From Morning Filter (Jan. 14, 2014), Marketing‘s daily morning newsletter
Preventing big flops from big data
There’s so much talk about big data and its potential power to reach consumers in practical and customized ways, but it can misfire if the actual problem it’s meant to fix is misunderstood. John Foreman, chief data scientist for MailChimp.com, discusses what practicing data science in the real world involves (hint: a lot more than understanding math) and how the problems data scientists are asked to solve often aren’t the real problems at all.
[Read more via DataInformed]
Yoplait criticized for use of a Duran Duran song
Yoplait has come under fire for using Duran Duran’s 1982 hit song “Hungry Like the Wolf” in a recent commercial, given its association with the Diane Downs murder case (the song was playing at the time of the murders). Making matters worse, the band says the license for the song was granted without its knowledge. Yoplait has made two contradictory statements, first defending its use of the song and then claiming it had no knowledge of the song’s link to the Downs murder case. It has since pulled the ad.
[Read more via Slicingupeyeballs.com]
Denny’s opts for Girls tweets over Golden Globes
While nearly every other brand was busy live-tweeting the Golden Globes, Denny’s Diner opted to tweet about a less covered but equally zeitgeisty TV event: the season three premiere of Girls on HBO. The quick-serve chain imagined what would happen if the show’s protagonist, Hannah, got a job at Denny’s this season to very funny results.
[Read more via Digiday]
Amazon makes big gains on the apparel business
Electronics and book retailers have been battling Amazon for consumer dollars since the late ‘90s. Now an increasing number of consumers are choosing Amazon over brick-and-mortar for their apparel needs. In December, 10% of the U.S. population purchased apparel on Amazon, a 27% jump from the same month a year earlier, according to a survey by Cowen & Co.
[Read more via Investors.com]
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletters for twice-daily updates from around the industry.
