“Brazilian woman, expelled from school for short miniskirt, emerges as ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune” plus 3 more |
- Brazilian woman, expelled from school for short miniskirt, emerges as ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune
- Why P&G's $57 Billion Bet on Gillette Hasn't Paid off Big -- Yet - Advertising Age
- Florida family gives up on small-town North Dakota - FederalNewsRadio.com
- Exhibit Honors Al Grey and Ray Brown as Jazz Greats and Pioneers of ... - DAILY KOS
| Brazilian woman, expelled from school for short miniskirt, emerges as ... - Minneapolis Star Tribune Posted: 15 Feb 2010 06:23 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Above all, she emphasized how she loves having her photo taken, and was looking forward to parading before 80,000 spectators and hundreds of photographers. "I confess, I'm a vain girl, and the changes I've made have given me the confidence I need to dance in these Carnivals," Arruda told The Associated Press. "The entire world is looking at every part of you. They demand a lot of Brazilian women during Carnival, you have to be perfect, impeccable. "I'm getting there," she added, "but it is a difficult level to reach." Arruda managed a respectable dance, but was upstaged at times by a policewoman who made headlines in Rio for accepting an invitation to be a Carnival muse for the same Porto da Pedra samba group. Julia Liers, dressed in sparkling heels, red thigh-highs, a massive blood-red feather back piece and not much else, put on a samba clinic just 10 feet (3 meters) in front of Arruda's float. She sensually stalked the parade grounds, delighting those in the crowd, especially the men. "Is that the cop?" one man was heard saying. "Oh, man. I want to be locked up then!" A female spectator eyed Arruda, perhaps with some envy. "She should enjoy it, but the girl doesn't samba very well," Rafaela Mara said. "A girl like me from one of the slums could dance a lot better than her." Joao Victor Silva, a drummer for Porto da Pedra, was thrilled to have Arruda in the group. "I think it's inspiring how she turned a terrible situation into something extremely positive." On Oct. 22, Arruda was forced to cover herself with a professor's white coat and was escorted from class by police amid a hail of insults and curses from other students. Videos of the incident went viral on the Internet. The uproar caused her college to take disciplinary action — against her, not those who belittled the jovial blonde. She was expelled for what officials called provocative behavior in a country widely known for revealing clothing. A national outcry ensued, and Arruda was quickly reinstated. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Why P&G's $57 Billion Bet on Gillette Hasn't Paid off Big -- Yet - Advertising Age Posted: 15 Feb 2010 04:50 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Five Years and One Recession Later, Company Says Value Is There but HiddenBATAVIA, Ohio (AdAge.com) -- Just over five years ago on a Monday morning in late January, Procter & Gamble Co. shocked the business world with a $57 billion acquisition of Gillette Co., reshaping itself and its industry. Though P&G was already beating most of its competitors handily on the top line and in market share, Chairman-CEO A.G. Lafley predicted that Gillette would add another full percentage point to the company's annual sales growth. Gillette Chairman-CEO Jim Kilts predicted the integration of what he called the two best companies in consumer products would become the stuff of Harvard Business School case studies as P&G reaped the benefits of "reverse synergies" from Gillette managers and practices and Gillette tapped P&G's beauty-care expertise. And he was holding plans for Gillette's first new razor system in seven years -- Fusion -- in his back pocket. But P&G executives and some former Gillette managers say much of the deal's value is like an iceberg -- it's there, just obscured under water. Gillette, they say, has transformed P&G in ways that aren't always obvious but have made possible aggressive moves in key markets such as Brazil and India; a much stronger operation throughout Europe and an even stronger showing on U.S. retail shelves; a growing investment and expertise in sports marketing and faster internal decision making. And the best, they say, is yet to come. In June, Gillette launches its first substantial razor system upgrade since Fusion -- ProGlide -- promising a performance enhancement similar to that from the launch of Fusion four years ago. It will be an acid test of whether Gillette's trade-up model can still work in what's, at worst, an intractable recession and, at best, a jobless recovery. P&G will ask for the same 10% to 15% price hike over Fusion -- or about $17 for a four pack of blades vs. about $15 now -- as it sought a decade ago for Mach 3's midlife makeover Turbo. But Matt Wohl, general manager-new product development for global grooming, said ProGlide performs as well or better on purchase intent scores compared to Turbo, which launched in 2002 