UFC on the Rise

UFC on the Rise

Jakobi Nunn | Marketing 3343 | Dr. Zhang

Original Article - http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ufc-goes-for-a-knockout-with-celebrity-investors-in-its-corner-1475200801

The Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, is an American mixed martial arts promotion company, a subsidiary of the parent company William Morris Endeavor, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the largest MMA promoter in the world and features most of the top-ranked fighters in the sport.

WME-IMG, an entertainment agency known for representing Hollywood actors and directors, recently purchased UFC for approximately 4 billion dollars. After WME-IMG's initial investment, they were able to get multiple high profile celebrities to also invest in their endeavor. 

Twenty-three celebrities, including Ben Affleck, Adam Levine, Serena and Venus Williams, Jimmy Kimmel, and Tyler Perry have invested in the UFC since it was purchased. Terms of their investments have not been disclosed, but with a company as successful as WME-IMG, celebrities have no issue investing in a company that already has a large fan base that continues to grow.

Target Market
MMA fighting has quickly grown in popularity, taking over for sports like wrestling and boxing. The rise in popularity is due to the fact that mixed martial arts is a combination of multiple fighting styles and it is very violent. This sport, which at first was targeted towards adults, has quickly become popular among younger audiences. The UFC is targeting all age groups now.

Competition
UFC is in a world of its own. There really is not a sport that offers the same type of excitement, except boxing, as the UFC. Combine that with incredibly brash and cocky athletes, and you have must see tv that millions of people pay to watch on tv.

Who Needs a License?

Who Needs a License?

Jakobi Nunn | Marketing 3343 | Dr. Zhang

Original Article - http://www.wsj.com/articles/google-parent-alphabet-forms-new-driverless-car-company-1481650433

With all the recent technological advances in the world of autonomous cars, who needs a drivers license anymore? The race is on between many different companies to create the first fully functional self driving car.

Waymo LLC is the new name for the self driving car division of Alphabet, Google's parent company. The move to create this stand alone company means that autonomous cars will soon be a common thing. Based in Mountain View, California, Waymo LLC plans to partner with car manufactures to provide self driving technology in everyday cars.

• Target Market
• All car drives
• special focus on the elderly and handicapped
• Competitors
• Telsa
• Other car companies

The Difference

The difference between Google's autonomous car technology and that of its competitors is, the removal of all driving aspects of the car. Waymo LLC wants to remove the steering wheel and brake pads making the car fully self functioning.

Purpose

The reason for developing this kind of technology is to create a safer driving environment for all members of society. They believe self-driving cars will help prevent traffic, reduce crashes caused my distracted driving, and create greater mobility for those who aren't able to drive for themselves.

Personally I believe autonomous cars are a great idea. The thought of being able to continue to get ready for worker/school while in the car and not have to worry about getting distracted would save a lot of time and even possible save lives.

Uber for Private Flights

Uber for Private-Jets

Jakobi Nunn | Marketing 3343 | Dr. Zhang

Original Article - http://www.wsj.com/articles/private-jet-booking-app-lands-105-million-in-funding-1481567687?mod=trending_now_5

With the help of some major investors, Jay-Z is trying to succeed where others have failed in creating a cheap private jet service.

JetSmarter is a company that is based in Fort Lauderdale. JetSmarter buys empty seats from private-jet operators and makes them available through its app, either on scheduled shuttle flights on major routes or empty-leg trips, in which planes are flown empty from one airport to another for their next passenger flight. JetSmarter is essentially Uber, but instead of cars you get a plane.

Jay-Z is one of JetSmarter's main backers and investors. With the the help of the Saudi Royal family and other investors that include venture capitalists, fund managers, celebrities and technologists, Jay-Z is trying to make flying private cheaper to rival commercial flights.

The jet-booking business is very competitive business that has seen other starts up fail. The difference with JetSmarter is they were able to acquire over $157 million in investment capital which allowed the company to be valued at over 1.6 billion dollars.

• Target Market
• Individuals who frequently take commercial flights, but want more privacy and security
• Already has over 6,000 members 
• Price
• $4,000 initial payment
• $11,000 annual payment
• Place
• offers about 50 routes in countries around the world
• rose from 3 routes in a few years
• Plans to expand further into India, China, and South America

Google Parent Alphabet Forms New Driverless-Car Company

A Google parent company called Alphabet Inc. is starting off its own "driverless-car technology." The article shows that the company is finally ready to move out of the labs and into the field. The article actually shows that the company has already tested a product of theirs on the road in Austin, Texas, where a blind man rode in the vehicle on the road. Alphabet Inc.'s announcement is a huge since it directly shows a shift in technology and a sneak peak at what driving in the future holds.

