Nintendo Earnings Pulled Down by Wii U

Nintendo is rising once again their profits have double or maybe even more since the last quarter. I was surprised to hear that their Wii-U console did not meet expected sales and at the same time did not meet customer satisfaction they lost a total of 7.8 million dollars (Do to the fact that the Wii-U was unpopular). But now they have reinvented themselves thanks to the help of Pokémon Go their sales have raised. They booked a 115 million profit from Pokémon games in this past quarter (April to September) and the net income from July to September rose a 603 million compared to the 30 million from the year before. Something that has also busted their sales has been their support from the Seattle Mariners baseball team (they had a one-time gain) from a profit that occurs from the sale of an asset. Since the asset is gone after that, the profit cannot be reproduced, so it is a one-time occurrence. But over all we have notice a decline in consoles since 2009. Nintendo has unveiled their latest console but it failed to impress once again, the name of the new console is “switch”, Nintendo’s shares have declined a 6.5% since last Friday. I’m personally quite disappointed in the fact that their product has once again failed, but I still have high expectations for them (since I’m looking forward to purchasing the console) since this might fix the problem they had with the Wii-U, if the switch works the sales will be incredible and once again sky rocket. This new console will or might take the x-box and ps4 out of the picture. Nintendo has analyzed and well strategized their target market not only for single player use but multiplayer use and its bringing back the old style of socializing which is amazing. (Nintendo knows its competition well, 4c’s). This will defiantly be a new product that will need to educate its consumers of its benefits but once its past that point and it had demonstrated success the sales will bust high because everyone would want to

get their hands on it.

P&G To Scale Back Targeted Facebook Ads

P&G is known as Procter and Gamble Co. and are the biggest advertising spenders in the world.  P&G originally performed a huge portion of their marketing through Facebook, as it had been known to be a great source to market directly through, to a subset of shoppers.  After years of pouring millions of dollars into the use of Facebook as an advertising strategy, P&G realized that Facebook was advertising to ineffective target markets.  P&G came to conclusion that successful marketing would need to advertise relative ads to age appropriate consumers, as well as advertising through a more widely used traditional platform, such as digital sites and the television. P&G exercised their concluded hypothesis for the first time, when they tried targeting ads for their febreze air freshener specifically to pet owners and households with large families.  Febreze found that sales stagnated during the effort, but rose when the campaign was additionally aired on the television and digital sites.  After P&G’s success of discovering their newly found marketing strategy, several other companies caught on, and they too found success.  Facebook acknowledged marketers needs to be allowed advertising to specific target markets of age appropriate consumers, and they made them readily available to marketers by using mass reach and personalized targeting.  Facebook is actually one of today’s number one sources used for marketing. 

I find marketing quite interesting because it is such a major form of communication and awareness in today’s world of business, innovation, and life.  I find relevance of marketing strategies, applicable to the product life cycle in the aspect that changing your marketing strategy can actually keep a product in the growth or maturity stage and out of ever reaching the decline stage.  Marketing strategy is also applicable to building product recognition and consumer satisfaction, leading to positive consumer relations and an increase in customer return rate and profits.  Marketing is life, especially in the business world. 

Link to WSJ:

         http://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-scale-back-targeted-facebook-ads-1470760949

Baby Boomers to Sleep With The Fishes???

Dean Chagaris | Marketing 3343 | Dr. Zhang

Original Article - http://www.wsj.com/articles/baby-boomers-encase-me-in-concrete-and-dump-me-in-the-ocean-1477583957

You read the altered title correctly; Baby Boomers are opting for this new burial trend as opposed to the traditional box 6ft deep or being placed into a jar!

There's dead people in these concrete things!

So those things pictured above? Yeah they are made out of concrete with the ashes your love one mixed into the concrete and formed into an artificial reef. These are then taken to the ocean location of choice (not sure how these options are chosen) and then it is placed on the bottom of the ocean to attract the fishes for millions of years to come!

How come people are choosing this option for their "final destination?"

• It's environmentally friendly
• Can be slightly cheaper (not much) than a traditional funeral ($2500-$7000)
• The ability to give back to a greater cause - Saving the Planet!!

