Centives

North Korea, Cuba, and Myanmar were the three countries in the world where Coke wasn’t sold. Now Coke is back on the menu in Myanmar and Robert Smith looked at how Coca-Cola went about marketing its product in a country that had never tasted it before:

• Smugglers had long brought Coke into the country and so people were aware of the Coca-Cola brand name.
• However the high mark-ups that the smugglers charged for the product meant that people in Myanmar thought that the drink was an expensive luxury reserved for the rich.
• To combat this every Coke label in Myanmar prominently displays the price of the drink.
• Since Myanmar lags in the use of technology, Coke looked to how it used to market its product in the past, in a time before internet and television. Billboards were the way forward.
• The company was also concerned that in a country without reliable electricity, people would first try lukewarm Coke. To ensure that the first experience with the drink was a positive one Coca-Cola set up free tasting events where they served ice-cold Coke.

Read more about the instructions that are printed on Coke labels in Myanmar, the words that Coca-Cola is using to push Coke, and more over here.

Source: NPR

Garth Franklin, Maureen Morrison, and Alex Ben Block write that despite not having been released yet, Man of Steel has already made back most of the cost of producing the film:

• Man of Steel had a production budget of $225 million. It already has $170 million in promotional tie-ins – and some international ones have yet to be announced.
• Warby Parker, for example, is offering Clark Kent glasses and Gillette has produced a series of spots showing how Superman shaves.
• Nokia, the film’s biggest global partner, had its name on the final Man of Steel trailer, has launched a dedicated Man of Steel app, and is producing a limited edition Superman branded version of its Lumia phones.
• It’s not just promotional placements and tie-ins. The makers of the film are becoming personally involved with some of the brands. The director, Zack Snyder, is directing a commercial for Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr.
• Advertizers have flocked to the Superman film in a way that they never did to the Batman films, since Superman is thought to be a more accessible character.

Read more at the source links below.

Sources: Dark Horizons, Adage, The Hollywood Reporter

High Frequency Trading – HFT – is the use of technology to make rapid trades that exploit short-term opportunities in the stock market. Once believed to be the future of trading, it is in decline writes Matthew Philips:

• Between 2008 and 2011 up to two thirds of all stock trades in the US were done through HFT firms. Now only about half are.
• An individual trade was never particularly profitable – initially around a tenth of a penny was made on every traded share, but firms made up for it through sheer volume. Now though it has become even less so – as little as a twentieth of a penny is made per share.
• This is in part because HFT works best when everybody else is comparatively slower in executing trades. However firms have realized the money they were losing by being slow and have sped up their trades, making HFT less lucrative than it was before.
• HFT firms also have to expend vast amounts of money to wring out an additional few milliseconds of speed. As marginal returns decline, this is becoming an increasingly unattractive strategy.
• There are particular locations that firms can locate their computers to have the greatest speed advantage when making trades. Owners of those locations have realized this and charge exorbitantly high rents eating away at the profits from HFT.
• HFT works best when there are high trading volumes. But investors today seem more interested in investing in bonds.
• The pain isn’t over for HFT yet. Countries have begun to regulate high frequency traders with France and Italy having implemented a trading tax and the United States considering one.

Read more about how HFT firms are now looking to Twitter, the first high frequency trader, and how the major players in the market are reacting to HFT over here.

Source: Business Week

Christine Haughney writes that the star of movie actresses has faded a little:

• On magazine covers television, music, and reality stars are more likely to make an appearance than movie actresses.
• Cosmopolitan’s Best Selling issues over the past two years, for example, had Kim Kardashian, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, Khloé Kardashian, and Selena Gomez on the covers.
• This might be in part due to the increase in quality television programming.
• Fans also feel more connected to television and music stars since they watch their shows every week, and listen to their music every day. In contrast fans only see their favourite movie stars in a film once every few years.
• Television and music stars are also likely to be more candid about their personal problems and challenges, making fans feel like they have a more personal connection with the stars.
• The stars, for their part, use this personal connection through social media sites such as Twitter, to drives sales of magazines that they’re on the covers of.
• But it’s not just magazine covers – the proportion of female characters with a speaking part in movies was just 28% in 2012 – the lowest point in five years.

Read more over here and find out why men’s magazines are the exception, what magazine editors have to say, and the female actresses that are still able to drive sales.

