What You Need to Know Today: November 3
Here’s what you need to know
TECH
By 2025 you could be teleporting. “Facebook wants to build a device that allows you to be anywhere you want, with anyone, regardless of geographic boundaries,” says Mike Schroepfer Facebook’s chief technical officer. The topic of ‘effective teleportation’ was discussed at a press event prior to the Dublin Web Summithappening today. Schroepfer explains how Facebook plans close the reality gap that makes virtual reality seem fake today. There are three obstacles Facebook needs to overcome if they’re going to make this work by 2025.
The truth about Amazon’s physical bookstores. Today, Amazon opens its first-ever physical bookstore. That’s right. The company that single-handedly destroyed brick-and-mortar bookstores is now opening its own physical bookstore — and they’re breaking the rules (book covers first?). So what’s really happening here? The short answer: it’s a strategic move by the company. “With the lines between physical and online becoming more blurred it makes sense for Amazon to experiment with physical outlets,” says retail analyst Neil Saunders. “This is especially important as a number of U.S. retailers, like Walmart, are now starting to move more aggressively into the digital space and are using their existing stores as hubs for delivery and collection of product… This gives them a strategic advantage over Amazon and is something that the online giant needs to defend against.”
+ Here’s another strategic play… Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again releases today.
iPhones will forever be expensive. How do you make a $700 phone seem like a bargain? Answer. Steal this strategy for your business (Apple did).
CAREER
How to keep millennial staff loyal. Here’s an old-school strategy that one popular grocery chain is using to keep it’s low-wage employees happy and brand loyal. While not all businesses can offer these kinds of perks, there are still other ways to incentivize staff. There’s a great fable about President Kennedy’s exchange with a janitor during the early days of NASA. I recommend you look it up.
3 ways C-Suite execs can protect their companies from ‘Uberization.’ “As technology gives businesses more ways to provide services to customers in unique ways, C-suite executives are worried about competitors coming from outside their industries — a phenomenon known as ‘Uberization,’ according to a study released today by IBM” (AdAge). One of the recommendations is to be prepared for “digital invaders.” “You really need to look around and anticipate where the next big thing or competitor is coming from,” Ms. Ban said. “It may be a competitor that today is a partner or a customer.” Easier said than done. What are some ways you anticipate your competition? I want to know. Leave a reply in the comments below.
LIFESTYLE
Are brain-drug breakfast shakes the next big thing?
America is full of high-earning poor people.
Adele did something no artist in history has ever done before.
+ Her “25” album sales projections are bonkers.
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#NOWYOUKNOW
Do the Whispery Sounds in This Dove Chocolate Ad Make You Feel Tingly?
By AdAge
Online, there’s a whole strange category of videos of people whispering, tapping their fingers, scratching things, turning pages, crinkling paper or even making wet sounds with their mouth. For some people, hearing these sounds sends them into a tingly, relaxed state of pleasure.
The little-understood phenomenon has been dubbed Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, or ASMR. A YouTube search turns up 2.4 million videos related to the ASMR subculture. (Back in the pre-YouTube era, “Joy of Painting” host Bob Ross used to send some PBS viewers into ecstasy by whispering and gently scraping paint off his canvases.)
Marketers until now have apparently failed to target the globe’s legions of ASMR-experiencers, but BBDO Beijing has rectified that with two videos for Mars brand Dove chocolate.
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