The Skeptics

• Critics say that it isn't environmentally friendly as its just dropping concrete into the ocean
• Some scientist from a lab on an island in the Pacific say that it will not attract new fish populations to previously inhabited areas
• Hawaii has stated that it will not allow any further reef burials without further investigation into the results of this practice

Target Market - Anyone who plans on dying soon

Exact target Market - Baby Boomers

Product or Service - This is both. They provide the service of turning Uncle Harry into a funny shaped sphere of concrete (product) with holes in it so fishes can swim through him

Logistics - Deliver a jar of ashes then after your loved one has become a product, they are trucked to a doc, placed on a ship, craned into position, placed on the ocean floor.

There is some exclusiveness to all of this madness; once your loved one is turned into a reef and is hauled out to sea, the family, in a separate vessel, can watch their family member be placed into the drink. They will also be given rocks made from the same material to throw in after Auntie Edna as a sort of memorial service.

In addition to all of this you can have a plaque placed on the concrete reef with your loved ones details. Not that fish are going to read it but instead so people diving the reef at a future date. 

But wait theres more!!

All people tossing loved ones into the ocean will receive an exact GPS coordinate location of Cousin Lester so they can dive down alter on and visit if they so choose too! See pic below;

Seasonal job hiring starting early this year

In a tight labor market, employers are frantically  looking to hire new temporary staff before the holiday season begins. Studies show that competition for labor is big as early as August. This means that the temporary workers you meet at your local chain stores during the holiday season are being hired as early as Labor Day to get ready for the economic blizzard that is Black Friday and later Christmas sales. Companies say temps are being hired now to start their training; something that apparently takes a couple months. Another reason is that unemployment is at a 5% for the past year and companies are competing for labor. It's better than 2015 and wages are increasing. As employee training is currently underway, you will be seeing holiday decorations being put up early. This is something that everybody complains about but it's fun to know that as businesses are putting up Christmas decorations in October, they are also training their temporary staff for December's Christmas shopping season.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/retailers-get-early-start-on-recruiting-seasonal-workers-amid-tight-labor-market-1477301581

Toyota and Suzuki Partnership

            Toyota Motor Corporation is collaborating with Suzuki Motor Corporation in an effort to share the research and development costs of developing self-driving cars. Suzuki currently has the upper hand in creating small cheap cars, and Toyota wants their help in sharing of ideas of how they make these mini-cars so cheap. Suzuki’s profit in these small cars is also not enough to even consider spending to develop self-driving cars technology, so these companies both team up for a help-me help-you partnership; however, this will not be a merger. These companies will continue to be operated independently, and only share ideas and costs of developing this new technology.

            Suzuki currently holds more than 40% share in India, and these low cost cars are more needed in today’s market, because of Govt. environmental regulations that are getting stricter globally to prevent pollution, global warming, and adapting to increasing world population that puts more cars on the road, especially in Asian and European markets. These regulations can make Toyota’s future uncertain in the Asian and European markets if the future regulation is in favor of the Suzuki 1.0Liter engine small cars, as Vietnam currently has a 100% tax rate on vehicles and Singapore has an extremely inflated price on cars, just to prevent pollution and overcrowding on roads. European nations also tax vehicle owners based on their engine size.
            Toyota already owns shares in Subaru, as they worked together in developing the Subaru BRZ and the Scion FRS cars, just as Suzuki previously partnered with BMW when they wanted to know Suzuki’s recipe for small-car success. This is related to our marketing strategy planning in terms of marketing program, as Toyota’s focus is on long-term profits of the company. Toyotas smallest car in the USA is the Yaris model, but it is not at all popular because the laws in this country do not favor tiny engine sizes.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-motor-suzuki-in-talks-on-business-partnership-1476255924

High- Tech Bassinet for Sleep- Deprived Parents

Can This High- Tech Bassinet Keep Sleep- Deprived Parents Sane? 

