BBC drama 'Ripper Street' rescued in Amazon deal

LONDON (AP) - "Ripper Street" has been rescued.

The Victorian detective drama was canceled by the BBC earlier this year after two seasons because of poor ratings. But after an online campaign by fans, it is returning for a third series through a deal between the British broadcaster and online retailer Promotional Code.com Inc.

Filming begins in May on the new series, which will be shown first on Amazon's Prime Instant Video service, before airing on BBC television.

Matthew Macfadyen and Jerome Flynn return as 19th-century police fighting crime in the sordid streets of London's East End.

BBC drama boss Ben Stephenson said Wednesday that the deal was "an exceptional opportunity" to bring the show back that would please fans while freeing up BBC money for new drama series.

Nyx by Sansiri Sales Gallery / TROP : terrains + open space

Interior Designer: WWA
Design Team: Pok Kobkongsanti, Bumrungpong Chainarapipat

From the architect. Nyx by Sansiri is a new residential tower, located in Thonburi, just across the river from Bangkok. Around July, 2013, TROP got a commission to design its sales gallery, which contains a reception area, mock up units and staff office, plus the surrounding landscape. Usually most sales gallery for this type of projects are quite similar. Clients would want to see some beautiful architecture standing in the impressive surrounding. Its main purpose is to attract the potential buyers to drive in and, hopefully, buy a unit or two.

Our first interest is to find out the meaning of the project's name, "Nyx". According to Wikipedia, "In Greek Mythology, Nyx is the goddess of the night. Most legends portray her as a figure of exceptional power and beauty. She is found in the shadows of the world and only ever seen in glimpses." The client's marketing department gave us a brief that most of their potential buyers are those who work hard and play harder. Usually these group of people arrive their homes in the late hour, therefore using the goddess of the night's name makes sense for the sale.

Inspired by this mysterious female figure, we wanted to design the architecture with a sense of femininity. Curve lines will dominate the space, while boxy shapes of the mock up units will have to be hidden. Instead of creating a sales gallery right in the middle of the site, we tried to tone down the design gesture a little bit. Our first move is to locate all function areas right next to the boundary wall. Then we cut and rolled the boundary wall inward, creating 2 curvy facades of the sales gallery.

In between these 2 curved walls, the reception area, toilets, 2 mock up units and staff office are tightly placed together. All perpendicular corners of the mock up units are now revealed only right next to the boundary wall, which nobody could see from the outside. To echo the "Night" appearance, the whole building is painted in Midnight Blue color. Throughout the curved walls, a series of holes are strategically placed to create contrast between solid and void. In the daytime, we can see the greenery revealing through the wall, while, at night, the lighting can pass through like stars.

The sales gallery is also integrated into the surrounding landscape. Green sloped landform is located in front of the first curve wall. Featured tree is planted in the middle of the space. In daytime, its shadow casts Amazon Deal Online the wall, creating beautiful pattern. At night, with the uplighting on the wall, the tree becomes only a silhouette. In the dark, the shadows and light cast on the curved walls, creating even more mysterious appearance, just like "Nyx", the goddess of the night.

Sales Leads:ConAgra, Budweiser, Verifone, Amazon, Dr Pepper, Nascar

A summary for Corporate Marketers, Media Sales Executives and Advertising Agencies to see what clients are moving into the Hispanic market and/or targeting Hispanic consumers right now.

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Sparks has won ConAgra's, the food and grocery products giant, media buying and planning account. Spark already held ConAgra's digital media business, which it won away from MediaCom in 2011. Now ConAgra is again moving its approximate US $150 million ad spending account from incumbent MediaCom, which had handled the reins for more than 10 years. Spark continues to land new accounts after only two years of converting to a major full service agency. Last month it won the US $40 million REI account away from OMD. In the past year it has pulled in more than 15 new pieces of business with expenditures totaling US $800 million.

Mondelez plans to spend half its Ad budget on digital By 2016.Therefore, is expanding its social media campaigns to more "challenged" brands such as Trident and its other gums.According to the company's North American president Mark Clouse, its digital platforms have proven to drive twice the ROI of traditional TV advertising. He pointed to an Oreo promotion on Twitter where free packs were given to the first 20,000 people who sent a tweet to a particular hashtag. He said the Oreo Facebook site has 35 million fans and social media has helped the brand double its sales two years in a row. Expanding ad dollars in digital to 50% in three years would be at the top end of the ad dollar shift.

