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BBA Discussion Forum / Nokia Seeks Brand Comeback With N1 Tablet
« on: December 13, 2014, 06:22:50 PM »
Nokia Seeks Brand Comeback With N1 Tablet

Now that Microsoft has removed the Nokia brand name from Lumia phones, the non-mobile portion of Finland's Nokia that isn't owned by Microsoft is trying to find other ways to get its name out there. It's off to a strong start with Tuesday's launch of a new Android tablet N1 and corresponding Z Launcher software.

While Nokia has the 98th most valuable brand name in the world (worth about $3.2 billion) according to Interbrand's latest Best Global Brands ranking, it still desperately needs a comeback to combat its aging image amongst consumers in the wake of being phased out by Microsoft.

Beyond its own products, Nokia is looking to license its brand name to third-party manufacturers, TheVerge.com reports. “We have a very valuable brand," said Ramzi Haidamus, president of Nokia technologies. "Yes it is diminishing in value, and that’s why it is important that we reverse that trend very quickly, imminently."

The N1 is central to Nokia's comeback plan, and will cost $249 in the U.S., although the Telegraph notes that the tablet will launch first in China before rolling out to other markets.
One of the N1's crowning features will be Nokia’s Z launcher software, which adapts the home screen’s apps throughout the day depending on the owner's behavior and usage.

The launch of a Nokia tablet is a big step for the company as it seeks to innovate with branded products beyond the mobile phone space, since part of the deal with Microsoft when Nokia sold its phone business was that Nokia couldn’t use its own brand name on smart phones until the end of 2016, and on feature phones for another decade.
As for Microsoft, it's also closing reportedly planning to spin out Nokia MixRadio, and is going all-in on promoting the Microsoft Lumia, including a video to showcase its interactivity:

And, as CNET reports, Microsoft has also announced the next step in its process of sloughing the Nokia brand name off its phones: A new partnership with Opera Software to launch the Opera Mobile Store, which will take over the Nokia Store when it is shut down in the first half of 2015.
Previously, the Nokia Store was the app source for owners of Nokia feature phones, such as the Asha series, and Symbian and Nokia X phones, and based on the last stats released two years ago, the store was serving up to 15 million downloads daily.
Below, more on today's Nokia product launches:

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To celebrate the first ever NCAA College Football Playoff series and the pursuit of the “diamond quest” College Football Playoff ring, Nike is launching its "most advanced" and innovative football cleat to date: The Nike Vapor Untouchable, which is also the first Flyknit cleat made with recycled polyester yarn—each pair is knit with the equivalent of five recycled plastic bottles.

Additionally, all four Nike teams selected for the playoffs this year (Oregon, FSU, Alabama and OSU) will wear Nike Mach Speed uniforms with unique design enhancements, including a fractal diamond-color Swoosh on the front of the uniform. Players will also wear new Nike Pro Combat Hypercool baselayer designs and a new Nike Vapor Knit glove.
[embed=425,349]<iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/a1VEApW1wxM?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>[/embed]

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Amazon is scaling the digital ramparts and making more inroads into the physical world in an effort to become the go-to delivery service—everywhere, any time, for everything.


Case in point: the e-commerce giant is testing bike messenger deliveries in New York City this holiday season, with the goal of delivering customers' orders within an hour. Dubbed Amazon Prime Now, trials are underway with at least three courier services to ascertain the speediest and most careful delivery to Amazon Prime customers.

“During the trials, messengers are given an address and told to bike there within the allotted time," The Wall Street Journal reports. “Once they arrive, they are required to take a photograph of the building’s address and return to the ground floor of the Amazon building, which is referred to by bike messengers as “the base.””

Working out of the company's new 34th Street HQ in New York, the couriers are paid around $15 an hour and work eight-hour shifts.

On the drone delivery front, meanwhile, Amazon is still at odds with the U.S. Federal Aviation Agency and threatening to take its marbles elsewhere. "Without approval of our testing in the United States, we will be forced to continue expanding our Prime Air R&D footprint abroad," said Paul Misener, Amazon's VP of global public policy.

Amazon has been waiting for permission to fly its drones in outdoor spaces in Seattle since July. Interestingly, the U.S. government has fewer than 10 approved commercial-drone operators, while Europe has thousands.

Leaving no stone unturned, Amazon also is testing a restaurant takeout and delivery service, called AmazonLocal.

In contrast to its AmazonFresh grocery delivery service, the takeout/delivery service (now being tested in its hometown of Seattle) “doesn't involve Amazon physically driving the food to your doorstep," Gizmodo notes. A third-party service rounds up local options and the delivering restaurants arrange the fee.

“Amazon Local isn't just a potential Seamless killer," The Verge writes. “The feature also lets people connect with handymen and babysitters. And if Amazon decides to hook it up to Prime, it could one of the best deals for the hungry and lazy among us.”

And as traditional retailers like Macy’s and Walmart roll out same-day delivery services, as well as e-commerce leader eBay and start-ups like WunWun and Postmates, Amazon is sweetening the deal with a new pricing feature, the eBay-like "Make an Offer," that applies to items including fine art and rare coins that are sold by third-party vendors.

With the new feature, customers can negotiate lower prices on more than 150,000 items from participating Amazon sellers.