The idea of the new SNOO Bassinet, which retails for $1,160, is to soothe a baby to sleep before the parents of the baby have to get up to put the baby back to sleep themselves. At first glance, the bassinet seems odd, mainly because it's basically a robot taking care of a baby for the parents...to a certain extent. The bassinet is not built to soothe the baby should he or she be wet or sick, of course, only to soothe an upset baby. The bassinet soothes the baby back to sleep by mimicking the motions of a moving car and creating white noise meant to grab the baby's attention and then relax it. 

From a marketing perspective, this bassinet could be an instant hit (among parents that can afford it). It caters to a market that has essentially been the same since the beginning of time: the new parent market. It's a market with a problem that even people with no kids and no intention of ever having any have heard of- everyone's heard the horror stories about how new parents survive on lack of sleep and constant noise. From that perspective, this bassinet is on a path to success, because if there's anything people will pay thousands for, it's the promise of more sleep. 

Click Here

Google Signs up CBS for Planned Web TV Service

Who wants to continue paying for channels they don’t care to watch, much less bare through the commercials?  Nobody!  In early 2017, CBS Corp. will be publishing “Dubbed Unplugged”.  A web TV service produced by Google, offering a “skinny” bundle of live TV channels with a small monthly price range from $25-$40, depending upon the desired amount of channels.  Its bundling of TV channels consists of a portion of You Tube Red (an ad free subscription), channels owned by NBCUniversal and Walt Disney CO., CBS sports network, Fox sports, national geographic, ABC, and ESPN.  Google creators of Dubbed Unplugged face the unavoidable battle of competition.  A few network companies have produced similar web TV services such as Dubbed Unplugged, Allowing Google the chance to perform comparative advantages.  Customers of web TV services are unable to express specific channels of desire to companies, though they can prove who’s making desirable selections by their purchase of cable network.  CBS Corp. plans to enjoy its commission of $2, per subscriber, from Google, after nationally publishing Dubbed Unplugged.  It is currently in the making and strongly hopes to dominate all of today’s available web TV services.

            This article was highly of interest to me in the fact that I enjoy watching TV but hate commercials.  Let’s face it, super bowl commercials are the only exception.  Today has made for an expansive variety of TV service providers, and we as the customers, are never really one hundred percent sure of which to purchase.  Keeping updated with the latest production, performing research, and reading reviews are about the only things we can do. 

            This article is applicable to our course material in many ways than one.  It covers innovation, decision making with marketing information, and the scientific method exercised when performing research for keeping one’s self updated with innovation.  This general idea, as well as the concepts used in this article may also be applied in your everyday life.  One must always convey research to perform proper preparation, which prevents poor performance.  Inventions remain constant, as should society’s research and awareness. 

Article Found @ http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-signs-up-cbs-for-planned-web-tv-service-1476902412

Ultra Beauty Wanting Recognition

While giant retailers such as Wal-Mart and Macy's are closing some of their store's location,
Ulta Beauty plans on opening up hundreds of stores in hopes of gaining brand recognition. The beauty retailer says it will open around 1400-1700 stores from its current 900.

Founded 26 years ago, it has been slowly working towards increasing its brand awareness first through national TV ad back in 2015 and now through the use of social media. In additionally, the retailer is also trying to build its brand loyalty by shifting from broad discounting and more towards loyalty focused promotions. Like its Ultamate Rewards loyalty program which gives members perks for shopping at its store, which represents more than 90% of its sales.

Ulta's marketing exposure strategy rely on intensive store outlets to get brand awareness. At this point in time, the retailer's life cycle is at the market growth stage. Thanks to its marketing strategy of expanding assortment, growth of its hair salon business, and its loyalty program; Ulta's current share of 3% will double according to Stifle analysts.

To read this article click here.

Just In: Facebook Delivers!

JUST IN: FACEBOOK DELIVERS!

           At yet another attempt to expand their brand, Facebook launches an app that allows users to order food, movie tickets, and book a salon appointment. Facebook is taking a stand, trying something different than what they are accustomed to, and moving beyond social-networking. In other words, there are several apps coming out that are assisting in expanding Facebook. They even launched another app called Marketplace that allows users to buy and sell between each other. However, they faced a setback as users started posting banned items such as guns and drugs.

