For some reason many people believe celebrities consume superlative products.  Thus, one assumes if a celebrity backs a company, it will make the company better off due to higher product credibility and increased brand exposure.  But this may not be the case, as Laura Petrecca states in this article in USA TODAY.  Celebrity investors are fairly risky.  For one, consumers may not view a celebrity spokesperson as sincere because of the large sum of money they’re receiving, which in turn may tarnish the credibility of the product all-together.  Furthermore, “Whatever that person does is going to attach to your brand — good or bad.”  Finally, celebrity involvement means positive and negative media attention.  When a problem arises in a company, reporters are quick to publicize an event linked closely to a big name.

In my opinion, companies in general benefit from celebrity support.  This is particularly advantageous for small start-up companies that will receive valuable advertisement and publicity it would not have gotten otherwise.

Nook vs Kindle

Barnes & Noble (B&N) pulled DC Comic’s books off it’s shelves recently after the company sold exclusive digital rights of it’s comics to one of B&N’s largest competitors, Amazon.  Matt Stuart and Stacy Cowley from CNN quote Jamie Carey, chief merchant of Barnes & Noble in article, “Regardless of the publisher, we will not stock physical books in our stores if we are not offered the available digital format, to sell and promote the physical book in our store showrooms and not have the e-book available for sale would undermine our promise to Barnes & Noble customers to make available any book, anywhere, anytime.”  First of all isn’t refusing to sell the comics in stores contradicting this alleged promise to “make available any book, anywhere, anytime?”

Furthermore, this was excellent strategy on Amazon’s part because it forced Barnes & Noble into a dilemma.  Should B&N continue receiving revenue from products that have exclusive deals with rivals or pull products resulting in loss of revenue and customers?  The first option would mean an increase in publisher’s deals with companies like Amazon because they see no repercussions in doing so.  The latter would prevent publishers from making exclusive deals with e-book companies.  Barnes & Noble chose the latter, which made a statement to companies such as DC Comics that if companies won’t play by B&N’s rules then B&N won’t hesitate to pull products.

I believe Barnes and Noble made the wrong decision.  Books are moving toward electronic medium and by not adjusting it’s business model accordingly, B&N will be forced to stop sales of popular books as more and more companies begin to make deals with e-book providers.   Proven here, it may not always be in a company’s best interest to exercise it’s buying power.

Change is cool!

Apple’s success is a result of understanding that technology is not static; it’s constantly growing and changing to meet the needs of buyers.  Maskai Tajima mentions in his blog that “Apple’s recent marketing and product development spirals around the dilemma concerning, changing preferences of consumers today.”   I believe apple has dealt extremely well with changes in consumer’s needs. The company’s ability to analyze consumer trends and act accordingly has been proven with their modification in iPod development.  After noticing a decline in iPod sales (most likely due to the iPhone, which now accounts for half of the company’s yearly profits), Apple slashed prices rather than introduce a new iPod this fall.    Lu Fang writes in his blog, “To determine what consumers wants is not a one-time work.  This should be carried throughout the entire life of a certain business.”  Apple creates products according to shifts in the market’s needs.

Furthermore, Apple has recently presented a number of new product features that give the company a technological edge.  For example, Jefferson Graham writes in USA TODAY, “a talking personal assistant named Siri,” found in the iPhone 4S “which combines voice activation and artificial intelligence”  In addition the company has brought forth the iCloud, which “makes all your media available to all your devices and puts Apple in the driver’s seat for the consumer cloud.”