“The new ‘Make an Offer’ experience is a game-changer for Amazon customers looking for great prices on one-of-a-kind items, and for sellers looking to communicate and negotiate directly with customers in an online marketplace environment just like they do normally in their own physical store or gallery,” stated Peter Faricy, VP for Amazon Marketplace.

"In a recent survey of our sellers, nearly half of the respondents told us that the ability to negotiate prices with customers would be important to drive more sales on Amazon," he also told USA Today. "'Make an Offer' delivers that functionality and makes customers feel confident they are getting an item they want at the lowest price possible."

One caveat is that only items priced at $100 or more are eligible for negotiation. "We don't want people haggling over a $5 item," Faricy commented. With manufactured items, "there's really a bottom for what people want to sell them for."

As for the workers making all these new features happen? Amazon today won a U.S. Supreme court ruling that means it doesn't have to pay them during security checks, while it's also refusing to file diversity data on the composition of its workforce (other EEO holdouts include Microsoft, Twitter, Apple and Amazon).

"I hope everyone eventually shares their EEO-1s," said Rosalind Hudnell, Intel's VP HR and chief diversity officer, according to USA Today. "If we are going to commit as an industry to drive improvement in a collective fashion, we cannot do it with inconsistent data."

But inconsistent may well define Amazon’s ethos as it moves towards dominance in the physical and virtual worlds of consumers worldwide.

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On The Today Show on NBC this morning, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg joined Savannah Guthrie to debrief Facebook’s biggest moments of 2014. Sandberg shared the global top 10 moments or events that generated the most buzz, along with the "most talked about" topics or stories.

“The most shared event in Facebook’s history... [was when] 350 million people came together around the World Cup," Sandberg said. "And I think this is social media at its best. At its very best, social media makes the world a little bit smaller, more of a community.”

Facebook "most talked about" topics of 2014 (by category)

    Movie: Frozen
    Song: "Happy" by Pharrell Williams
    Entertainer: Beyoncé
    TV Show: Game of Thrones
    Athlete: LeBron James
    Game: "Cookie Jam"
    ALS Ice Bucket Challenge video: George W. Bush

The Top 10 Global Topics

    World Cup
    Ebola Virus Outbreak
    Brazilian Elections
    Robin Williams
    Ice Bucket Challenge
    Israel-Gaza Conflict
    Malaysia Airlines
    Super Bowl
    Sochi Winter Olympics
    Ferguson

The Top 10 U.S. Topics

    Ebola virus
    Ice Bucket Challenge
    Robin Williams
    Super Bowl
    Michael Brown/Ferguson
    World Cup
    Conflict in Gaza
    U.S. midterm elections
    Malaysia Airlines
    ISIS

Most Discussed Entertainers in the U.S.

    Beyoncé
    Pharrell Williams
    Nicki Minaj
    Taylor Swift
    Jimmy Fallon
    Iggy Azalea
    Katy Perry
    Pitbull
    John Legend
    Kim Kardashian

Most Discussed TV Shows in the U.S.

    Game of Thrones
    Orange is the New Black
    The Walking Dead
    The Big Bang Theory
    Downton Abbey
    American Horror Story
    Sons of Anarchy
    True Detective
    How I Met Your Mother
    Scandal

Most Discussed Movies in the U.S.

    Frozen
    Guardians of the Galaxy
    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
    Maleficent
    The Lego Movie
    The Fault in Our Stars
    Transformers: Age of Extinction
    Gone Girl
    The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1
    The Purge: Anarchy

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BBA Discussion Forum / IKEA Offers Russians a Night at the Movies—in Bed
« on: December 13, 2014, 06:01:08 PM »
IKEA Offers Russians a Night at the Movies—in Bed

Russia may be suffering through an economic downturn, but IKEA announced in September that it plans to invest 2 billion euros ($2.5 billion) to expand and upgrade its stores in the country.

To extend that goodwill, the world's biggest furniture retailer is bringing its brand to the public in unexpected places. Its latest foray into веселье (you know—"fun") is to take over a Russian movie house in a Moscow suburb and offer up a night at the movies with a twist.

Instead of watching the film the regular boring way, IKEA replaced cinema seats with beds so that moviegoers could curl up together, and snack on some choklad and popcorn.

The cozy screening room idea by IKEA Russia and Kinostar de Lux cinema is part of the retailer's local "Wake Up Love" integrated marketing campaign to launch its latest catalog and drive store traffic.

"At the presentation of the new IKEA catalog, we to asked visitors: What should we do to have more love around us?" IKEA Russia’s digital manager Alex Ovechkin told local media, according to RT.com, of the tie-in with Kinostar.

"One of the most frequent responses was ‘to spend more time together.’ Thus was born the idea of creating a home environment in a movie theater," he added.

(Don’t worry, the sheets were changed and the crumbs whisked away between showings. Reuters even has photos to prove it.)

The bedroom cinema is reminiscent of KLM's apartment airplane stunt with Airbnb—and IKEA Australia’s out-of-home effort this past August.

In the Aussie stunt, a partnership with a short-term rental site let IKEA fans finally find out what everyone wonders about: what it's like spend the night in an IKEA store.

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