Flip through pages of Billionaire Magazine; you’ll find Maserati’s, Azimuts Yachts, Gucci wardrobes, and what’s this? Vertu? Yes, Vertu. The New big thing in the luxury product market, a smartphone with market prices at $9600, on average.

The Vertu Ti smartphone is a phone covered in sapphire, titanium, gold and diamonds. Sounds pretty, doesn’t it? But here’s the hook; Why, in an economy which is slowly recovering from a recession would you ever shell out $6,000 on what is essentially a Samsung s4 on the inside? The answer is the same as one you would get if you ask anyone who has bought a Rolls Royce in the past 5 years.

Vertu has come to be known as the Rolls Royce of cellphones, and while most phone companies were struggling to make a decent profit we see that Vertu was growing. This is partly because Vertu had somewhat of a first mover advantage. Not many companies had thought of delving into the world of luxury cellphones. But for a man who owns a luxury yatch and a Malibu beach house what would be better than to have his phone match his opulent life style. Thus I believe that Vertu has been able to successfully capture a niche market but creating a product which is under provided and has a large profit margin.

If you haven’t read about it already, snapchat was offered an astronomical amount by Facebook for its buyout; A whooping 3 billion dollars. Now, I’m no economist or business professional, but if I was owner of a company whose net current value approximated to $860 million dollars, was offered 3 billion for a buyout – nearly 4 times it estimated value – I would be pretty darn keen to signing those papers.

But as we see from recent news, the CEO of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel has indeed declined the offer from Facebook.  “$3 billion isn’t cool, you know what is? Walking away from 3 billion dollars” he says.

Sure, this sounds cool Evan. Smart though? We’d have to take a closer look. Currently Snapchat is a company that has no revenue or business plan; Rejecting the offer thus seems foolish. But, I do believe that this was done for a reason. During the recession, most other companies were losing money. Snapchat though was busy growing, and in today’s world, where social media sites are fueled by photo and video sharing, it found its fortress.

Snapchat has hence declined the offer, understanding that it’s value proposition is trending in today’s industry, and a buyout far bigger could be waiting for it along the lines. If Evan would even want to sell, that is!

For some cooler insights on Evan’s Decision, check out: Why did Snapchat’s 23-year-old CEO reject a $3 billion buyout offer?

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Ask anyone in Marketing, and they’ll tell you; A Brand’s success lies in its point of difference. And when we look at successful Brands over the past 15 years, Dove Beauty stands out like the North Star. A Soap Brand valued at $200 Million during the early 1990s is now estimated at around $4 Billion, and a lot of their success comes down to innovative, down to earth branding, and a point of difference that touches the hearts of woman everywhere.

An Example of Dove’s Campaigns: Dove real beauty Sketches

Looking across the Dove campaigns though, there are many points that are inevitably obvious to critics. The possible selective bias that many of the campaigns hold, and the empathy card that’s being pulled into each and every one of Dove’s ads make us question; is a brand’s point of difference – one that usually develops impressions of the brand at a deeper, psychological level – in any form misleading? Are a company’s point of difference simply halos they wear in front of their consumers?

The bottom line is that, the Dove Marketing team has collectively produced results stretching far past the norms of advertising, their campaigns changing lives – and inevitably, bringing in revenue that’s 30 times their expenditure. Taking a campaign and letting it grow into a platform that motivates and empowers human being is remarkable, all criticism unsound.

Facebook, twitter, linkedIn, google+; Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard about them… but does Tumblr ring any bells? Yes? Probably more so now, given its recent takeover by Yahoo!

Being an avid tumblr blogger myself, the news of this recent takeover has been at my attention quite alot. And as a Business student, I was more than curious. Mergers and Acquisitions have proved to have numerous advantages, boosting revenue streams, developing markets, you name it. But what’s interesting about this particular takeover to me, is two things: The platform strength behind both enterprises, and the nature of both the platforms.

Tumblr is more than just a microblogging website – and this isn’t just personal bias speaking. This tightknit community generally consists of 15 – 30 year olds, a Client base which is extremely protective of their platform[1]. Yahoo on the other hand, has a much older market. Though this takeover provides a new platform for display monetization, it brings with it a brand new, vastly different viewer base; ‘the cool kids’. Who’s going to give up their brand culture, yahoo or tumblr?

Another point to look at, is Tumblr’s market share. “Among the battle of who is the fairest amongst the platforms – tumblr is kinda flat to modestly down in our research” says Scott Galloway, a marketing professor at NYU[2]. Given Yahoo!’s current net value of US$14 billion, a US$1.1 billion price tag[3] on this takeover would need to yield results, and do it fast. So yahoo: frankly, what were you thinking? A huge investment on a social media platform that is not only dull in the markets, but is also giving your advertising and brand a cold shoulder?

watch?v=hZhm6OoJ0o8 A great interview for some more great insights on the takeover

So how is yahoo going to successfully integrate tumblr? Leave your comments below!