following a much shallower downturn. Innovations Meanwhile, to help deliver on some of the promise the combination seemed to offer for growth in deodorant, skin and hair care, P&G has taken a step away from the category-management model it's been working under since the 1980s and back, in a sense, to classic brand management. Mr. Shirley has recently put the entire Gillette mega brand into a single unit based in Boston rather than let individual category managers, many in Cincinnati, decide the fate of such products as Gillette body wash and hair care. P&G's stock is up 12% since the day before the deal was announced in 2005. That's better than the S&P 500, down 8% over the same period (see chart). But it's worse than two of the three competitors most directly affected by the deal, including Colgate-Palmolive Co. (up 53%) and Unilever (up 36%). Realistically, few would have predicted the "Great Recession," which has swamped all other downturns in recent memory and hit Gillette's shaving and battery businesses particularly hard. Men were already starting to shave less before the downturn, and both men and women alike have fewer reasons to shave when they're unemployed or go out less often. "It depends on how you define a good deal," said Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Schmitz. "If you've got a model that's built around trade up and trade up dies on you because of a recession, that's a problem." As with virtually every deal in its history, P&G delivered on most of its economic benchmarks, particularly earnings, by over-delivering on cost savings, Mr. Schmitz said. Mr. Kilts, a noted cost-cutter, helped instill a discipline even tough P&G managers had never experienced before. Even so, operating margins Mr. Lafley projected would hit 24% to 25% by the end of last decade only reached about 22%. Spiking commodity costs, slower growth in higher-margin beauty and personal- care businesses (including some from Gillette,) and a higher mix of business from developing markets all played a role. Basically, like almost every deal in P&G history save the 1999 Iams acquisition, Gillette has disappointed in delivering on its organic sales growth target through its first five years. But it might just be too soon to tell. Key pieces of P&G's 1985 acquisition of Richardson-Vicks, such as Olay and Pantene, didn't really take off until five years later in the case of Pantene and nearly 15 years later in the case of Olay. The 1997 acquisition of Tampax foundered on the top line for more than five years until the launch of Tampax Pearl in 2002. Ali Dibadj, a Sanford C. Bernstein analyst who worked on the P&G-Gillette integration as a consultant with McKinsey & Co., likewise gives the deal a mixed review, with cost cutting being the clear standout. Sales growth has been a challenge, he said, in large measure because of the recession and because "Fusion is pushing the envelope on what a razor can do" in terms of performance and getting men to trade up. Similarly, efforts to expand Gillette and Venus more broadly into personal care have been slower than expected. But he said P&G did get distribution gains for Gillette, and vice versa, in key emerging markets. Executive talent Executives of some competitors are less forgiving, contending P&G overpaid for Gillette and under-delivered on expected synergies such as the expansion of Gillette and Venus into adjacent categories. No one, however, disputes that P&G got perhaps the most-coveted brand in package goods with the Gillette men's shaving business. One big and still relatively untapped payout from the deal is giving P&G access to the half of the consumer market it largely didn't serve -- men -- Mr. Shirley said. "That's really formed the potential for Gillette to explore the full potential of the strongest male brand in the world," he said. "Before we engaged in the conversations with P&G, we tried to launch a male skin-care line of our own," Mr. Kilts said. "We just didn't have the technology or the understanding. ... Part of it had some traction, but it was really underwhelming. ... The same with the deodorant business. We just did not have the wherewithal and technology to be competitive." Admittedly, the jury is still out on the degree to which P&G will be able to tap the potential of that combination. Male personal care is growing, but at least in the U.S., rival Unilever claims to have captured most of that growth, having accounted for 66% of growth in men's personal care, excluding razors, over the past five years, said Kathy O'Brien, VP-personal care for Unilever, citing Nielsen data. Gillette has launched upgraded deodorants, a new body-wash line and a new hair-care line since consummating the deal in October 2005. While the deodorants have gained shelf space at club stores and the body wash has stuck (see related story, P. 9), Unilever's Axe has grown faster in each category, particularly hair care, where it soundly beat Gillette despite the latter's head start. Edge, first under rival SCJ and sold earlier this year to Energizer, has been taking share from