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