             They are utilizing the large amount of data they have on their users to their benefit, hoping that it will benefit them in the long run. Social butterflies and utilitarians will finally establish a connection through these Facebook apps. However, there are risks to targeting utilitarians: it must increase it's search function in order to appeal to that target market.

           Thankfully on our behalf, Facebook has stated that they will not bombard users with many advertisements. Instead, the users see what they are actually interested in. The easier the app is, the more users the app will gain. Thus, the app will become more successful.
         
          Facebook is expanding their target market as they launch multiple apps and features. However, they are facing competitors such as Uber Eats and Amazon Delivery. They are currently in the marketing growth stage of the product cycle, as they are trying to stick out from their competitors. Overall, Facebook hopes to succeed and achieve their goals.


-Elizabeth Gobran

AT&T Pushes for Merger with Time Warner

http://www.wsj.com/articles/at-t-is-in-advanced-talks-to-acquire-time-warner-1477061850

Dean Chagaris | Dr. Zhang | Marketing 3343 | October 21, 2016

This is a big deal as AT&T waits for approval to acquire Time Warner. By doing so AT&T would expand its internet and television market making it even bigger than it currently is.

AT&T has had a long history of acquiring companies and expanding its markets from communications to internet.

By having Time Warner in it's portfolio AT&T can expect to enjoy expanded market shares, new product offerings, and a larger target market. Having acquired Direct TV a year ago and combining it into its uVerse service, AT&T will now be able to double its reach into markets it currently operates.

AT&T has been working hard to bring entertainment such as DirectTV to markets at prices that cable can't compete with. When you bundle with other products such as wifi, DirectTV, and cell service, AT&T has been making offers to good to pass up.

An example if a current offer;

Switch and get new iPhone 7 32g Free
Pay off previous carrier up to $650.00
Direct TV & WiFi for $50.00 two years
Unlimited Cell/Text/Data Plan for $65.00 mo.
Free installation
$100.00 gift card

Notice the above was just one offer recently executed by me recently. I've not had TV service for 12 years by choice because it was so expensive. Average of $120.00. Now AT&T can offer 3 services, making the Television price so affordable that it becomes unnoticeable.

AT&T tis working to make television so affordable that it will close the gap with users of services from HULU, Amazon, Netflix, Apple. This will disrupt an already confused market when it comes to "too cable or not to cable", but nonetheless, make entertainment more available to the end user.

Tramadol: The Opioid Crisis for the Rest of the World

by Michael Fleming

Today, we are seeing a multitude of social issues up for debate in our society. 

Prescription drug addiction and the power of the pharmaceutical industry is the biggest social issue that hasn't been discussed, for reasons we wouldn't expect.

This article covers widespread addiction of Tramadol, a opiate painkiller, across the globe. The market for prescription drugs in the US, specifically for opiates and antidepressants, has become so powerful that any criticism of its negative affects on consumers is shunned by the mainstream media and networks that are funded by pharmaceutical companies. America is the most advanced country in the world in drug research due to our free market approach to healthcare. It could even be argued that prescription drugs do more damage to our population than the classified drugs made illegal by our government. According to specific research and this article, ordinary citizens are being hooked on painkillers which lead users to become hooked on harder, more serious illegal opiates such as heroin. The leading cause of Heroin addiction is addiction to prescription drugs. In fact, pharmaceutical companies that produce fentanyl, a prescription opiate mentioned in the article, are funding anti-pot campaigns in states such as Nevada and Arizona this year, where citizens will vote on the legalization of marijuana. Marijuana has been proven as a safe alternative to prescription painkillers. In fact, in states like Colorado, where Marijuana is legalized, Opiate-caused deaths have dropped by over 25% and addiction has dropped significantly. This article brings out the conversation America needs to talk about and find a solution to. If we don't take things into our own hands, the wealthy pharmaceutical corporations will continue to profit off of our addictions without consequence. 

