It seems that Apple Inc. may be in a bit of a slump. On July 29 and 30, the two days after the iPhone's release, the company activated a mere 144,000 iPhones, well below analysts' prediction of half a million.
Shares of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company dipped precipitously over the last month, slumping to about $117, down from over $145 the end of July.
Apple also just received a highly-buzzed bit of bad iPhone press when a young woman, Pittsburgh blogger Justine Ezarik, posted a video showing her 300-page phone bill, on her blog. Here it is, for all of you who haven't seen it yet:
Some analysts believe Apple will bounce back this quarter, with updates for the iPhone and the iPod in the works. Let's see what happens.
In the meantime, stay tuned for a column relating to this in the 10/1 edition of Marketing News, written by Brian Kardon, chief strategy and marketing officer for Forrester Research, Inc.
The first issue of the redesigned, revitalized Marketing News (Sept. 1) should be hitting your desks right about now. We hope the changes we've made strike your fancy. We feel that the cover story for our first issue, "A New Leaf" will really be of interest to Marketing News readers, as well as encapsulate our new state of (marketing) mind.
The cover story catches up on the condition of the California leafy greens industry in the wake of last year's spinach recall due to E. coli contamination. If you will recall, spinach specifically was off market shelves for more than two weeks and news of the contamination was more than well-publicized. In the aftermath, growers turned specifically to marketing to help spur their business' rebound and regain consumer confidence in the safety of its product.
Read the story. It's a good one. And I'm not just saying this because I wrote it (well, maybe just a little). The spinach growers took a major business hit and needed to dig themselves out of a dark, deep hole to survive. And they did it by banding together (in the form of a statewide industry marketing agreement that standardized best practices for growers and handlers) and rebuilding their image. And man, did they move fast. The marketing agreement was written, signed, and in effect for nearly 100% of the leafy greens industry by July.
Which brings us today, and a story update. On August 28, Metz Fresh, a spinach grower in King City, Calif., announced that it had uncovered salmonella contamination in one of its facilities during routine testing and was now voluntarily recalling product that was shipped to consumers in the United States and Canada. The timing for the industry is tough--nearly a year to the day of the E. coli outbreak--and the press the recall is getting is likely reopening the old wounds.
I caught up with Joe Pezzini, one of the executives cited in the story, this morning to find out what impact the new recall might have on the industry and the marketing agreement. Joe is the vice president of operations at another vegetable grower, Ocean Mist Farms, and also chairs the advisory board for the marketing agreement. While agreeing that the timing is pretty unfortunate, he expressed that the speed and traceability of the packages with infected spinach actually demonstrated some of the key points of the agreement. "Metz Fresh had a good trace back system. They knew where it came from and where it went, (which is) precisely what GAP (good agricultural practices) requires. Despite the situation, the systems work. No one was injured and the product was contained. (The outbreak was discovered) by an internal test (Metz Fresh) did themselves, which is very precautionary and (demonstrates) they have consumer safety in mind. They did all the things we want a responsible company to do. They immediately notified the FDA and they are working in collaboration with them," he says.
As for the impact on the industry as a whole, Pezzini thinks it is too soon to tell. The Metz Fresh packages are currently being rounded up and none are thought to have reached consumers' plates. "Anytime anything like this occurs--even though it is a much different situation and was caught before it got to market--it does shake consumer confidence. Hopefully we can demonstrate that the measures in place made a difference and that makes people feel better," he says.
Calls to other sources cited in the story were not immediately returned. I'll post an update if I hear anything more or if the story changes.
According to a recent study by Marketing Daily (damn competitors!), eight of 10 Americans know what blogs are and about 50 percent of us go to one about every day.
To a Web-savvy marketing reporter such as myself (dusts off shoulders) these numbers come as no surprise. But what is surprising is how quickly blogging is catching on with the general population.
Marketers: This could spell trouble. The days are over when you can get away with running a bad blog. (The good news is that marketers tend to be more with it and they run decent blogs.)
Here are three simple tips for beginning bloggers:
1) Define your niche. Figuring out who your audience is will make SEO and all sorts of Web marketing a lot easier for you if you determine who you're writing/producing content for. This one is a no-brainer.
2) Install some sort of analytics counter on DAY ONE.Google Analytics is a good free stat counter that will give you plenty of info. (If you're running a low-budget campaign, this may be the way to go.) OneStat and Omniture are excellent -- albeit not free -- counters.
3) Keep your posts short. And on that note...
Cheers,
D
(P.S. - Here's a YouTube video I found with tips on blog optimization for SEO. Enjoy!)
On the same token, a week ago, rival Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.announced its own 2Q earnings, but they were a bit lower, only rising 1.2 percent over the quarter. Company shares also increased, but only by four cents (72 to 76 cents) over last year's 2Q.
Why? While Wal-Mart has always made a commitment to lower prices, Target has expanded its own product base, launching its "Design for All" line, which features women's shoes by Isaac Mizrahi.
Just because a company has the greatest selection of merchandise and the lowest prices won't guarantee anything. Merchandise quality has to be high across the board, and the in-store shopping experiences need to be pleasurable, and this, for sure, is one place where Target blows Wal-Mart out of the water, even though in-store purchases have steadily declined since the advent of Web shopping. (According to an Accenture report from April, 67 percent of consumers still prefer to shop in brick-and-mortar stores, but 69 percent of consumers research the products online.)
Also, have you been to Wal-Mart lately? Seriously, have you? I mean, I'm talking about nonexistent, even incompetent customer service, long lines, shoddy merchandise and filthy, filthy stores.
Now, have you been to a Target? They have quality goods and floors you can practically eat off of.
Has the retail experience really gotten this bad? Perhaps. And shopping at Wal-Mart is stressful enough to make anyone shop online...
Hello, all! My name is Daniel Honigman and I'm the newest staff writer at Marketing News. In addition to writing new stories for each issue, I'll be posting (at least semi-regularly) here on the Marketing News blog, so check back often!
This is the most awesome thing I've seen all week. The Agence France-Presse reports that China has released a state-produced online video game called Incorruptible Fighter, where players can torture and kill corrupt officials for their misdeeds. You know, kind of exactly like what China did when it executed its own former head of food and drug safety, Zheng Xiaoyu, in July.
Is this power to the people? I wouldn't think China would like that.
I don't profess to know anything about how the Chinese psyche works, but is this a real ploy to keep Chinese factories from tainting exports and from using lead paint? Are they trying to prompt whistle-blowers, or encourage citizens to take matters into their own hands? I kind of always thought China ran on the premise of 'the nail that sticks up, gets hammered down' a la Tiananmen Square, 1989.
Or do even the Chinese people just find this amusing? The site has apparently crashed--since more than 100,000 players tried to play it in its first week.
So Apple iPhones are now promotional gimmick fodder. Now that didn't take long! Out in Westchester, Calif. the 99 cent store chain is celebrating the opening of its newest store by giving away nine 4GB iPhones to its first nine customers. (Wouldn't it make more sense to give away 99 and really make a splash? I don't think nine people camping out is going to draw the news cameras, but 99 might do it--but that's just me.)
But how do you all feel about the iPhone? Is it too expensive to be realistic? While the sales of iPhones are doing okay, the AT&T activations of iPhones (the only cellular network the iPhone will work on) has been disappointing. I think the general impression is that it just isn't generating the fervor of interest the later versions of the iPod did. Is it a failure of marketing?
