Martin Sorrell, chief executive of advertising and marketing giant WPP Group PLC, is bullish on Russia. In Moscow for a WPP board meeting, Mr. Sorrell said WPP wants to quadruple the size of its Russian business over the next five years. "Our business in Russia is the smallest in the BRICs, but it's the fastest-growing," he said, referring to Brazil, Russia, India and China. New acquisitions in Russia this year have …
Big Money In Sales
Fortune reports that the job du jour is online ad sales rep. In fact, the field is so hot, journalist Jessi Hempel was offered a "mid-six-figure" salary by a CEO to defect while reporting the story. Hiring a sales director "is the single biggest challenge that we have faced," says Dina Kaplan, co-founder of Blip.tv, a video-sharing site. Kaplan says she spends as much as six hours a day searching for the right …
When The Economy Tanks…
The dollar sank to a record low against the euro Thursday and traded at parity against the Canadian currency for the first time since 1976. In semi-related news, A VC sees a downturn coming in Web 2.0 products and services. The venture market in any industry (biotech, nanotech, green tech, comm equipment, web, etc) does best when the supply of new companies is relatively modest and the demand to invest in them is …
Not A Pretty Picture
A credit crunch, sparked by the subprime crisis, prompted depositors to make the first run on a British bank in a generation, developers of London's tallest skyscraper to postpone construction plans and economists to warn that economic growth will shrink. [via USA Today] …
The High Cost of Pulling Riches from Silicon Valley Salt Mines
I didn't even need to open to the Business section of today's Sunday Times to find a disgusting article about wealth, status and the American dream. For today, the article is conveniently splashed across the front page. Hal Steger, the gentle creature depicted above, is a marketing executive worth $3.5 million. The $1.3 million house he and his wife own on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean is paid off. Yet each …
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Consumer Resistance Mounts
Do you need proof that 99.9% of the ads currently in circulation suck? If you do need such evidence, Associated Press has it. Consumers put away their wallets in June, sending retail sales crashing by the sharpest amount in nearly two years. The Commerce Department reported today that retail sales fell by 0.9 percent last month, the biggest drop since August 2005. Demand for autos, furniture and building supplies all …
Stock Market Soars While Consumer Spending Tightens
According to Associated Press, consumer confidence is down. High gas prices, the specter of higher interest rates and faltering home sales have Americans worried. The National Association of Realtors reported on Tuesday that sales of existing homes plunged in March by the largest amount in nearly two decades. The group said that sales of existing homes fell by 8.4 percent in March, compared to February. It marked the …
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Black Gold Has More Luster Than Gold Gold
Sometimes a company succeeds and advertising has nothing to do with it. Instead, market conditions, political favors and an insatiable appetite for their product create wealth on a scale that is hard to fully comprehend. ExxonMobil is such a company. According to USA Today, ExxonMobil earned $39.5 billion last year, making it the most profitable year by any company in history. That figure is 13 times greater than …
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