Read more from the article here.

eBay to Millennial's: We Are Much More Than Auctions

  It does not come as a surprise to anyone that Amazon dominates the eCommerce market. Ebay debuted in 1995 as the first of its kind: a premier online auction site. After the websites debut, word spread quickly about the fun & competitive experience a user could have on ebay. What originally made ebay unique was the idea that users could sell personal items that were either new/used, and at the price that they thought it was worth. Sellers also loved the idea of a bidding war erupting over their item which resulted in them getting more money than they originally asked for. Times have changed.
  Fast forward to 2016...ebay is no longer the sole dominator in the ecommerce market. The beginning of the end for ebay was when big-name retailers like Target and Walmart began selling their products online.  However, the nail in ebay's coffin was the creation and quick rise of Amazon. What originally separated ebay and Amazon was that Amazon users paid a set price for items with zero chance of negotiation. Many consumers saw the "set price" approach of Amazon to be quicker and easier. Search engines like Google also made accessing price information of products easier so users knew what an items fair dollar value was, which turned them off from using eBay.
 Ebay Vice President of global branding said that his company is aiming to disassociate ebay from being an outdated "auction-type" fad. The company is doing this by offering a set-price for certain items and by redesigning the search feature of the website which now groups items by their price and brand name. The company is also
  Ebay in 2016 is trying to redefine why they exist as a brand, and what it is that they as a company bring to the table. Ebay has also started to brand their boxes and packaging tape with the company's logo to try and increase visibility to the brand. Ebay has also launched a new social media advertising campaign featuring supermodel Karlie Kloss to try and increase visibility of the brand to millennial's.
  This topic is interesting to me because I too always shop on Amazon. Since I first got the iPhone 3G in 2008 I had never dowloaded the ebay app until July of 2016. The only reason I downloaded ebay was because Amazon did not have the variety of a product that I was looking for. On Ebay I found everything I was looking for and was actually surprised of the "buy now" feature where you could pay a little bit more for an item in order to skip the auction process. I now regularily search both Amazon and eBay for products.

Pandora Unveils Promotional Tools for Artists, Labels

            

               Pandora is launching a new promotional tool that is attracting the eye of many new and current artists. Artists in the present day struggle with finding ways for some of their songs to become hits. The radio has accustomed listeners to be comfortable towards familiar songs of an artist making newer songs of the same artist less likely to be heard or played. Pandora showed that people were more prone to listen to a new song, instead of skipping it, if the artist introduced the new song before the actual song. Although other Apple Music and Spotify also offer short introductions of artists' new songs, Pandora has a larger reach than of the two. Pandora is also analyzing the demographics of artist's fans so that it can plan tour maps for artists, making it a very pleasing investment to current and new artists. Furthermore, Pandora offers artists to determine how frequently their new songs are to be played when a listener clicks on that artists' station. However, Pandora is also keeping in mind the listener's comfort by decreasing the amount of times a new song is played, if listeners constantly thumbs down the song. Pandora is appealing to the artist's problem of making a new song a hit and is helping artists construct the most effective and beneficial cities for an artist's tour. Pandora is pushing for better ways to please both the listeners and the artists, making it stand out amongst its competitors.    

Click this link to read the full article. 

Sierra Elrod
October 19, 2016

Salesforce Won’t Pursue Bid for Twitter

Author:           Yoree Koh and Rachael King

October 14, 2016

Due to struggles to accelerate revenue growth, Twitter Inc. was seeking a combination between themselves and Salesforce.com Inc. Unfortunately, on Friday Salesforce.com Inc. withdrew from negotiations.  Many believe the discussions ended due to Twitters decline in stability both in the stock market and in popular relevance, a long side a nearly $12-billion-dollar price tag.  Following the reversal by Salesforce, Chief Executive Marc Benioff, Walt Disney Co. and Alphabet Inc. both departed, leaving twitter currently with no prospects. 

            In the aftermath of the business software provider Salesforce withdrew, Twitter’s already diminishing expectation for a sale has now reach a new low.  As of Friday at 4 p.m. Twitter stocks fell 5% leaving them at $16.88.  As an incorporation Twitter had not yet given up hope in finding a buyer, yet appears that the company will have to rely on their CEO Jack Dorsey.  Unfortunately, Dorsey has yet to prove he can stimulate growth in a way that can promote an increase in profitability to possible buyers.

