Meanwhile, parent Sega Enterprises said it will cut operating costs by $283 million in the fiscal year that began April 1. Analyst Michael Goodman of The Yankee Group, Boston, said those cuts aren't likely to affect Sega's U.S. operations, its main focus.But Sega's decline is a matter of tiffany cufflinks uk. "If you want to compare Sega to [Sony] PlayStation, it's a bit unfair," said Goodman. "But they've carved out a nice niche for themselves."Sega has shipped 2 million Dreamcasts in the U.S.,vs.17 million PlayStations and 12 million N64s, Goodman said.What's in a name? For listed companies there may be plenty, especially if the new name attracts more investors. That certainly seems to be the logic behind the rash of companies on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong that have switched signboards recently to display vaguely hi-tech-sounding monikers.
In the first three-and-a-half months of this year, 36 companies on tiffany somerset Hong Kong exchange changed, or made plans to change, their names in ways that give them a clear New Economy ring, according to the REVIEW'S tally of stock-exchange notices. That compares with just 20 for all of 1999, when the cyber-name game first caught fire.Few of the companies have made any significant investments in hi-tech ventures yet, although all have indicated such intentions. Analysts say the name changes are most likely aimed at inflating company's stock prices ahead of any planned hi-tech moves.
"It's pretty common whenever there's a bubble. They are just trying to cash in on the latest stockmarket rage," says Dan Fineman, regional strategist for brokerage Jardine Fleming Securities in Hong Kong.To be fair, some of the companies with new names have tiffanys significant new investments in genuinely hi-tech ventures. Noble Link Holdings; for example, is now known as eCyberChina.net and is investing $6 million in a broadband data-transmission project in Nanhai, southern China. Former building-materials concern Companion Marble has staked $10 million on an Internet-services business, renaming itself Skynet International.
Still others are in businesses that are being heavily affected by the New Economy and are making moves to keep up. Television maker Great Wall Electronics has changed its name to Great Wall Cybertech as it moves to incorporate the Internet and broadband applications into its products. South China Brokerage is now South China Online as its retail-broking business moves onto the Internet.But in other cases the name changes are puzzling. Several follow significant new investments in deals that seem only marginally hi-tech. Asia Aluminum Holdings is entering the bus-heater business in China as Global Applied Technologies. tiffany bangles uk Kee Holdings plans to produce television programmes as Sun Television Cybernetworks.And an even bigger group of the renamed companies had not made any significant new deals, hi-tech or otherwise, as of mid-April (see.chart).Critics of the city's new name game say the Securities and Futures Commission could be doing more to send out the message to investors that a name change does not necessarily mean a business change. "Many companies are saying they are doing hi-tech without actually doing it," says James To, a Democratic Party legislator who sits on the SFC's investor-education committee. "By that logic, we should change our name to the Democratic Dynamic Hi-Tech Party."But the SFC says investors can decide for themselves whether a name change justifies a higher share price."There's a limit to how much the SFC can do," says Fan Yiu-kwan, dean of business at Hong Kong Baptist tiffany bracelets uk and another member of the SFC's investor-education committee. "Investors will only learn when they get hurt in the pocketbook."
That lesson may be sinking in. Since extreme volatility began hitting the Hong Kong market early this year, many firms that gained value on name changes have seen their shares crash. By April 18, Dong Jian Tech.com, which in January changed its name from Dong Jian Group, was down twothirds from its mid-February high of HK$1.56 (20 U.S. cents). Iquorum Cybernet, formerly RJP Electronics, shed three-quarters of its high of 32 HK cents over the same period.
Tony Romeo, chairman-North American Interactive Brand Center for Unilever, said package-goods players investing in online retailers may be a possibility, but added: "The real issue for us is would investing in these companies somehow enable us to serve the consumer more effectively, and we don't have an answer for that yet."Netquity's report is more upbeat on the future of online grocery retailing than Forrester has been in the past, Mr. Romeo said, adding that Unilever shares the upbeat outlook.
"Branded Web sites are going to have a limited usefulness," Mr. Romeo said of sites for individual package-goods brands. "Consumers aren't necessarily going to run to these brand temples. They're more interested in having their needs satisfied. The reason we created a joint venture with iVillage on beauty (a yet-to-be-launched site rather than investing an equal amount of money in any one branded site is that we felt it would have a much better elsa peretti jewelry of being a destination site."But he said brand communication on the Web doesn't have to involve a transaction to be of value."There can be value in the communication, just as there's value in any kind of advertising activity."
MET PAYS OFF FOR PHYSIQUEP&G also is working on a beauty site joint venture, Reflect.com. A spokeswoman for P&zG said it has a team of marketing and sales executives who work on developing programs with online retailers."A great example was the recent launch of Physique (haircare products," she said. '"The Internet strategy was part of the initial marketing strategy right from the beginning. In fact, the Internet site went live long paloma picasso jewelry there was any on-air advertising in order to build buzz and word-of mouth on the Internet . . . and I would say we're seeing the payoff definitely."With Sony Nintendo and Microsoft set to flood the market with more console boxes backed by hundred million-plus launches, Sega of America will devote around 30% of its $135 million marketing budget to reposition itself with an Internet play late this year.
