Recently, it has been noticed that a number of professional athletes are sponsoring junk food in commercials; LeBron James for McDonald’s, Peyton Manning for Pepsi, and Sidney Crosby for Tim Hortons. The global movement towards better public health has put companies and their marketing strategies under scrutiny. In this case, children who look up to these athletes will face mixed signals as their role models consume “junk food”. These athletes are in a position to boost awareness of health but are instead promoting the very companies responsible for some of the public’s health issues.

Lebron James for McDonalds; Beyoncé for Pepsi-Cola

Looking at this from the company’s point of view, sponsorship from the world’s most popular athletes will be helping their balance sheets. The athletes themselves are also in this for the same reason, but this brings up a question of ethics; why promote something you do not eat yourself and know will not the help the very children that come out to your games? Dr. David Silver had spoken with our class about the disregard for ethics in modern business. The companies are evaluating profit margins and positioning their brand incorrectly at a point in time where living the “healthy life” is trending worldwide.

The article used in this post can be found at: 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/athletes-in-junk-food-ads-send-kids-mixed-messages-1.1913330

Photo can be found at:

http://a.abcnews.com/images/Health/ht_lebron_mcdonalds_beyonce_pepsi_nt_121211_wg.jpg

In an effort to compete with its domestic rival WestJet and an average stock price, Air Canada successfully lowers its costs surging its share price up 12%. CASM, is the Costs Per Available Seat Mile, or to simplify, the costs based on a single seat that could provide revenue. They were able to lower this 3.5%, indicating a significant reduction in costs.

Air Canada soars above WestJet after recent cost reduction.

The hero behind their soaring performance is their Operations Management team. As we learned in class #6 with guest speaker Professor Nagarajan, the operations division of a company is what takes raw materials and gets them to the final product. In the case of Air Canada, their operations team handles the different aspects of their service such as fuel costs, food costs, and maintenance to name a few. In a business notorious for rising costs, their team reduced costs, which reduced the CASM as I mentioned earlier and this in turn has allowed Air Canada to exceed expectations.

The article used in this post can be found at: 

http://business.financialpost.com/2013/10/04/air-canada-continues-to-soar/

Photo can be found at:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/cms/binary/8755456.jpg

We all know of Facbeook’s IPO failure, but will Facebook join these ranks as well? Slowing revenue this year as well as a lack of advertising revenue outside the United States are posing problems for the social networking giant. Twitter also has a significant variable cost for its servers. Because of its real-time platform its servers are susceptible to crashes during large-scale news events. It becomes apparent that if revenue is decreasing and costs are increasing, profit itself it decreasing as well.

Financial gurus debunk Twitter’s success and clip its wings.

My opinion, Facebook will soon have another friend, Twitter, because a service that relies on advertising revenue and is failing in a majority of it’s consumer segments is not a company investors will be convinced to invest in. Twitter seemed like a good candidate for investing but a peak into their recent financial statements have brought more concern than joy. Within the United States, Twitter works, but the lack of an international market has financial gurus like Kai Li of UBC shaking their heads.

The article used in this post can be found at: 

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-short-message-from-twitters-ipo-slowinggrowth/article14712467/

Photo can be found at:

http://latuffcartoons.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/twitter-is-censored-2.png