So, what do you think of this ad?  Did it get your attention?  Does it make you feel like purchasing Nike products?

A while ago, I mentioned the concept of consumer confidence.  Consumer confidence  is the degree of optimism that consumers feel about the overall state of the economy and their personal financial situation.  Here’s an article that shows consumer confidence in action.

Japan business mood turns positive; consumers upbeat

Tue, May 18 2010

By Izumi Nakagawa and Rie Ishiguro

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japanese manufacturers turned optimistic for the first time in two years in May, a Reuters poll showed, providing further evidence of the economy’s continuing recovery led by Asian demand.

Manufacturers expect sentiment to improve further over the next three months, with export-led industries such as electrical appliance and machinery makers encouraged by growing demand from China and elsewhere in Asia, the Reuters Tankan showed.

Consumer confidence also hit a 2- year high in April, a separate government survey showed, in a sign the optimism was spreading.

Finance Minister Naoto Kan said the economy continued to recover, although he warned that financial markets have not completely settled down from the European debt crisis.

“The situation in Europe has caused Japanese stocks to fall and led to temporary gains in the yen. I hope this situation settles down,” Kan told a news conference on Tuesday.

Economists expect solid exports to fast-growing Asian economics to lift Japan’s first-quarter economic growth to a brisk 1.3 percent, or an annualized 5.4 percent, when provisional growth figures are released on Thursday.

There are early signs of improvement in domestic demand. Japan’s core machinery orders rose in March and manufacturers expect further increases in the coming months, suggesting capital spending will keep rising moderately.

Consumer confidence improved for the fourth straight month in April to hit its highest level since October 2007, a Cabinet Office survey showed on Tuesday.

But the Reuters Tankan showed service-sector sentiment worsened slightly due to frail domestic demand, in a sign the recovery remains patchy.

“Weaker sentiment at service-sector firms suggests government stimulus is petering out, and this may cause a temporary slowdown in the overall economy in April-June,” said Kyohei Morita, chief economist at Barclays Capital Japan.

“But strong Asian demand is expected to help the Japanese economy recover steadily … The current financial market turmoil stemming from Greece’s debt problems is unlikely to break this trend, unless it drags on for a long time,” he said.

The poll, which has a 95 percent correlation with the Bank of Japan’s tankan survey, could mean the headline business sentiment index for large manufacturers in the BOJ tankan for June will climb out of negative territory for the first time in two years.

The upbeat data comes as welcome news for the Bank of Japan, which is considering a new loan program aimed at encouraging private banks to lend more to industries with growth potential.

The central bank is expected to unveil an outline of the new scheme after its two-day policy meeting that ends on Friday.

In the Reuters Tankan survey of 400 large firms, of which 227 responded, the manufacturers’ sentiment index rose 4 points from April to plus 4, its highest since plus 8 in March 2008.

Manufacturers expect the index to rise to plus 9 in August.

The index for non-manufacturers however, worsened to minus 15 in May from minus 14 the previous month and is expected to remain in negative territory at minus 4 in August.

Indexes in the Reuters Tankan, taken from April 23 to May 13, are calculated by subtracting the percentage of pessimistic respondents from optimistic ones. A negative figure means pessimists outnumber optimists.

(Additional reporting by Stanley White, Editing by Charlotte Cooper)

So, what are your thoughts?  Is consumer confidence an accurate way to measure the strength of the economy?  Is Japan’s economy recovering?

This week we talked about Walmart and interpreted some financial data.  The following article provides some recent information on Walmart’s performance and will also give you a chance to study more numerical data.

Walmart cuts prices as sales slump

By Star-Ledger Wire Services

April 10, 2010, 10:00AM

Walmart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, has reduced prices on more than 10,000 items after sales at U.S. stores dropped last quarter.

The company plans to cut more prices in the coming weeks and months, Linda Blakley, a spokeswoman for the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company, said yesterday by telephone.

The reductions are part of Walmart’s efforts to keep shoppers gained in the recession, said Walter Todd, a Walmart investor. Sales at U.S. stores open at least a year fell 1.6 percent in the quarter ended Jan. 31, more than Walmart had estimated. Comparable-store sales at Minneapolis-based Target Corp., the second-biggest U.S. discount chain, rose 0.6 percent.

“Walmart captured market share in the downturn with people cutting back,” Todd, who helps manage $800 million in assets at Greenwood Capital Associates in Greenwood, South Carolina, said in an interview April 1. “Can they keep some of that as the economy continues to improve? They are guilty until proven innocent on that front from an investor’s standpoint.”

The Wall Street Journal reported the price cuts Thursday night.

Walmart fell 31 cents to $55.07 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have advanced 3 percent this year.
TIDE, BOUNTY

Lower prices for groceries and flat-panel televisions hurt same-store sales last quarter, Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman and U.S. stores chief, said Feb. 18. Disruptions caused by store remodeling contributed to a slight decrease in store visits, Chief Financial Officer Tom Schoewe said.

Walmart is cutting the price of a 100-ounce (3-liter) bottle of Procter & Gamble Co.’s Tide laundry detergent to $10.94 from $13.97 this month. Twelve rolls of Bounty paper towels are selling for $12.50, down from $15.77, according to a March 31 newspaper ad.

The company is focusing on price reductions lasting more than a month for food and other consumable items, after a move to offer turkeys at 40 cents a pound in November failed to generate enough sales volume to counter price cuts, Bill Simon, chief operating officer of U.S. stores, said March 10. Higher “rollbacks,” or longer-term price cuts, help same-store sales, he said.

– Bloomberg News

© 2010 NJ.com. All rights reserved.

Notice that this article also shows the challenges of competing on a low-price basis.  Based on what you know about Walmart, what do you think of the company’s current strategy?

Continuing with the theme of change, Google has followed through with a major change in its global strategy.  Here’s one of the more interesting news articles on the topic.  Sorry, it’s another long one!

Google risks China’s ire with slap to censorship

By Chris Buckley and Melanie Lee

BEIJING/SHANGHAI (Reuters) – Google shut its mainland Chinese-language portal and began rerouting searches to its Hong Kong site, unleashing Beijing’s ire and prompting worry over its prospects in China.

China lost little time in warning Google that its spurning of self-censorship had angered the one-party government, wary of ceding control over China’s 384 million Internet users.

Google’s decision comes during heightened tensions between Beijing and Washington over a range of issues, from Internet freedom to the yuan exchange rate, economic sanctions on Iran and U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan.

Google startled the world and the business community in January when it said it might quit China over censorship and after suffering from a sophisticated hacking attack that it said came from within China. Beijing has denied it was involved in any hacking.

Google’s public complaints made a parting of ways with China’s government hard to avoid.

“It was not unexpected. How do you square the circle in a situation where your business globally depends on the free flow of information and one (side) restricts that?” Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, told Reuters of Google’s retreat.

Google’s Internet move to Hong Kong, a self-administered territory under Beijing’s rule that is free of many mainland restrictions, may not mark the end to contention.

An unnamed official from China’s State Council Information Office, which helps oversee Internet rules, told the Xinhua news agency that Google had “violated the written promise it made on entering the Chinese market.”

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang would not say directly whether his government considered Google’s new Internet arrangements legal, merely noting that government departments would handle it in accordance with the law.

“The Google incident is the individual act of a commercial company. I don’t see that it would have any impact on China-U.S. relations, unless some people want to politicize it,” Qin told a regular news conference.

Google said it intends to continue research and development in China, and keep sales staff there. But the company is likely to be closely watched by officials, possibly emboldened after months of friction with Washington.

Internet users in China rerouted to Google’s Hong Kong website, Google.com.hk, were still unable to access sensitive websites, because China’s government firewall continues to filter all content accessible from the mainland.