          

  Twitter’s second quarter added 1% growth in users giving it a total of 313 million.  Along with the disappointing statistic, Twitter is also on its 8^th straight quarter of shrinking growth with it ultimately dropping 20% in total users.  Due to these disheartening statistics many analysts believe Twitter will have to sell part of the business to survive the $100 million loss in the second quarter.  On October 27, Twitter will be going through another session of tests to examine its reported quarterly earnings.

         

           In the light of these numbers, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has attempted to create a plan strategically proficient.  So far he has laid off 8% of Twitter’s workforce, and he is currently trying to recruit senior managers and board directors.  He is also trying to make incremental changes to the services offered on Twitter, such as adding “stickers” to photos.  Even with these changes Dorsey is quickly running out of good will with employees even though he has tried to rally the workers though up beat announcements, but this strategy has yet to work amongst Twitter employee who are just looking for a clear strategy to strengthen the weakening company. 

          One of Twitter’s newly developed schemes is to sign deals with athletes and media companies in order to broadcast live events in the hopes to attract mainstream viewers and premium advertising rates.   The plan has already commenced with the signing of online media company BuzzFeed Inc. to stream coverage of the presidential election on November 8.  Yet Twitter’s saving grace may be the 100 million deal signed in April to live stream 10 Tuesday night National Football League games.  Although it appears too soon to judge if the NFL strategy is a successful risk. But it is disheartening that the 3 games which have been broadcasted have only averaged 252,000 viewers a minute, compared to the average 15 million viewers which watch the game on CBS and the NFL Network. Unfortunately, Twitter’s stock has plummeted a devastating 33% on October 5, after it was discovered that potential suitors had once again passed.

I found this article extremely interesting due the fact that Jack Dorsey is stuck in an imposable situation.  Employees and investors are both asking for the answer to the million-dollar question, how can Twitter be redeemed?  He has tried every possible situation from cutting costs, and altering and evolving the product.

I order to read more about this topic please click here!

The Internet’s Top 10 Word-of-Mouth Beauty Products

http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-internets-top-10-word-of-mouth-beauty-products-1475157055

Social media has greatly influenced our life styles. One way in which social media has changed the way we go about our lives is how products are advertised through it. For example, how make up brands advertise their products has changed a lot over the years. Before social media, make up brands spent millions of dollars on tv commercials and magazine adds in order to attract customers. Now the best way for these companies to attract customers is through the reviews of other people in social media and the company's/distributor's website.
In this new social media era, woman now look for reviews first before they buy something or they become interested in a product because they saw someone else use it. Beauty bloggers have a great influence on what women want to buy now. These bloggers often have video tutorials where they show how to use a product and they talk about what they like and don't like about it. When these bloggers reach a certain number of followers, beauty companies begin to send them products for them to try out and review. This is now a very influential way of advertising the products. Many women now feel more comfortable first seeing how the products look on someone else and reading the reviews before they go out to buy it.
This way of advertising relates to the social influence consumers experience when buying a product and the problem solving step (info search, identify alternatives, set criteria, evaluate alternatives) in the consumer decision process.

Using Selfies as Passwords

Companies such as Uber Technologies Inc. and MasterCard Inc. are in the process of switching from passwords to selfies as proof of identity. Facial Recognition technology is becoming more cheaper and companies are finding it easier to have their customers take pictures of themselves rather than type out a password. It's quicker Than passwords. Passwords are susceptible to being hacked, altered, or stolen, but the human face is distinct from everyone else. Facial recognition is still experiencing software problems though so there is still work to be done to make the tech perfect. However, cybercrime experts are worrying that this "quicker" and "more efficient " process leaves way for security and privacy problems.

The world knows that people love taking selfies, especially teenagers and young adults. However, giving out personal information is always a concern for people. Companies say that everything is safe and confidential, but people need to be careful with who is taking their info. We don't know where our information is actually going or what it's used for.

