Centives

Alex Mayyasi wrote a piece on “Cincinnati’s most outrageous airline” – highlights include:

• For $425 Flamingo Air takes couples up in the air for an hour to join the mile high club.
• Other airlines have tried to run on the same concept but have failed. The key to Flamingo Air’s success is that it markets romance not sex.
• Perhaps as a result of this, essentially all the flights have been booked by women not men.
• The age also covers a wide range – couples between 35 and 85 have enjoyed the service.
• Marriages have taken place on the plane (they weren’t consummated – the priest was onboard) as well as 60^th anniversaries (they were).
• The flight has been successful despite living on the edge of the Bible Belt – the conservative part of America, in Ohio.

Find out what happens to demand during Valentine’s Day, what you get with the ticket price, and what the pilot is up to during all of this over here.

Source: Priceonomics

Via: Marginal Revolution

In Hong Kong if you need a loan, you could offer up your house or car as collateral, or, if you’d like, your handbag write Riva Gold and Chester Yung:

• Yes Lady Finance Co. takes your handbag, has it appraised, and gives you a loan for 80% of the bag’s value.
• The loan is processed and the cash handed over in less than half an hour.
• Only bags from Gucci, Chanel, Hermès and Louis Vuitton are accepted. Prada purses just might make the cut.
• The bag will be returned as long as the owner pays a monthly interest rate of 4%, and reclaims it within four months.
• Loans start for as little as US$200, though loans in excess of $20,000 aren’t unheard of.

Read more about the practice, what it’s called, those who use it, how it was started, and how it works over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: Marginal Revolution

Writing, we hope, not from personal experience, Jacob N. Shapiro wrote about just how difficult it is to run a successful terrorist organization:

• Businesses have a straightforward aim: maximize profits. Terrorists on the other hand have to carefully calibrate the amount of terror they spread. Too much and their supporters in society might turn on them.
• They need sophisticated human resource departments. Recruits are required to be okay with violence but such people are also bad at following orders and accepting authority figures. An organization might have long term plans but the foot soldiers want short-term glory.
• Those who deviate from the playbook can’t really be fired. Walmart can use courts to sue its suppliers. Terrorist organizations have no such legal protections.
• You’d think that terror organizations would be all about secrecy. In fact they meticulously document every single transaction – often demanding receipts for office supplies such as fax machines.
• Al Qaeda, for example, used to keep spreadsheets that detailed payments to its fighters. Like managers in any company, senior staff spend more time taking care of accounts than actually fulfilling their organization’s objectives.

The full article talks about how this relates to the recent closure of US embassies across the world, the management challenges that other terrorist organizations have faced, how terrorist managers combat counterproductive activities, and more over here.

Source: Foreign Affairs

London’s Heathrow airport could be thought of as a mall with an airport attached wrote The Economist in an article that looked at how shops had adapted to selling at the airport:

• All restaurants have dishes for which the wait is guaranteed to be less than 15 minutes for travelers trying to catch a tight connection.
• Clothing retailers put grab and go items such as ties close to the entrance.
• “Heathrow Ambassadors” can take you from one terminal to another if you’re unable to find the items of your desire in your own terminal.
• Standard shops are located in the areas where economy class passengers embark and disembark. High end brands are located near the First and Business class passengers.
• Shoppers are legally required to produce their boarding pass when purchasing something. This provides shops with a wealth of data that allows them to identify which types of travelers like to purchase which items.
• Japanese passengers, for example, like expensive wine. Middle Eastern and Russian customers like sparkly jewelry.

Read how the shops are performing, how Heathrow has climbed the international airport standings, why retailers have to compete with other distractions, why shoppers are afraid of being caught naked, and more over here.

Source: The Economist

For China the civil war currently sowing destruction across Syria is an excellent marketing opportunity writes Tim Fernholz:

• China supports the incumbent Syrian government, however its weapons have ended up in the hands of Syrian rebels through Sudan which has resold its weapons for cash.
• Videos are now popping up depicting rebels using Chinese weapons, and Chinese analysts point out that this is an excellent way to prove the value of Chinese weapons and give arms sales a boost.
• Since the rebels aren’t trained military recruits, the thinking goes that if they can use them it will prove to others that Chinese weapons can be used by anybody.
• Supplying weapons to countries around the world is a competitive, cut-throat business, and today China has just 5% of the market.
• However things aren’t going too well – the weapons currently in use by the rebels often malfunction and kill or injure nearby allies.

Find out which weapons the rebels are using, the countries that control the international arms trade, and more over here.