Searches on the Hong Kong website from mainland broadband lines for sensitive news and discussion about jailed dissidents and banned organizations proved erratic.

Some gave links to sites that google.cn previously did not. But these pages could not be opened. Other searches for the same sensitive topics returned a blank page.

Google.com can still be accessed from China. But, as always, links for sensitive topics cannot be opened.

Analysts said it was possible Google’s plans for other services in China, such as its Android smartphone software, could be jeopardized by its move.

“Ordinary (Chinese) Internet users won’t be much affected, because the only difference they’ll see is that the burden of censorship has shifted from Google to the government,” said Wang Junxiu, a Beijing-based Internet entrepreneur who has campaigned against online controls.

“But Google’s business may take a hit. Advertising may fall, and (Chinese) companies that have invested in joining up with Google innovations and content will be hurt,” said Wang.

A CLOUDED FUTURE

Google has steadily grown its market share since 2006 when it only had about 10 percent of the market.

While Google is the world’s top search engine, it held only an estimated 30 percent share of China’s search market in 2009, compared with home-grown rival Baidu Inc’s 60 percent. Google’s decision on Monday, therefore, won’t have an immediate impact on earnings, analysts say.

Shares of Google, which have fallen more than 6 percent since January when it announced plans to stop censoring searches in China, closed Monday’s trading session down $2.50 at $557.60. Shares of Baidu, which have soared more than 40 percent during the same period, finished up $10.07 at $579.72.

Google’s troubles in China are not unique. Many foreign companies such as eBay and Yahoo! have failed to make headway in the market due to localization problems and stiff domestic competition and have pulled out.

China requires Internet operators inside the country to block words and images Beijing deems unacceptable. Google.cn used such a filter.

Internationally popular websites Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube are blocked in China.

A former British colony, Hong Kong enjoys more freedom, including an uncensored Internet, than mainland China.

But Google acknowledged that the Chinese government could at any time block access to the services, which include Google search, news and images.

“I don’t think it’s sustainable for Google to conduct rerouting of traffic,” said Edward Yu, chief executive of Analysys International, a Beijing-based research firm specializing in technology issues.

“The thing that makes the government unhappy is this kind of gesture. That Google will not follow (the rules), and that gesture will anger the government so they may set up barriers against Google.”

(Additional reporting by Ben Blanchard, Alan Wheatley, Alexei Oreskovic, Edwin Chan, Gabriel Madway, Paul Eckert and Alister Bull; Editing by Jean Yoon)

So, what do you think about Google’s decision?  How important is the Chinese market to Google’s continuing business success?

Cartoon by Steve Breen, The San Diego Union-Tribune

For the past two weeks, we have been talking about change.  The recent economic downturn has forced many companies and individuals to make great changes .  Here is an example of how the U.S. and global workforce is changing:

Last week, we discussed Toyota’s incentive package and its possible results.  Well, as discussed in the following Reuters article, the results are in!

By Soyoung Kim

DETROIT, March 12 (Reuters) – Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) may keep aggressive discounts available for U.S. consumers beyond this month after unprecedented incentives sent its U.S. sales sharply higher in early March, an executive said on Friday.

Toyota’s U.S. sales surged 40 percent in the first 10 days of March compared with the year-earlier period after the automaker offered zero-percent financing and other incentives, Don Esmond, senior vice president of Toyota U.S. sales, told Reuters in an interview.

Esmond said Toyota would evaluate March sales results and reaction from dealers and consumers before deciding whether to extend the discounts, which the company called its most “far-reaching sales program in history.”

“We’ll continue to keep the dealers competitive in the marketplace,” Esmond said, speaking to Reuters by telephone after meeting with the company’s dealers in Cleveland, Ohio.

“I think we will have to take a look at results and reevaluate, but the promise I made to dealers was that we will continue to make them competitive,” he said.

