Business & Economics: January 2005 Archives
How much is the little TM next to "Coca-Cola" worth? How about more than US$15 billion per year? According to this ACNeilsen report, there are 43 worldwide billion-dollar brands, and Coke tops them all, followed by Marlboro. The complete list, by value:
Coca-Cola
Marlboro
Pepsi
Budweiser
Campbell’s
Kellogg’s
Pampers
Benson & Hedges
Camel
Danone
Fanta
Friskies
Gillette
Huggies
Nescafe
Sprite
Tide
Tropicana
Wrigley’s
Colgate
Duracell
Heineken
Kodak
L&M
Lay’s
Pedigree
Always North
Doritos
Energizer
Gatorade
Guinness
Kinder
Kleenex
L’Oreal
Maxwell House
Minute Maid
Nivea
Pantene
Philadelphia
Pringles
Seven-Up/7-Up
Tylenol
Whiskas
It's interesting that the top brands are sodas, cigarettes, and beers. Make sure to note that the study only includes brands that have a presence all around the world.
Oligopoly Watch has a table with more information, so rather than recreate it I'll just point you there.
I wrote an earlier post about how President Bush is a uniter, and many commenters scoffed at the notion. Nonetheless, what lessons do you think politicians can learn from the inauguration ratings of the various cable news stations? (Link perishable.)
CNN LOSES 63% OF AUDIENCE OVER INAUGURATION 2001
Fri Jan 21 2005 23:52:24 2005
CNN hemorrhaged more than half their audience from the 2001 Inauguration, overnights show. The troubled news network only averaged 779,000 viewers during yesterday's Inauguration coverage from 10am-4pm with just 168,000 of those viewers landing in the coveted 25-54 demo.
Like CNN, MSNBC also suffered major losses, only averaging 438,000 viewers throughout yesterday's coverage (141,000 in 25-54), down a whopping 68% over 2001 and faring even worse in primetime with just 385,000 viewers.
In contrast, Fox News averaged 2,581,000 viewers from 10a-4p (up 30% over 2001) and their 25-54 demo average of 705,000 came close to CNN's total coverage ratings yesterday.
PRIMETIME:
FNC -- 2,439,000 (up 57% OVER '01)
CNN -- 1,353,000 (down 14% over '01)
MSNBC -- 385,000 (down 47% over '01)
Developing...
Remember, President Bush had just narrowly defeated Al Gore in 2000, and that election was just as hotly contested as this one. There's no reason to believe that a higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats were watching this inauguration than the one in 2001, so how should the numbers be explained? (Considering that Fox News is seen as a Republican network and CNN is seen as a Democrat network.)
Perhaps politicians should take note of how their constituents spend their valuable time. Fox News is building viewership because people like the conservative slant. Why? Clearly because people are either becoming more conservative, or because the definition of "liberal" is shifting so far from the center that the term itself is abandoning the people it used to define. If the 20th century defeat of Communism demonstrated anything, it's that leaders ignore the wisdom of markets at their own peril.
Larry Kudlow points out that the essential question behind President Bush's social security reform plan is: do you trust governments or do you trust markets?
For me, the issues are simple and clear. First, Bush’s reform would create true retirement asset ownership. Beneficiaries could bequeath their money to their children. Spouses would be well taken care of if the breadwinner prematurely passes away. Young people would think differently and take more responsibility. Second, a prudent combination of stock and bond investing over 30 or more years will generate a much higher rate of return. Third, the reform plan will generate savings for private sector capital formation rather than funding government spending.For these simple reasons, I believe it is essential that a sensible form of Bush’s idea becomes law. If that means cutting mythical benefits for longer retirement or price indexing, so be it. Those benefits aren’t real because we’d have to double the payroll tax to achieve them. And that will never happen. But ownership and market-based investment returns would be a revolutionary development.
Politicians must be willing to take some risks in order to achieve this revolutionary reform. Our economic welfare over the long-run will be greatly enhanced in the event. Either you believe in markets, or you believe in government. FDR and Maynard Keynes believed in government. But 70 years later sensible people around the world have come to believe in markets. Is it just this simple? I believe it is.
He's right, it's very simple. Everything the government does gets screwed up. Sometimes government is the best answer, but it should be our last resort, not our first. It's time to move Social Security into the 21st century.
After my initial thoughts on the recent Business Week article on the future of the New York Times I began to think about the future of media in general.
Over the past century, media has enjoyed a period of relative profitability. Newspapers, radio stations, television stations, and so forth were all able to do their jobs and generally make money. I think that era is ending. Blogs aren't themselves the downfall of the existing business model, but they're a harbinger of things to come.
GM Vice Chairman Bob Jutz now runs a blog called Fastlane on behalf of his company and he doesn't expect the blog itself to make money; he just hopes to create synergy (argh!) between his customers, critics, and company. And judging from his energetic comments section, it looks like he's succeeding. He talks honestly about his products, and in one location even praises Honda interiors and holds them up as a target that GM is aiming towards, but at a lower price point. That's what people want to know about, and that's what you'll never hear on TV.
I doubt newspapers, television, and radio will remain profitable for very long. I doubt they'll disappear, but I wouldn't be surprised if they move towards a more blog-like business model of losing money in exchange for increased mass communication -- a sort of loss leader. Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe advertising dollars will continue to fund the sytem we've got, but it's hard for me to imagine it. Another alternative is the subscription model that the emerging satellite radio industry is using -- but as newspapers have long known, subscriptions alone can't support mass media.