Amazon is working on at least three grocery store formats

           Amazon, one of the major leaders of E-commerce, where almost anything and everything that you could want is available for purchase has just announced that it will be joining the grocery market. Amazon is working on a number of grocery store formats that will overcome the traditional formats we are all used to. So far it has released details on two of its current plans and they have us excited to see their ideas become a reality.
         The first of the two is Amazon Fresh, where you can go onto the Amazon app make a grocery store list of the items that you require and go through the whole purchasing process right through your phone. Once the Checkout is complete, the groceries will be delivered to your door in a matter of a few hours by a Amazon delivery truck who picks up all the items from local vendors.\
        The second is a bit more complex but much more exciting, Amazon wants to place physical stores in our communities where we would be able to walk in, grab what we need and walk out! Yes! just walk out, no lines, no waiting, no annoying checkout staff. The physical store would be equipped with an array of different technology to make this happen. You enter the store by scanning your phone at the door which allows the store to connect to your Amazon app. Once connected, you walk through the store and grab what you need off the shelves, all the items in the store have RFID chips which once picked up and placed into your cart, it is added directly to your virtual shopping bag on the Amazon App. Once you are done with your shopping all you have to do is walk out the front door and your amazon account is automatically charged for everything that was placed in your cart. This is an idea that might take some getting used to and will take a while to be implemented but it is something that I am looking forward to.
        This Article ties in with the new product chapter in our text, Amazon is releasing details about its new service and measuring just how much interest there is before it makes it happen. Once the physical stores are implemented it will have to market them through advertising and bring in customers.

IKEA Adapts to Growing Urban Populations

     This past Wednesday, a top executive at IKEA announced that the company will begin to build stores in central locations. This announcement by the Swedish company was due to research that has emerged which shows 70% of the world's population will live in cities by 2050. Currently the company has stores that are built outside of urban centers because of their incredibly large size. The new store design that IKEA wants to embrace is a retail store that is also a hotel, and a commercial and residential living space. IKEA says that it will be able to afford the expensive real estate in major cities by transforming their property into a multi-functioning space. The high land costs will be offset by the hotel revenue, as well as the commercial and residential space. IKEA already owns 66 retail centers in 15 different countries.
     IKEA announced that their net profit for the year ended on August 31 rose 20% to $4.5 billion. Their large increase in net profit was a result of the 14% rises the company experienced in the German and U.S. markets. Germany and the United States are IKEAS two largest markets; Europe made up 69% of their sales, and the U.S. made up 18% of their sales. The company has began to store their products closer to customers so that they can deliver faster and less expensively. They have also began to build multifunctional distribution centers that are capable of directly delivering to their retail locations as well as customer's homes.
This article is relevant to our marketing class because it relates to the place aspect of the marketing mix. The IKEA company is trying to increase their profits by increasing the efficiency of how they deliver their products to consumers.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/ikea-adapts-to-growing-urban-populations-1481112341

Toyota Looks To Electric Cars

    Toyota's reported earnings fell due to a number of factors. These include: American consumers shifting their preference of what type of car they buy, and low gas prices in the U.S. With gas prices at all time low in the U.S., americans are buying more trucks and SUV's because they no longer have to worry about the price at the pump. This shift in opinion has led to their extremely popular Prius hybrid to plunge in the U.S. market. While many consumers are leaning toward large trucks and SUVs their is also a spike in electric car sales. Major players like Tesla have become exceedingly popular and many consumers are purchasing their first electric car and ignoring their loyalty to major brands like Toyota.
      What's even more daunting for Toyota is that the consumers lining up for their first Tesla, used to be Toyota's eco friendly clients that once owned Prius's. The Japanese auto maker has a solution but a long road lay ahead for them. Because of their original skepticism of electric-based vehicles due to their practicality and actual feasible mile range, Toyota is behind on their electric car endeavor. Another factor hitting Toyota is the Yen currency strengthening in their country. The Yen becoming stronger makes their brand at home less competitive which is making it harder for them to keep their foot in the automotive market. Toyota's response to the Yen strengthening is to manufacture a larger number of their vehicles and their parts in the U.S.
     The new technology Toyota has spent their time developing instead of electric-cars is their hydrogen-cell based technology. Toyota believes the interest and demand for their hydrogen-based vehicles will increase once consumers become aware of the hydrogen cars having similar milage and recharging times as electric cars. Toyota is already selling their hydrogen-fueled car, the Mirari, in California. However, with the delays in constructing the hydrogen gas stations the Mirari's sales in California have decreased dramatically. This is a dismal sign in as eco-friendly of a state that California is.
     Toyota is remaining hopeful and expects to sell 30,000 hydrogen fuel-cell cars by 2020. This large vehicle sales forecast will happen just in time for Japan's hosting of the 2020 olympics. The 2020 Olympics is when Toyota hopes to showcase their newly developed hydrogen technology.
This article is relevant to our marketing class because it relates to target market and a company trying to have a green, eco-friendly reputation. It also relates to trends in the market shifting a companies previous stance on a issue like electric cars.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/toyota-profit-falls-on-strong-yen-weak-u-s-sales-1478586115