Posted on 03 January 2010. Tags: Apple, Browsers, Google, Internet, Microsoft, Research, Statistics
New figures for browser share show that Google’s Chrome browser has overtaken Apple’s Safari for the first time.
Web metric company Net Applications‘ figures for December showed that Google ended 2009 with its highest ever share.
4.63 per cent of all users now use Chrome – a scant fifth of a percentage point above Safari’s 4.46 per cent share.
The numbers are dwarfed by Internet Explorer’s dominant 62.69 per cent market share – but Microsoft should be anything but complacent.
Continue Reading
Posted in Internet
Posted on 03 January 2010. Tags: Branding, Saab
General Motors Co. is pressing ahead with plans to shut down Saab, but will continue to hear bids for the Swedish car brand, according to reports.
GM is eliminating Saab along with Pontiac, Hummer, and Saturn as part of a restructuring plan that will leave it with four core brands: Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, and Buick.
It will continue to focus on its European Vauxhall and Opel operations.
The Saab motor company was given a late reprieve when General Motors agreed to extend the deadline for a potential suitor to raise the funds needed to buy the loss-making Swedish brand.
GM had originally demanded that Spyker Cars conclude a deal by 12 o’clock 31 December but has now decided that the Dutch sports car company can have another week.
The future of the 60-year-old Swedish marque and the 3,400 jobs in that country hang in the balance, though Spyker continues to speak confidently of its ability to reach some kind of deal with GM.
Continue Reading
Posted in Branding
Posted on 03 January 2010. Tags: Celebrity, Entertainment, Video
HEADING INTO its third weekend, “Avatar’’ had already earned more than $250 million at the US box office and more than $475 million overseas.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the cost of making and marketing this magnum opus from “Titanic’’ director James Cameron was $430 million, though some have suggested $500 million.
Either way, this state-of-the-art blockbuster about an evil 22d-century corporation raping a pure, utopian planet is turning a healthy profit, with DVDs, action figures, books, video games, and sequels still to come.
Predictably, most US media chatter focuses on the film’s domestic market, with barely a mention of its receipts in France ($25.8 million), Russia ($13.8 million), Germany ($12 million), and more than 90 other countries.
Continue Reading
Posted in Marketing Strategy
Posted on 03 January 2010. Tags: Branding, Celebrity, Getting Fired, PR Disasters, Public Relations
Playing up on your wife doesn’t pay.
That’s a tough lesson for brand Tiger Woods, rename Cheetah Woods, to learn the hard way.
Hot on the heels of Accenture, Gillette and others, AT&T has joined the crowd, severing its ties with the golfing pro, joining a growing list of marketers distancing themselves from the golfer amid the public furor surrounding allegations of his infidelities.
“We are ending our sponsorship agreement with Tiger Woods and wish him well in the future,” said a spokesman for AT&T on Thursday.
AT&T’s relationship with Mr. Woods began more than five years ago when the telecommunications company started sponsoring Tiger Jam, an annual star-studded concert that is the biggest fund-raiser for the Tiger Woods Foundation.
That contract gave AT&T the right to have Mr. Woods conduct golf clinics for its customers, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The phone giant further expanded its relationship with the golfer in February to include having its corporate logo—a blue and white sphere—appear on Mr. Woods’s golf bag.
Continue Reading
Posted in Branding