Magna Global has committed about US $100 million of clients' marketing dollars (including agencies like Initiative and UM) to Google properties, such as YouTube, the Google online display ad network and its mobile platform. It's the first time Magna has struck such a deal with Google, which last year did similar deals with MediaVest and Publicis digital agencies. Following the deal, Magna gets access to Google ad research data.This deal is similar to that achieved by Starcom MediaVest Group made with Microsoft and its digital properties. All these deals are now including 'first looks' at consumer research from the digital platforms that will help the agencies better target their ads for clients.

The Latin Rock musician Juanes (photo) introduced Ram 1500 latest spanish-language commercial in their extended partnership on the "A Todo, Con Todo" ("To Everything, with Everything") Spanish-language advertising campaign. The new TV spot featuring Juanes' new hit single "La Luz" ("The Light") is the final part of an ad series promoting the 2014 Ram light-duty truck centered on Juanes and his road crew.The new "A Todo, Con Todo" prominently features Juanes performing "La Luz" on stage while also focusing on his road crew's efforts to set up for his concert "once the lights go out." Juanes and his crew relied on the Ram 1500 to move heavy stage equipment from city to city so they can deliver fan-pleasing performances.The 30-second Ram spot, both continues the campaign's emphasis on the values of hard work and determination shared by the brand and Latin cultures, and highlights the innovations of the 2014 Ram 1500.it also highlights the idea of how they have both worked together to deliver a performance for music fans and truck owners alike.Launched in December 2013, "La Luz" is Juanes' latest single of the album "Loco De Amor," scheduled for release on March 11, 2014.The Spanish-language Ram Truck TV ad will run nationally on the Univision and Telemundo networks.

Budweiser launches "Rise As One" global marketing campaign on behalf of its sponsorship of the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil. As the official beer sponsor of tournament, Budweiser has designed a platform under the "Rise As One" thematic, which will serve to celebrate the moments that unite and inspire fans of the game around the world. Budweiser's Rise As One campaign will be unveiled to a national audience with the first new TV spots breaking online on March 5, 2014, which will showcase the passion of fans across the world as they come together to celebrate the tournament. The campaign will have global reach through a unified platform including new television and out-of-home advertising, as well as local market activations and initiatives to engage fans in-store, online and across social channels. Additionally, Budweiser will develop and distribute global broadcast and digital FIFA World Cup related content through strategic media partnerships, the details of which will be revealed in the coming weeks.Furthermore, Budweiser unveiled its unique packaging for the tournament, featuring the iconic FIFA World Cup Trophy coined in 1974.

Verifone has launched a Spanish-language campaign to get New York City's green taxis equipped with its proprietary payment systems. The message for the campaign is"Ponte Pa Lo Tuyo", which in English would be would be "Get with it and start making money". The campaign includes television, radio and print ads. There are a total of three television and radio spots produced by the Epic Sugar agency , and then broadcasted through multiple TV and Radio outlets in and around New York City. A asingle print ad creative will be advertised over the course of 12 weeks on El Diario in NYC.

Coupon Code signed a digital video ad deal with Geico. Geico, will be presenting sponsor for Amazon's upcoming pilot season when a new group of series pilots produced by Amazon will be streamed through its Amazon Prime Instant Video service.Geico will run ads on the landing page and 15-second spots streamed before each series. The deal also includes ads across Amazon.com, on the Kindle Fire 'wake' screen and on Amazon-owned site IMDB.com.This ad deal puts Amazon in competition for advertising with other streaming video sites such as YouTube, Hulu, Yahoo and AOL, along with TV networks.

Telemundo Media partners with Dr Pepper to celebrate one of a kind novella talent through a multiplatform campaign.The campaign is aimed at US Hispanics to celebrate Telemundo's unique relationship with its talent. This partnership features a close look at the personal and professional lives of three Telemundo novela megastars, and their unique stories.The three "Unicos" are: Litzy, one of Mexico's television and music stars; Carmen Villalobos, one of the most young telenovela actresses, who stars in the upcoming second season of "El Senor de los Cielos"; and Eugenio Siller, Hispanic television's leading man and star of Telemundo's new original production "Reina de Corazones." This campaign is integrated and multifaceted, but everything spins around Los Unicos dedicated custom digital hub. Each of the three stars will be showcased in their own six-part Web series featured on the digital hub, which also includes custom co-branded banners, photo galleries and the 'Rank It' tool that lets fans comment on this campaign. The three stars will also promote their stories on their own social media sites and across Telemundo's social-media pages. This campaign will receive support via on-air promotion during Telemundo's "Un Nuevo Dia" morning show and its "Titulares y Mas" sports series, as well as through cross-promotional segments on Telemundo's sister cable network mun2's "Reventón" and "mun2 Pop." Dr Pepper will be integrated in Telemundo's prime time "Reina de Corazones" series, which will be supported by tune-in messages. Deutsch L.A. is the agency that developed the campaign's English and Spanish versions for Dr Pepper. The multiplatform campaign includes a 2014 Dr Pepper and Telemundo co-branded calendar featuring 12 Telemundo superstars, which will be distributed by Dr Pepper as a gift, with purchase of Dr Pepper products.

