Wed 19 Dec 2007
This is great. Watch Maria Bartiromo freak out at his “house of cards” comment.
I gotta say something. CNBC’s evening shows during the week are what I call “jerkoff shows”.
Fast Money, Mad Money, Kudlow & Company… all these shows are designed to jerk you off while the market burns down. It’s becoming more and more obvious every day.
Sat 15 Dec 2007
BBC News: New yuppies shun champagne lifestyle
The term yuppie conjures up images of the brash 1980s, when bright young things lived a loadsamoney lifestyle of flash cars, lavish lunches and power dressing. It was an era of playing hard and working hard. These days, young professionals are different. New research suggests they are more cautious about money than yesterday’s yuppies, who are struggling to maintain their once high-flying lifestyles.
Research from Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society, a financial services company, suggests that pensions, getting on the property ladder and paying off debts are bigger priorities for today’s young professionals than living a champagne lifestyle. Four in 10 young urban professionals in 2007 cite paying off debts as a financial concern, compared with a third in the 1980s, according to the research based on a survey of 2,409 adults.
Almost a third say that saving for retirement is one of their top three biggest financial worries, compared with just 12% of original yuppies. With conspicuous consumption falling out of favour, today’s young yuppies spend their hard-earned cash on organic food and green fashion. But young go getters do enjoy the original yuppie love of gadgets, with 24% spending their money on technological wizardry compared with 18% in the late 1980s.
Fri 14 Dec 2007
This youtube video is making the rounds in Venezuela:
A video of a Gucci- and Louis Vuitton-clad politician attacking capitalism then struggling to explain how his luxurious clothes square with his socialist beliefs has become an instant YouTube hit in Venezuela.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreno was momentarily at a loss for words when a journalist interrupted his speech and asked if it was not contradictory to criticize capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a tie made by Parisian luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton.
“I don’t, uh … I … of course,” stammered Carreno on Tuesday before regaining his composure. “It’s not contradictory because I would like Venezuela to produce all this so I could buy stuff produced here instead of 95 percent of what we consume being imported.”
Riding a boom in oil prices, middle-class and wealthy Venezuelans are on a spending spree, guzzling fine whiskies and snapping up luxury cars. Poorer Venezuelans also have benefited, with subsidies driving a spike in demand for basic products.
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Mon 2 Apr 2007
A nice indulgence or over-the-top advertising? If you find a sticker on your newspaper, you decide. New York Times reports:
Guests at Omni luxury hotels will find small scented stickers on the front pages of their free copies of USA Today. A blackberry aroma will suggest that the guests start the day at their hotels with a cup of Starbucks coffee “paired with a fresh muffin.” The promotion, to be tested for at least six months, is being sponsored by Omni Hotels and Starbucks Coffee.
It is one of two ideas being explored by the Gannett Company, the parent of USA Today, in the increasingly popular realm of scented advertising. The other concept Gannett is testing is to let marketers add scents to the ads they run in the pages of USA Today. Another national newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, owned by Dow Jones & Company, is also looking into scenting its ad pages.
Scented selling, part of a trend known as sensory marketing, is gaining favor because it helps brands stand out in crowded, competitive categories.
For example, visitors to the lobbies of Omni hotels can smell blends of lemongrass and green tea, which since late 2005 has been the official scent of the lodging chain.
“We’re looking for a way to carry the scents, the whole sensory experience, further,” said Caryn Kboudi, vice president for corporate communications at Omni Hotels in Irving, Tex.
And DJ wants to add scents to the Wall Street Journal. Most ads I see in the WSJ don’t lend themselves to scentage, but it would be interesting to get a whiff of Balvenie from page A3.
Fri 23 Mar 2007
The M by Madonna collection hit H&M yesterday to generally decent reviews, particularly for the dresses (some priced as low as $35). The collection wasn’t devoured as rapidly as the Stella H&M collection. Maybe massclusivity is losing its draw, or maybe people were expecting something more innovative, more cutting-edge. Madonna’s pieces are very wearable, and don’t necessarily stand out from the standard fare at H&M.
Not proximal to a H&M? Check out the pieces in this commercial:
