grace's ims201a blog

So I have a presentation for my MKT 291 class coming up, and we had to partner with Abercrombie and Fitch in order to create a loyalty program for one of their newer stores to generate interest. Our group has developed a plan that kind of centers around Social Media to promote the brand, because we think it will be most effective. Anyway, I was doing some research today about the usage of Facebook, Twitter, and Smartphones and this website that I came across is CRAZY. I guarantee you’ll be shocked by some of the facts. For example..

• It is expected that half of the US population will use a Smartphone by the end of 2011
• Mobile is predicted to be bigger than internet in 5 years
• It is predicted there will be 80 million new smartphone users in 2011 added to the already existing 60 million consumers who already own one 

So apparently everyone’s a little upset with Facebook, including the FTC. They had accused Facebook of various things, all having to do with privacy—sharing users’ personal information with third parties without their knowledge or consent, changing privacy practices without informing users, and claiming to have a program to verify the security of apps when it didn’t are only three of the four claims. In response to the accusations, CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed to have “made a bunch of mistakes.”

I guess I can see where people are coming from with the complaints, if a company claims to do something, they should do it. They should make sure there are practices in place in order to effectively administer the claims they originally stated. However, I’m kind of taking it all with a grain of salt. Privacy is important, but I still think the majority of privacy should be held to the individual, which is not up to Facebook. 

This article features a Q&A with CEO of the company Craig Leavitt. Below is the company’s five year plan to success. It’s interesting to read how they aggressively charged through the global recession and how they came out on top because of it. The company uses Social Media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to promote their brand, and have been very successful doing so. 

The first thing we did was assemble a new management team with myself and Deborah [Lloyd], and for six months we looked at where we wanted the company to be five to 10 years down the road. What we planned to build was a global multichannel lifestyle brand embraced by consumers and markets in all the fashion capitals around the world, a brand that spanned multiple categories and reached [the consumer] in many different moments of her life. When I say multichannel, I mean that we believe in reaching out to [the consumer] in all channels of distribution, whether it’s brick-and-mortar or online; they’re all important points. Plus we wanted to modernize the product offering and build on the DNA and the heritage of the brand.

Here’s the link to a tumblr blog of funny wikipedia posts that aren’t cited, but should be just so you can laugh at the entry writer. Enjoy!

Here’s an eBook with a bunch of fairy tales.. Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, all the classics!