Gillette in shave prep, too. But the game is far from over. Part of the ProGlide launch is an ambitious four-item expansion of Gillette's shave-prep business, including a warming pre-wash, a cooling after-shave lotion and, in a fairly bold gambit for U.S. males, a moisturizer with UV protection. What if they'd gone with Colgate?Asked whether Gillette has been a good deal for Procter & Gamble Co., the latter's Chairman-CEO Bob McDonald gives an unqualified yes. But he also noted it would be interesting to look at the decision by another company not to combine with Gillette.It's no secret that company is Colgate-Palmolive Co., though never officially acknowledged by either side by name. Gillette was in repeated merger talks with Colgate more than two years before then Gillette Chairman-CEO Jim Kilts approached P&G, say people close to the companies, with Colgate ultimately rejecting the deal twice. First, the rejection came down to price, or valuation, in a proposed merger of equals, with Colgate rejecting what ultimately looked like a cash transfer that would have addressed Gillette's less-than-5% market capitalization advantage, these people say. By the time P&G bought Gillette less than three years later, the purchase price valued Gillette at about double what its shareholders would have gotten in the combination with Colgate at a time when Colgate was just entering a restructuring induced largely by a marketplace drubbing from P&G. By the time the second wave of discussions came in 2004, following Colgate missing a quarter's earnings target and suffering a steep share-price decline, the cultural differences were likely even more of a factor. Gillette proposed an outright acquisition rather than merger of equals. A person close to Colgate said that was unacceptable, especially given suspicions that Mr. Kilts would quickly flip the combined companies to another buyer. Colgate has little reason to weep. Its stock has risen four times faster than P&G's in the past five years, and it's been beating P&G on the top line for more than two years. But it does raise the question of whether a Gillette-Colgate merger would have worked better than P&G-Gillette. While Peter Klein, Mr. Kilts' longtime adviser at Gillette and Kraft, gives the combination with P&G an unqualified endorsement, he gives a definite maybe when asked whether Gillette-Colgate would have worked better. 'Reverse synergy' strategy is a mixed bagOne key goal in the merger -- to tap "reverse synergies" by incorporating as much as possible of a Gillette culture widely seen as a rival to P&G's for success in package goods -- has had mixed results.All but one of the most senior managers from Gillette ultimately left the company, some despite considerable efforts and wooing by A.G. Lafley and current Chairman-CEO Bob McDonald. Privately at least, some veteran P&Gers looked down on the marketing skill set of the incoming Gillette people. Some of the incoming Gillette people found the P&Gers remarkably resistant to new ideas. Deutsche Bank analyst Bill Schmitz has contrasted a Gillette culture where "giving it the old college try" was acceptable, to a P&G culture where no defeat or loss of market share is really tolerated. "It's not a culture. It's a cult," said one former Gillette executive who tried to stick it out but ultimately left. But not all P&Gers drink the Kool-Aid, or they at least take it with a substantial grain of salt. And in the case of two senior Gillette executives who were much prized by P&G, either family or personal illness was the reason for their departures, not cultural incompatibility. The rest of the Gillette people have either left or adapted. Some have done the latter quite nicely, including the company's top executive in Germany, its top media executive in China, and most notably P&G Vice Chairman Ed Shirley, a career Gillette executive who's now vice chairman of over a third of P&G's business: beauty and grooming. At 53, Mr. Shirley is three years younger than Mr. McDonald, and as such has probably the best shot at one day being CEO. He's been spearheading a reorganization of his businesses along male and female consumer lines rather than the traditional category and brand structure. And he's made inroads in what looked to be a huge problem when he took charge -- beauty businesses that, despite steep acquisition prices or heavy ad investments, were losing momentum and share to global rivals. Organic sales growth of the P&G beauty business has steadily risen on Mr. Shirley's watch to 4% last quarter, which, while still lagging such rivals as Colgate-Palmolive Co. or Unilever's personal-care business, has lately been beating another key rival: L'Oréal. "Culturally, it was a challenge," he said. "But ... I saw it almost as sport that I'm not going to let some of the long-lived cultural aspects get in my way. " "A lot of the people who left were going to retire and leave anyway in the short term," said former Gillette Chairman-CEO Jim Kilts. "And I think we seeded the company with some great talent down in the organization, so time will tell."
Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Florida family gives up on small-town North Dakota - FederalNewsRadio.com Posted: 15 Feb 2010 05:04 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.
By JAMES MacPHERSON Associated Press Writer
HAZELTON, N.D. (AP) - A tiny North Dakota town's promise of cash and free land lured only one family from out of state. Now, Michael and Jeanette Tristani and their 12-year-old twins are trying to move from the town without a traffic light back to Miami. Tired of crime, traffic, hurricanes and the high cost of living in Florida, the Tristanis moved four years ago to Hazelton, a dwindling town of about 240 that has attempted to attract young families to stay on the map. Michael Tristani, 42, said at the time the 1,800-mile move was "an answer to our prayers." "We don't have to look over our shoulder to see who's going to rob us, or jump out of the bushes to attack us," Tristani said. "Taxes are low, the cost of living is low and the kids enjoy school." But the family also found a cliquey community that treated them like outsiders. "For my wife, it's been a culture shock," he said. Rural communities across the Great Plains, fighting a decades-long population decline, are trying a variety of ways to attract outsiders. But the Tristanis show how the efforts can fail even at a time when many people are desperate. "It's been quite an experience, 50-50 at best," Tristani said. "It hasn't been easy. No one really wants new people here." The Hazelton Development Corp., formed by a determined group of citizens, began running ads in 2005 offering families up to two free lots and up to $20,000 toward home purchases. Businesses were offered free lots and up to $50,000 for setting up shop in the town. Besides cash and free land, Hazelton had little else to offer except elbow room. Surrounded by flat farm land and livestock, the century-old town boasts three churches, a bank, a grain elevator and a bar. Like many small towns across rural America, the once thriving farming community began shrinking as residents moved on or passed away. Tom Weiser, one of the city leaders behind the project to lure new residents, said Hazelton had hundreds of inquiries from around the world when the community's proposal made headlines across the country. Several families from other states visited the town but only the Tristanis made the commitment to move. "Not everybody fits in in a small town," said Weiser, who works as a baker at Wal-Mart in Bismarck, about 45 miles away. Hay bales, a gas station and a graveyard greet visitors as they roll into Hazelton off the state highway. Michael Tristani came from his native Florida wearing gold necklaces and a Rolex and driving a Lexus. He proved as foreign as a flamingo in a place where pickups, farm caps and flannel shirts are de rigueur. "People thought I was a drug dealer," he said. Tristani said he was prepared for Hazelton's bitter winters _ when wind chills can reach 50-degrees below zero and snow drifts are measured in feet _ but not the small-town drama. "People prejudge you without getting to know you," Jeanette Tristani said. The couple bought a house built by students at an American Indian college in Bismarck. The home was moved to town and put on two lots donated by the city. The Tristanis bought a third lot and were later given $15,000. Tristani, a former grocery worker, and his wife, a former real estate agent, opened a bistro and coffee shop. But within weeks of moving to the city, the couple petitioned for a restraining order against the owners of another coffee shop. The Tristanis allege one of the owners drove by their house yelling obscenities and threatened to damage the family's new home. "He appears to be out of control," The Tristanis wrote in court papers. "At times, it's difficult to understand the rest of the words he's using on my family due to his uproar." Both businesses are now shuttered. After his bistro failed, Michael Tristani said he began buying old houses in Bismarck, fixing them up and reselling them to earn money. Jeanette, 44, lost her job last year at a call center in nearby Linton when the business failed. The Tristanis say the family enjoys spending time together and has little to do with the locals. They relish trips to a Wal-Mart in Bismarck. The couple's home in Hazelton has been on the market since August, though the for-sale sign has been covered with snow for