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Apple’s Trying to Wean Itself Off of Samsung’s Chips [Apple]
While Apple and Samsung have been duking it out over patents, there’s always been the quiet, underlying irony that Samsung makes a whole bunch of the chips Apple relies on. Now, according to reports from CNET and MacRumors, Apple’s trying to change that.
It’s not exactly surprising. Apple already hired a big chip designer out from under Samsung. Now they’re just taking the next steps.
As an industry source put it to CNET:
“The Apple-Samsung relationship has deteriorated to such a poor point that they’re just looking to fill contractual obligations, then make a change.”
That change, it seems, is moving to the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company at 20 nanometers, a company that no doubt considers the giant’s business a huge boon. There are also rumors that Apple and Intel have been in talks when it comes to more advanced 14 nanometer production, though that seems further off.
A change like this doesn’t happen in an instant because it’s such a huge shift, but that makes it all the more noteworthy that it’s starting. If you thought Apple and Samsung were just going to kiss and make up, you were probably a bit deluded from the start, but this just goes to show that the rift is ever-widening. [CNET, MacRumors]
Here Are All The Changes Starbucks Is Making To Its Rewards Program
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/starbucks-rewards-program-changes-2012-9
Starbucks is making a bunch of modifications to its My Starbucks Rewards program.
The changes kick in on October 16th.
Here’s a breakdown for Gold level members:
New benefits
- Gold members will receive a reward every 12 transactions, instead of every 15.
- You’ll be able to redeem the reward for a drink or food item. The food benefit applies to almost all the food Starbucks offers.
- Rewards will be digital (via email notification), so you won’t have to wait for a postcard. The reward will be loaded directly onto your Starbucks Card.
Benefits that are going away
- Syrups and soy milk will no longer be on the house.
- You won’t get a free tall beverage when you buy a pound of coffee.
Everything else — like birthday drinks and refills — is sticking around.
Starbucks explains how the redemption process works:
1. Visit any participating company-operated store
2. Tell the barista you have a free reward that you want to use (that way you get to choose when you redeem your reward)
3. Present your registered Starbucks Card (or scan your registered Card on the Starbucks Card mobile app).
And here’s handy side-by-side graphic from Starbucks:
NOW SEE : 15 Crazy Starbucks Customers Who Will Make You Never Want To Be A Barista >
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Not too long ago, Samsung faced a big loss against Apple in court, and now, it’s just sat through the announcement of the new iPhone, which sold out its preorders in a matter of hours. What’s a rival manufacturer to do? That’s easy; if you’re Samsung, you attack.
Samsung has crafted a pretty aggressive ad comparing Apple’s flagship iPhone 5 to its own Galaxy S III. You can guess who comes out on top. While the lion’s share of the ad’s criticisms are fair—the S III does have NFC while the iPhone 5 doesn’t, and the same goes for removable battery and microSD storage—the bit referring to Apple’s new connector comes off as a bit snide. But you didn’t expect this to be civil, did you?
Adorned with the clever (admit it, it’s clever) tagline “It doesn’t take a genius,” the ad is due to roll out a bunch of newspapers tomorrow, where it will doubtlessly reach the sort of people who still read newspapers. Clearly Samsung isn’t about to take anything lying down, and who could blame them? The question is, will it work? [CNET]
The Days Of Traditional Mass Marketing Are Over
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/frito-lay-cmo-the-days-of-traditional-mass-marketing-are-over-2012-7
The marketing world is changing. Marketers have more channels than ever to get their message across, but not everyone out there is doing it right.
We spoke with Ann Muhkerjee, SVP and CMO of Frito-Lay North America, about where marketing is going as technology and consumers change.
“I think what people want are brand experiences,” says Muhkerjee. “I think the days of traditional mass marketing are kind of over.”
Companies, especially those promoting big brands, can’t settle on launching a national ad campaign that consists of a bunch of billboards and television commercials. They have to hit many platforms, and they have to connect them.
