative weekly newspaper reported baseball’s highest-paid star was among a half-dozen players listed in records of a Florida clinic the paper said sold performance-enhancing drugs.”
Technical question: What the heck is an “alternative weekly newspaper”? What is it an alternative to?
The Miami New Times said the three-time AL MVP bought human growth hormone and other performance-enhancing substances during 2009-12 from Biogenesis of America LLC, a now-closed anti-aging clinic in Coral Cables near Rodriguez’s offseason home.
Another technical question: What the heck is an “anti-aging” clinic? Glad to see it closed.
The New York Yankees third baseman issued a statement denying the allegations.
Now let’s move to the jaw-dropper: Raven’s LB Ray Lewis Accused of Using Performance Enhancing Deer Spray.
First. my stake in the game: I consider myself an economist … at heart and by schooling … majored in econ … grad work in applied econ … worked for awhile doing econometrics.
Econ still permeates my marketing strategy work.
So, I was naturally drawn by an article in the UK Independent:
“Fraudster fools a whole nation: Portuguese economics pundit exposed as conman.”
Just looking at this dude has gotta set off some alarm bells …
According to the YouGov Brand Index annual survey, the winner is …
YouGov BrandIndex’s Buzz score asks respondents: “Have you heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth?”
That’s a pretty wide net – can be positive or negative – but, it is certainly a measure of “buzz”.
Here are the rest of the Top 25 … many surprises …
A CEO I worked for used to oft say “ I pay you to make the weather, not just report it.”
I thought it was a clever line … and use it in class … to raise the old expectation’s bar.
Well, apparently former Mexican President, Felipe Calderon and his buddies at Davos heard the same admonition.
According to sources, the Davos leaders are calling for an unprecedented investment of $14 trillion to green the global economy, to stop climate change and to preempt hurricanes.
First, a couple of disclaimers: (1) I don’t own a gun, I’ve never fired a gun … and I don’t plan to do either in my lifetime (2) I’m pro-Constitution, so I hate it when Constitutional rights are stripped away … that’s a very slippery slope (3) So, despite my personal aversion to guns, I’m not big on infringing other people’s right to own them (4) I love kids and I lived in Trumbull, CT … just down Rt.25 from Newtown … so, I took the school killings hard.
OK, with that out of the way, let’s look at the numbers to see how silly the DC debate has gotten.
Practically all of the political effort is on banning law abiders from owning assault rifles and high capacity ammunition clips.
A study reported by EurekAlert! – a science society — concludes that obese drivers are much more likely to die in car crashes than normal weight drivers.
At a conference a couple of years ago. GE and their agency, BBDO, made a presentation of their new “Imagination” campaign.
After showing some nice TV spots and explaining that they’d spent $300 million on media over the last year, they proudly declared that brand awareness had increased substantially.
This generated polite applause.
Next up was the Marketing Director of blender manufacturer Blendtec who proceeded to blend:
a brick
some ball bearings
an 8 ft garden rake
a Blackberry donated by a member of the audience
He then put up a single slide showing that every time they posted a self-produced, ten dollar video on YouTube in their long-running “Will It Blend” campaign (which to-date has had more than 220 million views,) sales went up by an accurately measurable percentage.
Understandably, the crowd went nuts.
The point being, GE spent hundreds of millions and couldn’t quantify with any certainty what they had achieved for all that money.
Blendtec spent pennies and achieved consistently significant and measurable results.
Below are links to a couple of the Blendtec videos … worth watching.
Of course, I wouldn’t be asking if the answer was Obama’s.
According to Gallup, 38% watched Obama get crowned on Monday (a national holiday) … back in 2005, 40% watched W. take the oath (on a regular workday Thursday).
“Getting the results of a genetic test can be a bit like opening Pandora’s box … you might learn that you’re likely to develop an incurable disease later on in life.”
There’s a federal law that’s supposed to protect people from having their own genes used against them, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, or GINA.
Under GINA, it’s illegal for health insurers to raise rates or to deny coverage because of someone’s genetic code.
But the law has a loophole: It only applies to health insurance.
Some insurance can be denied or priced high because of a person’s DNA.