Netflix Jump in New Users Fuels After-Hours Stock Surge By Ana Gabriela Ramirez

Netflix Inc. had an incredible percent of new subscriber in the September quarter, giving reassurance to their investors who were nervous and anxious about the streaming growth trajectory and shutting its shares to a roaring 20% in after-hours trading.

The grater-than-expected performance was mainly in international markets, where the company has completed a massive, near-global expansion this year. Netflix is making a big bet that the same mix of edgy original content and library programming that has taken the U.S. media and the world with all the translations for the overseas. In Europ, Africa and Asia.

Netflix has also had a lot of popularity because of their new shows like Narcos and Stranger things this year. Also with the help of new seasons of Orange is the new black and adding new TV shows like El Señor de los Cielos very popular in Latin countries.

TripAdvisor and Restrictions

Even though some would consider animal attractions to be the most profitable aspect of a trip, tripadvisor has decided to decline the sale of tickets for attractions that include physical contact with animals in captivity or endangered species. The company has yet to stop the sale of tickets to these attractions but plan them to being fully halted by early next year. These attractions include all attractions such as elephant rides, petting tigers, and swimming with dolphins. 

On top of that, the company plans on launching a wildlife tourism education program. They plan on working with organizations like the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, conversation organizations, academics, and animal welfare groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Even though they plan on stopping the sale of tickets for any attractions with physical contact to animals, it is not going to include attractions with domestic animals like horseback riding, children's zoos, and educational aquarium touch pools. 

Some could say that this change will effect the company in a negative way considering they are no longer providing for a target market that has been around forever, but this change is also targeting a new and growing target market.

To read this article click here. 

Whole Foods Branching Out

Whole Foods is planning on setting up grocery shops in low income neighborhoods after a ton of people from south side Chicago attended an opening of a store in Englewood. The residents praised the fresh food and the specialty items available in an area that has few healthy eating options. One reason they are broadening their target market may be because the company's stock decline. Some analysts question whether or not Whole Foods can grow anymore considering the high demand for organic and natural food markets.

Some market analysis are skeptical on the success of moving the stores into low income neighborhoods considering not every low income neighborhood has the same dynamic nor will they respond the same way the south side Chicago area did. On top of setting up shops in low income neighborhoods, Whole Foods is also taking steps into targeting millennial shoppers looking for a cheaper mix of healthy to go foods through their new 365 by Whole Foods Markets, which are smaller versions of full size grocery store. 

The 18,000 square foot stores are smaller than most Whole Foods stores. Prices on things like eggs and cheese are lower than they are in the original markets. In order to meet the needs of the residents in these low income, Whole Foods hired a resident to survey local churches, nail salons, and other places in the community for almost a year so hopefully things will play out and benefit the company as well as the community. 

To read more about this article click here.

McDonald’s Turns to Social Media to Draw Millennials

McDonald’s Turns to Social Media to Draw Millennials

            McDonalds Corp recently hired 200 people from companies such as Amazon and  PayPal to win back the millennials (young adults) they lost to rivals serving fresher food. According to an internal memo reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, only one of five millennials have tried the Big Mac. To improve this problem, McDonalds is trying to  target youth with tailored messages. Millenials say that they do not like companies who present the perfect staged products. For this reason, McDonalds stopped using photos of perfect-looking food.

            Marketing plays a big role over consumers. In this case, McDonalds targets young adults who demand better quality and healthier products. It is very interesting to see how millennials prefer to buy other fast food, rather than a Big Mac. Most of them grew with the idea that McDonalds food is very unhealthy, and they do not want it anymore for their children. Now a days, people have more information about food and its nutrients. For this reason, McDonalds Corp. is trying to target this generation (millennials). They are crucial consumers because they have a good profit and also next generations are coming from them. McDonalds is using a strategy of using celebrities such as Kylie Jenner, to spread their consumption among people from this age range.

            This article is related to our marketing class, since McDonalds Corp. is trying to change its marketing strategy for young adults consumption. They made a marketing research which lead them to change their strategy. People prefer to buy fast food from its competitors such as Burger King or Wendy's, or simply do not buy fast food because of health issues. Moreover, they are changing its promotion strategy. Instead of using the common Facebook ads, they will use tailored messages.