“[Marketing] has to be a conduit into the multi-screen world that everyone’s living in,” she says. “How do you connect TV to social to mobile to apps to outdoor? How do you create a two-way conversation?”
Take pop-up stores, for example. Muhkerjee considers them a way to provide customers something to “engage and play” with. That’s why it opened a pop-up store in Times Square to promote the million-dollar Lay’s flavor creation contest.
There’s a trap that marketers may fall into though, says Muhkerjee. People are always trying to simplify things into a formula, but that’s just not possible. Every brand should have a different strategy, because every brand is unique.
How do they do this at Frito-Lay — a part of PepsiCo — a company that has a huge assortment of big-name brands?
Since Frito-Lay has the backing of a large multinational, and it can use its strengths (like global manufacturing and a big research budget) to capture local markets’ imagination fast.
“The ability to leverage the scale of our company and make it flexible,” says Muhkerjee. “Our ability to then translate that to local substance. That’s our secret. A potato chip is a potato chip globally, but the flavor, we lift and shift flavors all the time.”
NOW SEE: 16 Failed Soda Brands You’ll Never See Again >
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Google Has Hired A Bunch Of ‘Chrome Specialists’ To Sell Its Chromebook Laptops (GOOG, BBY)
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-chrome-specialists-chromebook-laptops-best-buy-retail-2012-7
Google is working with its partners, like Best Buy, to hired a bunch of salespeople called “Chrome Specialists” to sell their Chromebook laptops, Business Insider has learned.
Much like the “specialists” in Apple’s stores, it’s the job of these Chrome specialists to get shoppers to understand what exactly a Chromebook is, and why they should buy it over another laptop.
The Chromebook is a Web-powered laptop running Google’s Chrome operating system. It requires an Internet connection to power most of its applications, such as Gmail.
We got in touch with Google to confirm that it’s hiring specialists. Here’s what we heard back:
As you’ll have seen from our announcement last week, 100 Best Buy stores around the U.S. are now selling Chromebooks. With our partners, we have hired and trained staff for these Chrome Zones in U.S. Best Buy stores.
Google wouldn’t tell us how many specialists they’ve hired, but given the number of stores Google is selling Chromebooks in, it does appear to be in the hundreds.
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Source: http://gizmodo.com/5882173/the-dominos-super-bowl-pizza-war-room-oozes-pepperoni-cheese-and-sadness
On Super Bowl Sunday, 55 IT specialists will huddle together in a dark room to keep their company’s website afloat on the biggest day of its entire year, since it’s going to be bombarded by millions of ravenous fans. But the company they work for isn’t the NFL.
Here’s how Domino’s social media specialist explained the roles of who’s in the room to The Atlantic:
* Application owners check the initial code of our applications, making up our defensive line.
* Those watching our operating systems are our second line of defense, or “line backers”… who react to every situation on the “field.”
* Those observing the network will jump in and “cover” if anything looks dicey on a larger scale, serving as our “cornerbacks.”
* In case someone tries a “Hail Mary” play to hack into part of our system, we have our Security team there as our “safeties” – our last line of defense!
Which is about the caliber of sports metaphor you’d expect from a social media specialist. But it doesn’t make it any less cool that Dominos stuffs bunch of nerds into a room during the super bowl to make sure you get your pizza. [Dominos via The Atlantic]
RIM’s Twitter Campaign Goes Horribly Wrong #BeBold
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/rims-twitter-campaign-goes-horribly-wrong-bebold-2012-1
RIM’s latest marketing campaign is based around a squad of cartoon characters called the Bold Team, accompanied by the #BeBold hashtag on Twitter. It wasn’t a good idea.
Why? Because the campaign is blowing up in RIM’s face. Spectacularly.
The vague hashtag, plus the cheesiness of the cartoon characters, prompted the masses to hijack #BeBold. So now, just one week after McDonald’s reminded marketers everywhere how NOT to do a Twitter campaign, RIM makes the same mistake. It’s getting ripped on by its own hashtag (via Gizmodo).