Interesting article in Slate: The Early Education Racket … poses the question does preschool really matter
Research suggests that if you have the time and money to argue over the merits of different preschools and their philosophies, your kid isn’t going to suffer either way since upper-middle-class parents “tend to be choosing between all very good options
In fact, he/she probably doesn’t need to go to preschool at all.
Punch line: Taking a page from Red Bull’s book, Axe launches a ‘Space Academy’ campaign, with a contest that sends winners on a space ship to the moon.
Axe has made its reputation with edgy advertising that makes no bones about why it believes young men should use it — to attract women to them as if they’re sexually magnetized.
Now, the Unilever brand is pushing the envelope just a bit more in two ways: …
Punch line: Facebook takes a crack at monetizing the site for retailers, adding a ‘Gifts’ feature that allows users to purchase and send an actual gift to friends.
Facebook uses that friend’s profile to suggest gifts based on their interests and ‘likes.’
Punch line: Major retailers are customizing online prices for each user, using users’ information (such as location) to determine different prices for identical items. The goal”higher price realization and higher profits.
According to Slate: Male jurors are more likely to find fat women guilty.
A team of Yale psychologists released a study indicating that male jurors were more likely to hand a guilty verdict to obese women than to slender women.
The Coca-Cola Company on Monday evening began airing a two-minute spot on U.S. cable news networks.
The subject, in a first for the company: America’s obesity debate, in a bid to defend its brands ahead of looming beverage size controls.
Coca-Cola Coming Together Video
The world’s biggest beverage company debuted the “Coming Together” commercial in hopes of flexing its marketing muscle in the debate over sodas and their impact on public health.
The theme ties into the company’s “Live Positively” and “Open Happiness” campaigns.
Another ad, which will run later this week during American Idol and before the Super Bowl, is much more reminiscent of the catchy, upbeat advertising people have come to expect from Coca-Cola.
It features a montage of activities that add up to burning off the ‘140 happy calories’ in a can of Coke: walking a dog, dancing, sharing a laugh with friends and doing a victory dance after bowling a strike.
The ads are intended to address “confusion” about the number of calories in soda.
Hmm.
Think “sharing a laugh with friends” can really burn off 140 calories?
Nice recap courtesy of JP Morgan Wealth Management …
Easy facts to remember:
Feds take in about $2.5 trillion in taxes
Deficit is just over $1.1 trillion
Spending is over $3.6 trillion
Note that Social Security & Medicare spending is about twice what’s taken in via “Social Insurance” … aka. “payroll taxes”.
Also note how big that dashed Borrowing box is.
We don’t have a spending problem.
Yeah, right.
* * * * * Chart Tip: Being picky, but they should have put Social Insurance at the bottom of the sources’ stack so that it lined up with Social Security and Medicare.
Every list should have a logical order … and that order is rarely the order that you thought of things.
Denise Morrison, Campbell’s new CEO, is determined to shake things up.
She was hired to stabilize the soup and simple meals businesses, expand internationally, grow faster in healthy beverages and baked snacks.
Dubbed “the savior of soup”, she’s driven Campbell’s innovators to launch more than 50 new products in her 1st year.
For example, Campbell’s launched Go Soups, a six-flavor line in plastic pouches meant to convey freshness while capturing millennials’ adventurous tastes.
Even the lowest information voters should have realized by now that their paychecks have shrunk by 2% … since the Feds didn’t renew the 2% payroll tax holiday.
The big question for the economy as 2013 gets underway is how America will react to their smaller paychecks.
As loyal readers know, I’m a bear on the economy and the stock market.
That said, there are some indications that the economy’s water level is slowly rising … as evidenced in light vehicle sales (cars and small trucks) and housing starts.
This is a relatively simple financial math question that most people I’ve asked have gotten wrong.
Answers have ranged from less than 8.8% – since only capital gains are being taxed (huh?) … 8.8% – because that’s how much the marginal rate is going up … to more than 8.8% – “otherwise you wouldn’t be asking the question”.
First, what’s magic about 8.8%?
Well, Obama did what he promised and jacked capital gains tax rates from 15% to 20% … and, don’t forget ObamaCare has a 3.8% non-payroll payroll tax on investment income starting in 2013.
So, the effective capital gains tax rate is going from 15% to 23.8% … a delta of 8.8%.
That 8.8% increase will cut after-tax capital gains by 10.35% !
The Homa Files 