Source: The New York Times

Via: Marginal Revolution

Seunghee Suh reports on the increasing number of couples who live-stream their weddings online:

• The media coverage of Kate Middleton and Prince William’s wedding inspired couples to broadcast their big day to a bigger audience.
• Websites such as I Do Stream and My Streaming Wedding allow virtual guests to type in login information and then watch the big event.
• Prices range from $200 for the “do-it-yourself” package to $3,000 if the couple wants to use highly trained videographers with experience in live broadcasting.
• Etiquette experts suggest that weddings gifts should be sent to couples, even if guests only receive an online invitation to the event.
• Some online guests report dressing up in fancy attire before watching the live stream to really get into the spirit of things.

Read more about the experiences that couples have had with the services, how live-streaming has evolved from the days of being used to accommodate sick relatives, and more over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Alistair Barr reported on eBay’s latest attempt to become more relevant in the online shopping space:

• eBay is replacing the front windows of shuttered shops with giant touch screens that allow customers to browse goods from a fashion retailer and buy items on the spot.
• The items are delivered via courier to the shopper within an hour. The shopper then pays the courier for the item so that sensitive credit card information doesn’t have to be entered onto a giant touchscreen visible to all.
• The idea has the advantage of allowing eBay to sell more goods than could realistically be stocked and sold in a single shop.
• Over at Slate Will Oremus points out that this also solves the problem of shuttered shops. By converting the storefront into a touchscreen it could rejuvenate a neighborhood.
• However in a way the touchscreen is the worst of both worlds. Unlike in a real store you can’t try things on. And unlike with an internet store you can’t comparison shop across websites.

Read more about the idea, the products that will be sold, and what the future of the technology may hold over here.

Source: Reuters

Via: Slate

Lauren Weber reported on some research that may help out the next time you’re engaged in a salary negotiation:

• When most people go into a negotiation they throw out a round number – say $60,000 – when discussing their expected salary.
• Instead candidates should go in with a more specific number – such as $62,500 – as this indicates that the candidate has done extensive research on the amount that is par for the field.
• Research indicates that this will ultimately lead to a higher salary.
• This principle doesn’t just apply to salary negotiations – when making offers for used cars, buyers who go in with a specific number rather than a round one get a better deal.

Read more about the study and its methodology over here.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Via: Marginal Revolution

We’ve previously covered the end of the hotel minibar. Seems like soon it’ll be impossible to get overpriced food in hotel rooms. Matthew Yglesias reported on the trend of ending hotel room service:

• Despite the high cost of the food, room service is a money losing business for hotels.
• The food itself isn’t always particularly good either since the hotel cooks don’t expect repeat business, and probably don’t have much experience making the dishes.
• In big cities, it’s also becoming pointless since food delivery services like Seamless allow you to order food from a variety of vendors to wherever you’re living.
• Instead of room service hotel staff can be trained to offer unbiased recommendations to better serve guests.
• Almost everybody wins – the hotel saves money, and guests get access to better quality and a wider variety of food. But it does lead to hotels reducing staff levels.

Read more about the hotels that are leading the trend over here.

Source: Slate

Over at Cracked David Reidy and Paige Turner took a look at some surprisingly progressive positions that pirates used to hold:

• In a time when the germ theory of disease hadn’t been discovered at least one pirate offered his crew an advanced healthcare plan. Pirates who were wounded in battle could expect up to $153,000 – in cash or slave equivalents.
• Despite women still being considered property at the time, pirate ships were comfortable with having female pirates perform all the same duties as male ones. In some cases women even became pirate captains.
• Pirate ships also worked on democratic principles which required the crew to vote to elect the captain of the ship. This was around the time when less than 3% of England’s population was allowed to vote.

Read more about the pirates’ religious tolerance, gay marriage, and more over here.

Source: Cracked

In Sweden all colleges and universities are absolutely free. Yet when they graduate Swedish students have the highest debt to income ratio in the entire developed world. Matt Phillips explained this paradoxical result:

• While college tuition might be free, food and rent aren’t. The high cost of living in Sweden means that students have to take on about US$19,000 of debt.
• In other countries students can rely on their parents for financial help, but in Sweden there is a strong culture of independence and the belief that once a person is of college age they become an adult.
• Students can’t even really hope to live with their parents since the low population density of the country means that it’s unlikely for parents to live close to campus.
• Just 2% of men over 30 in Sweden live with their parents. In Italy it’s 32%.
• Loans to students are provided by a state sponsored entity, have low interest rates, and can be paid up until the student turns 60, meaning that while the debt is high, it is manageable.

Read more about how the aversion to living with one’s parents might be the reason why Sweden is one of the few European countries where couples still have children, what other countries can learn from Sweden, and more over here.

Source: Quartz

Via: Marginal Revolution