By launching SegaNet in late summer, the gaming giant frank gehry jewelry to remove hardware as a differentiator and finally cash in on the promise of online gaming,a brass ring the industry has tried to grab almost since its inception.The site goes live in August, but supporting ads won't roll until Sept. 7 when Sega again will use its sponsorship of MTV's Video Music Awards as a launching pad. Four new ads will push games and its new garner themed ISP SegaNet. The campaign's tag: "Opponents are everywhere."Among the initial games being pushed are Quake III, NFL 2KI and NBA 2KI. Sega will continue to use Randy Moss to push its NFL title and Allen Iverson for the NBA game, while Pedro Martinet will endorse a forthcoming World Series baseball game.Adopting the razor/razor blade philosophy, Sega will give away a Dreamcast system, or $200 to those who already own its gaming console, and sign up for SegaNet as their ISP for two years at $21.95 a month.
"Everyone in this industry is bleeding to death trying to build up an installed base,so we're saying here's a better way to do it more akin to cable TV, where no one pays for the set top boxes," said Peter Moore, the former Reebok marketer who was recently elevated to return to tiffany and COO of Sega from the svp-marketing slot.Moore said the Web business can break even with 200,000 subscribers, adding that the attraction of the site to teen-hungry advertisers plus the revenue from the ISP along with potential e-commerce sales, was a better economic model, aside from giving Sega an unassailable first-tomarket claim for online gaming.
Sega's regular retailers will serve as signup points for SegaNet and the Dreamcast giveaway will give tiffany 1837 the same margins as a normal sale."We're not sure about broadband rolling out generally for a few years, so this will allow us to define some space now"Moore said."Software has always been what drives this market, so the new model we're proposing is about content, not selling as much hardware as you can without going absolutely bankrupt."Despite a successful launch last fall, Dreamcast sales are slowing down. Nintendo's N64 console outsold Dreamcast by a 3-to-1 margin in March, per NPD Group, Port Washington, N.Y.
Package-goods companies will become investors in online grocers, the tiffany necklace predicted, and make a fundamental shift to reorganize their marketing departments around consumer segments rather than around brands and geographies as they do now.The report projects online grocery and personal-care sales in what it dubs "the online replenishment channel" will grow from $1i.1 billion in 1999 to $27.1 billion in 2004. Of that 2004 total, a whopping 80% of online grocery and personal-care sales will come from the 4.8 million upscale shoppers, a small portion of total online grocery shoppers. Forrester based its data on surveys of IRI and NPD Group consumer household panels.
Mr. Rubin divides the online grocery market into two groups: sites such as Priceline.com that serve consumers willing to trade time for money and sites such as Webvan Group that serve consumers willing to trade money for time.Online retailers selling health and atlas jewelry products will grow faster in terms of household penetration over the next few years, Mr. Rubin said. But online grocers-tapping consumers willing to trade money for time-will grow faster in dollars as the convenience of ondemand delivery becomes available in more markets.
Netquity, officially launched today, aims to combine Forrester's online marketplace data with IRI's retail and consumer household data to evaluate package-goods sales online and how the Internet is changing package-goods marketing.Netquity defines online replenishment as including the grocery, drug, pet and beauty care segments and uses the word to mean consumers who use the channel to automatically replenish household staples."Because these online replenishers can tiffany pendant sales data and customer profiles, (package-goods manufacturers will have much better data to measure brand equity and loyalty," Mr. Rubin said. "I believe this improved market intelligence will be the catalyst that drives the [package-goods marketers] away from (managing each brand separately into a more holistic consumer segment focus."Mr. Rubin said online retailers eventually will reorganize to serve consumer segments rather than mimicking retailers divided into product categories.This will pressure package-goods companies to center marketing on segments, such as active urban singles or suburban families, rather than brand and product categories, Mr. Rubin predicted.
PERSONAL-LIST BATTLEThe fight to get on personal shopping lists-roufinely purchased products-that drive at least one-third of online grocery purchases will become crucial, Mr. Rubin said.Companies such as Procter & Gamble Co. may sweeten deals on Tide detergent and Cascade dish washing liquid to get both on personal shopping lists, he said."The online grocer also can know a customer is going to be running out of laundry detergent next tiffany ring. . . . That's the time to put a promotion on at checkout."Online retail and consumer data will help package-goods marketers run loyalty and customer acquisition programs, pumping product sales, Mr. Rubin said.Package-goods marketers to date "probably haven't gotten the impact they were expecting" from online marketing efforts, Mr. Rubin said, since they're in an uphill battle to get consumers to make that first visit to their Web sites."The Kraft Interactive Kitchen (www.Kraftkitchen. .com) is a very clear site that creates a very nice Kraft interactive experience, but it's not in the right place," he said. "They're never going to generate the traffic to their site to make it a great branded experience. But if they put that branded experience in an online grocer site, they . . . help drive traffic (to their site and help build loyalty within the online grocer site."Online grocers are "content hungry," Mr. Rubin added, and willing to ask package-goods marketers to provide content.Package-goods marketers spend half of their offline marketing budgets on trade promotion and relatively little of their online dollars to market via online retailers, he said.CAN'T ESCAPE SLOTTING FEES
Online grocers such as Webvan have steered clear of slotting feesthe price manufacturers pay to have their products carried-in their ef forts to work with suppliers. Mr. Rubin said only Zoo of online grocers charge slotting fees for new products. "But that's going to cushion jewelry fast, because these companies are going to have to show prof itability very soon," he said."The threat of online [grocers] private labeling products will terrify at least one manufacturer into making a significant investment in an online [grocer]," the report added. "Once the ice is broken, other large package-goods manufacturers will fear being locked out and begin jockeying for position. Their biggest concern will be Wal-Mart (Stores' reaction, but expect P&G, Kraft or Unilever to make the first move."