weeks. School Superintendent Brandt Dick said losing the Tristani twins, a boy and a girl in the seventh grade, would be a blow to the shrinking enrollment. Dick said there are 72 students enrolled at the local high school, and that the number is expected to fall to 31 in four years. "We are declining in numbers and will continue to decline unless something changes," he said. Bev Voller, a member of the nonprofit development group, said the incentives were funded largely through private money, much of it from "an anonymous donor." But, she says, "the cash thing is over now." Kim Preston, a spokeswoman for the rural advocacy group Center for Rural Affairs, based in Lyons, Neb., said the offer of free land to lure new residents to wilting towns is a phenomenon that started in the past decade. But the small communities that have had success are near larger communities, she said. "For it to work, it needs to be no more than a 30-minute commute," she said. It's a 45-minute drive from Hazelton to Bismarck _ in good weather. And the weather is often bad. Jeanette said the main reason she wants to move back to the Miami area is to care for her elderly parents. Michael said he couldn't convince his wife's parents to join them in Hazelton. "The cold weather has them freaked," he said. (Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.) Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Exhibit Honors Al Grey and Ray Brown as Jazz Greats and Pioneers of ... - DAILY KOS Posted: 15 Feb 2010 03:24 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Archivist Laura Guedes created the 2010 exhibit with the goals of highlighting the IJC's value, honoring the nation's groundbreaking, status-quo shaking music, and clarifying jazz musicians' unique and vital role in American history. The exhibit serves as a snapshot, one that strongly suggests the bigger picture.
said Guedes.
Guedes continued:
The Al Grey/Rosalie Soladar Memorial Collection was established in 2000 by Grey and Soladar, his friend and companion. The collection grew by about 40 cubic feet last year, through a generous donation by Ailene Eberhard, Soladar's daughter. Soladar is remembered as a cherished, long time friend of the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival. She attended the 2009 event just months before her death, said Guedes. Al Grey was a festival favorite from 1987 to 2000, missing only one festival, in 1994, during that time. Grey died in 2000. Iconic bassist Ray Brown performed and led clinics at the festival for 17 years, until his death in 2002.
providing an access point to IJC resources for the international community. The site received nearly a million hits in the first half of 2009 and continues to receive a significant number of visits each month. According to Lynn Baird, University of Idaho dean of Library Services:
Baird added:
The University of Idaho's International Jazz Collections include the collections of Lionel Hampton, jazz critic Leonard Feather and trombonist Al Grey, as well as items from the collections of Ella Fitzgerald, Dizzy Gillespie, Conte and Pete Candoli, and many others. To donate to the IJC, contact Lynn Baird at lbaird@uidaho.edu or at (208) 885-6534. The 2010 Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival will take place Feb. 24-27, 2010. For more information, visit www.uidaho.edu/jazzfest. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| You are subscribed to email updates from cultural - Bing News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Customers who care to do the math can find a pretty solid quad-blade with good enough functionality for half the price of a high end Fusion Power catridge. Seems to me a matter of time before recession pressure rattles enough customers out of their Fusion habit to go with the good enough alternative.
How long before a savvy, upstart shaving system equips its advocates with the tools to lay bare the "good enough" math with viral fury?
Sure, Gillette offers disposable alternatives at lower price points. But if its focusing the majority of its innovation resources at innovating on the next premium feature, instead of identifying ways to meet needs of those in the trade-down market, there's trouble to come.
Two cents from a casual observer. More cents in a recent blog post on different innovation approaches here: http://bit.ly/d6s9eM
Patrick Spenner
Managing Director
Marketing Leadership Council