Take a look at what people are tweeting. It entirely consists of folks railing on either the cartoon, or the company as a whole:
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See Also:
- McDonald’s Immediately Follows Its Epic #McDStories Fail With Another Twitter Campaign
- This Burrito Joint Got Robbed, And Now It’s Trying To Catch The Thieves By Posting The Surveillance Video On Facebook
- H&M Is Getting Slammed For Allegedly Copying An Artist’s Design On A Bunch Of Its Own Products
Yikes! Oracle Issues Emergency Fix For A Big Fat Security Problem (ORCL)
Oracle today warned customers that they need to fix a major hole in its flagship database or risk downtime and hacker attacks, reports Infoworld.
In a weird twist of events, the hole was actually found by Infoworld, a news site that covers the tech industry. Oracle even gave the publication a public credit for finding and reporting the hole — and waiting to publish the story until Oracle could issue a patch, which it did today.
The flaw had to do with time stamp technology that acts like an internal clock. This clock is the key to keeping data synchronized and safe. When multiple databases are linked together the clock could be manipulated to be inaccurate. This is one of those critical systems that was difficult to fix and affected a long list of Oracle’s products.
The critical patch sent out today fixes a whole bunch of other flaws, too. Some 78 holes will be patched across all of Oracle’s major product families.
Inforworld contends that Oracle executives knew about the time stamp problem and not only downplayed it, but issued a workaround fix that could have caused customers even more headaches and money. Oracle seems to have gotten its act together and really fixed the security flaw this time, Infoworld says.
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See Also:
- How Oracle Is Defending Itself Against SAP’s Attack
- The 10 Most Outrageous Stories About Larry Ellison
- There Are 42 Million Prostitutes In The World, And Here’s Where They Live
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A Best Buy Manager Thinks That The 3,000 Employees Running Its Customer Service Twitter Account Can’t Be Trusted
Best Buy hasn’t been doing so hot lately, and here’s another example that shows why.
The retailer has a Twitter account @Twelpforce that uses 3,000+ employees to help run it. So far it has worked without a major disaster, despite the exposure it has with so many employees working on it.
But at least one Best Buy manager disagrees, and thinks it’s basically a load of crap, reports Chris Morran at the Consumerist.
Morran received a note from a reader, Jonathan, explaining his experience. Jonathan was trying to exchange a box set of CDs, which was missing one CD when he got it, but didn’t have the receipt. The Best Buy site pointed him toward @Twelpforce, who told him to “Talk to a manager at your local Best Buy, they should be able to assist with exchange.”
He did. When he showed the Best Buy manager the tweet from customer service, he dismissed it as an unreliable source (even though the Best Buy website tells you that the only places to ask questions are a phone number and the Twitter account). The manager also said that it’s “just social media” and “that could be anybody.”
Which begs the question: what’s the point of having a customer service Twitter account if Best Buy managers don’t even acknowledge it as a legitimate source of information? Somebody got company policy wrong here, but whether it’s the manager or the person who answered that tweet doesn’t matter. The manager shouldn’t have dismissed the Twitter help line as useless.
It shows a fundamental disconnect between the brick-and-mortar and the online world. The corporate side has accepted that social media is a viable tool, yet that feeling hasn’t been passed down to its employees — even at the manager level. Oops.
NOW SEE: 14 Surprising Ways Employees Cost Their Companies Billions In The Workplace >
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See Also:
- 11 Craft Beer Companies That Went From Little To Big Time
- Proof That Giving Your Employees More Freedom Makes Them More Productive
- Starbucks Is Hiking Prices On A Bunch Of Its Drinks To Deal With Rising Costs
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Incredible Things That Happen Every 60 Seconds On The Internet
In a single minute there are over 695,000 status updates on Facebook. That’s just one example of the mind boggling scale of online activity.
The following infographics show a bunch of other incredible things that happen in 60 seconds (via Barry Ritholtz).
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See Also:
- Dumb Ideas Your Politicians Have About Technology
- Ads Are Coming To Your Facebook News Feed Next Month
- CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook Owns 95% Of Social Networking Time
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Digital Consigliere
Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.
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