WalMart Hunger Relief

To many Americans, WalMart is known the devil of corporate America. Their ethics with employee treatment, poor customer service, and horrific working conditions for their overseas employees have put them in the dark side of American corporations. WalMart receives constant criticism with regards to these factors, and they need to change their ways before their customers shift their shopping habits elsewhere. Walmart organized a project plan to give back to their community. This should help them gain some popularity among customers, especially because they have a series of television ads running.

During the month of April, Walmart will be providing food for families in need when customer purchase Walmart brand products. They can also vote online, on facebook, or in the store for communities in need of funding and Walmart will make a monetary donation. They will donate $1 million to the top community for food support. They will also be awarding 20 other communities $50,000 each.

This appears to be an obvious publicity stunt. In companies I see that do work for community such as this, they do not run extensive ad campaigns; companies put out press releases and promotions in the stores. What do you think of Walmart's strategy? Has it changed your perception of Walmart?

Best Buy's NOT so close-out sales

When stores close down, customers expect deals. I know I do. I remember when Circuit City went out of business, I went in for their close out sale and bought an iPod and athletic style headphones for a fraction of the regular retail price at stores such as Best Buy or The Apple Store.

A lot of customers heard Best Buy stores were closing and were hoping for big savings on merchandise throughout the store. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Best Buy is not going out of business, they are merely reducing the number of store locations across the United States.

What does this mean for customers? Well do not expect any discounts on premier items such as Apple products, TVs, or appliances. These items are going to be relocated to other stores and sold at the labeled price. Discounts will only be applied to smaller items such as cell phones accessories, batteries, cables, and video games.

As a customer, I am disappointed that Best Buy will not be offering TVs for 50%. However, I can understand why they are not offering those close-out deals...they are not closing out the business, just a few stores.

Dr Dre say "Tupac Lives!"

Tupac Shakur lives again! He was performing along side Dr Dre and Snoop Dogg at Coachella 2012. How did they do it? Hologram? Nope. They projected Tupac onto a piece of glass. This was not created using old footage from his shows before he died in 1996; this was all computer generated. Everything from his physical figure, attire, voice, and movements. I highly recommend viewing the links below because it is truly a sight to see!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304818404577348243109842490.html
Link to WSJ article discussing the performance and business behind the show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQgrce1VflI
Link to footage from the show of Tupac

I wonder who will be the next big performer that this technology can "rise from the dead". Michael Jackson? Biggy? Maybe never a movie star? How that this has been done with a star as large as Tupac Shakur, do you see this technology making a larger presence in the future?

A Name - A Misnomer

I read an article containing tips for naming your company. I felt as though this article was very repetitive in its ideas, yet the ideas given were all very practical and useful.

The main idea I took out of the article was to gain as many ideas as possible and do not limit yourself. The larger pool of words you have, the more potential you have to develop a great idea. The article gave great resources as well, such as the Visual Thesaurus - this takes words that you want and creates new words that customers will associate with your word. I tried it for myself by entering the word WINTER into the search bar. It gave me the options of WINTERTIME, OVERWINTER, and WINTRY.  It creates a "web" on the screen and connects all of the words. The program allows you to click on one of the new words and it will automatically construct a new web using the newly selected word. Unfortunately, it only allowed me to make 5 or 6 clicks before closing the window because I used up my free instant trial. But it gives you the option of signing up for a 14 day free trial, and then you can also purchase this tool. For a start up business, this would be a very valuable tool for generating that list of words to associate with your company and maybe use in your company name.

 Prior to reading this article, I was under the impression that companies using real words chose their names due to the meaning of the words behind them. This article changed by view entirely. It brought an interesting point, "the etymologies of words or word parts that you use in your name don’t matter. What do matter are the associations people make."  Your company name may have a great origin, but if the name has a bad association, that is what the customers will think of when they hear your company.

This article has many useful tips for naming or renaming your company and also gives thinks to various other website resources. Check it out:

http://www.thenameinspector.com/10-tips-for-naming-your-company-product-or-service/


Here is the link to the Visual Thesaurus:
http://www.visualthesaurus.com/