Source: Quartz

Rollo Romig took a look at the use of elephants in Indian festivals:

• Elephants in India were used for many years as tanks in wartime and useful labour during peacetime.
• In between battles they were likely housed in temples and thus were integrated into religious festivals. As war become increasingly mechanized taking a role in religious celebrations was the only role left for elephants.
• This is how elephants have become intrinsically linked with religion – even though scripture doesn’t talk about them.
• It’s not just Hindus who use elephants. The same animals that carry around Hindu idols are also used for Muslim and Christian events.
• These days elephants have groupies and fan sites. Committed fans trash talk other elephants, with one particularly passionate individual saying that a rival elephant should be tied up “in the cow barn”.
• Yet elephants aren’t meant to be used for these purposes – and there have been a worrying number of deaths as a result of elephants running amok among crowds.
• The elephants are also frequently abused, beaten, and almost always chained.
• The government of India has recognized this and banned the capture of wild elephants. Thus supply is falling even as demand rises.
• An elephant’s day is worth ₹50,000 – about US$1,000. A couple decades ago this much money would’ve been enough to purchase the elephant.
• And that’s nothing to say about the bribes that have to be paid to have the elephants grace festivals with their presence. These can cost as much as ₹50,000.
• Banning the use of elephants outright would be an easy solution. One drawback would be that without their presence at religious festivals people might stop considering them sacred…and this might reverse the important gains that have been made in wild-elephant populations in India.

The issue is complex. Read about the abuse that the elephants undergo, the mahouts that are responsible for it, the family twists worthy of an Indian film, the activist fighting for the elephants, and pictures of the beasts over here.

Source: The New York Times

Derek Thompson took a look at how restaurants can afford to offer bottomless drinks:

• There is an element of peer pressure. Every other restaurant offers bottomless deals, and so all restaurants have to. For them the question is “how could they afford to not offer bottomless drinks”?
• Customers are attracted to such deals because we have a psychological predisposition to like free. Rather than a discount on individual drinks, we’d prefer to pay more up front and create the illusion of getting things for “free”.
• People don’t just drink at a restaurant. They order things to eat and the restaurant makes money from this and from repeat customers.

Check out the entire video and its transcript over here.

Source: The Atlantic

The turmoil in Egypt continues, yet there’s no danger of the Suez Canal being shut down writes Tim Fernholz:

• 3% of the world’s oil supply, and 8% of global trade goes through the canal.
• It is an important source of revenue for Egypt – it contributed $2.4 billion to GDP in the first half of 2013.
• It provides about 10% of Egypt’s currency reserves – and they’ve fallen to less than $10 billion this year.
• Therefore the Egyptian government – whether military or Islamist – needs the canal, and ensuring its security is one of the country’s top priorities.

Read more about why it can’t be used as a bargaining chip over here.

Source: Quartz

Matt Goulding writes that far from being the commoditized mass produced server of American food that McDonald’s is assumed to be, as a chain it has come to appreciate local tastes:

• McDonald’s used to be about exporting American culture abroad. But now burgers, fries, and Coke can be had in restaurants anywhere – not just in McDonald’s – and the novelty has faded.
• Instead it now focuses on local cuisine. Items on menus in Asis are spicier, while European dishes are more refined.
• In China, for example, one can find red bean pies; in France, McBaguettes; and in Germany Big Rösti. Beef and pork aren’t found in Indian McDonald’s where the chain is also planning its first all-vegetarian location.
• In many ways McDonald’s has to focus more on quality than other restaurant chains – since it has to overcome the initial disdain with which individuals treat McDonald’s food.
• Restaurant owners across the world are encouraged not only to play with the menu but also the décor to drive innovation and make for more profitable restaurants.

See photos of McDonald’s around the world, the experience of eating a McRaclette, and more over here.

Source: Roads and Kingdoms

Sarah Halzack outlined how LinkedIn analyzed data to better serve its users:

• When making recommendations for jobs individuals would be interested in it considers historical migration patterns. It knows, for example, that somebody from San Francisco is likely to move to New York but not Fresno.
• It can also identify if somebody is soon about to be promoted – and recommend jobs above their current level.
• For corporate clients it can help them identify where to open new offices by informing them where the talent pool they require resides.
• It can also offer rankings that shows corporations how they stack up against their rivals in terms of recruiting and retaining employees.
• The type of device that the individual is using to access LinkedIn affects the kind of information that is presented. Those accessing through mobile platforms are more likely to be in “response mode” rather than “proactive mode”.

Read more about LinkedIn’s recent success and acquisitions, the challenges it faces, how it envisions its technology being used a decade from now, and the problem of noisiness over here.

Source: The Washington Post