Esmond said Toyota expects to regain most of its U.S. market share lost in the past two months in the wake of a damaging series of recalls that have tarnished its reputation for quality.

Toyota’s U.S. market share plunged to 13.4 percent in the first two months of this year, down from nearly 17 percent for all of 2009. Toyota was behind General Motors Co [GM.UL] and Ford Motor Co (F.N) in U.S. sales so far this year.

“If you look at our royal Toyota owners, certainly Toyota owners have stood by us. They’ve got good confidence in the brand and the products,” Esmond said.

“For us, it’s a pretty big step up, but still if you look at what the competitors spend per vehicle basis, we are still 30 percent below our competitors,” he said.

As recently as February, Toyota’s incentive spending averaged $1,833 per vehicle, compared with $3,434 per vehicle on average for GM, according to industry tracking firm Edmunds.com.

Toyota, which has traditionally spurned steep discounts in order to protect resale values, is offering zero-percent financing for five years on top-selling models, including the Camry, and free maintenance for two years to win back U.S. consumers after a series of product safety problems.

Gregg Lemos-Stein, an autos analyst with Standard & Poor’s, said such deep discounts would appeal to people who remain undecided about the brand and to whom the price was a major impediment to buying Toyotas, but it has the risk of cutting into profit margins as well as resale values longer term.

“The reason why it’s key,” Lamos-Stein said of residual values, “is that, traditionally, Toyota has had an advantage on leasing and financing its new vehicles based on strong resale values.” (Reporting by Soyoung Kim; editing by Derek Caney and Andre Grenon)

So, what do you think?  Are these incentives a good idea, or will they cause problems in the long run?

A few weeks ago, we discussed the concept of product placement, using Nissan and the hit American TV show Heroes as an example.  Remember, product placement is defined as the practice of placing brand-name items as props in movies, television shows, music videos, or other media  as a form of advertising.  Here is some more details regarding Nissan’s deal, courtesy of Variety.com:

Nissan flies with ‘Heroes’

Deal gives superhero show marketing muscle

By MARC GRASER

Nissan isn’t backing away from NBC’s “Heroes.”

The automaker’s North American division has brokered a deal with the Peacock to promote the second season of the superhero show.

Overall deal essentially gives “Heroes” the kind of marketing muscle that a feature film might receive from promotional partnerships with brands brokered by the studios.

Deal will have Nissan spending marketing dollars around the series through on-air and online sponsor-ships and traditional ads, wireless applications, as well as a “Heroes” musicvid and the season-one DVD release.

Naturally, the accord includes product integration.

First season had characters driving and talking about the Versa small car, which appeared in multiple episodes. The company’s Armada SUV and Altima sedan also appeared.

Nissan will use the second season to hype its new crossover, the Rogue, which rolls out in dealerships in September — and times well with the fall’s new TV programming.

[The] campaign, including the inclusion of the Rogue, begins with the premiere of the show’s second season, which Nissan will exclusively sponsor and air with fewer ads.

Nissan will roadblock the premiere episode online on NBC Rewind for 24 hours after its on-air bow.

Last year, the automaker took a chance on “Heroes,” betting on the series’ pilot early on.

Through Clarke Osborne, Nissan’s product placement planner, the automaker worked closely with the show’s producers to place vehicles in 10 episodes. Relationship resulted in characters verbally mentioning the Versa in three.

In addition to promoting the show across various platforms, including movie theaters, Nissan offered free downloads of the pilot on Apple’s iTunes service.

[The] show wound up becoming one of the few new breakout hits of last season and attracted the lucrative adults 18-34 demo, which Nissan is trying to court.

Execs wanted to plant their flag on the property in order to prevent another marketer from taking its place in the show’s second outing.

Nissan’s media agency, OMD, handled the deal.

Source:  Nissan flies with ‘Heroes’

So, what do you think of Nissan’s strategy with this TV show?  Share your thoughts below!