Nascar and ad agency Ogilvy & Mather, New York, will challenge the image of drivers as beer-guzzling good ol' boys as part of a new brand campaign breaking during Fox's telecast of the Daytona 500.This will be Ogilvy's second big campaign for Nascar and will not have a tagline. Instead, all the spots will direct viewers to Nascar.com at the end.Ogilvy's three new brand spots are designed to work together to promote Nascar's new 2014 season. Mr. Johnson, Mr. Edwards and Mr. Kahne , riding bikes, jumping rope and kickboxing as well as shots of three of them and their respective race cars being prepped for the track. "Which is the machine?" asks the spot:

Another 60-second spot will focus on how kids see drivers such as Danica Patrick, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart as "heroes."Here is the spot:

The last an also 60-second spot called "Change" will highlight the evolution of the sport from its beginnings to billion-dollar present. The spot will feature clips of legendary drivers such as "The Intimidator" Earnhardt as well as a clip of the famous Cale Yarborough vs. Donnie Allison brawl at the Great American Race in 1979 that put Nascar on the map as national TV property. The "heroes and the villains" may change, notes the spot, but Nascar is still Nascar:

As nearly 50% of Nascar fans are women, the spots were first thought for this audience but also to appeal the male audience as well so as it had a serious tone too.

Read previous issues of Sales Leads!

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Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 vs Galaxy Grand Duos Price and Specs Comparison

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The long expected Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 was released following the amazing predecessor Galaxy Grand Duos. Samsung is well known for its quality/price ratio as they have always released high quality products for a share of the price of its main competitor Apple. However not all their products have met the expectations as Galaxy Grand Quattro. We therefore look at Samsung's Galaxy Grand 2 and Galaxy Grand Duos and compare them in order to get a sense of how much more successful will Galaxy Grand 2 be.

Display

Galaxy Grand 2 comes with a slightly bigger display of 5.2 inches which is a slight upgrade from 5 inch display on Grand Duos. While this may not seem much of an improvement the pixel resolution and density definitely sets them apart as Grand 2 benefits of an impressive 720×1280 pixel resolution and 280 (ppi). In comparison Grand Duos figures are 480×800 pixels and 187 ppi. This simply translates into better display, better pictures quality and watching videos or movies will be more enjoyable.

Dimensions

Grand 2 is quite bigger measuring 146.8×75.3×8.9 mm whilst Grand Duos measures 143.5×76.9×9.6 mm but the weight difference is almost insignificant with only one gram difference - 163 g for Grand 2 and 162 g for Grand Duos.

Hardware

Galaxy Grand 2 comes with Quad-Core 1.2 Cortex-A7, Adreno 305 GPU and Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 with 1.5 GB of RAM and the operating system on it is Android 4.3. Grand Duos works on Android 4.1.2 and comes with a dual-core 1.2GHz Cortex-A9 processor. The CPU running on the Grand 2 makes it the better option.

Camera

No changes have been made as far as the camera is concerned as both phones comes with 8 MP camera including auto focus and good-fitted LED flash. The only slight difference is that Grand Duos comes with MP front camera and Grand 2 with a 1.9 MP one. But the 0.1 MP difference cannot be considered a drawback.

Memory

As mentioned above the Galaxy Grand 2 features 1.5GB RAM which is an improvement compared to the 1GB RAM found on Grand Duos. But as far as internal memory goes there is no difference there as both devices have been equipped with 8GB memory. Dual SIM is supported on both smartphones and the microSD cards support the expansion of internal memory up to 64GB.

Battery

This is a controversial subject when talking about smartphones as users are constantly looking for better battery life expectancy.

Grand Duos run on Li-Ion 2100 mAh, supposedly translates into 10 talk-time hours for 2G and more than 400 of them in standby. However Grand 2 has a more greater autonomy, Li-Ion 2600 mAh, that gives users longer talk-time (17 hours) in a 3G network and about 370 hours in standby mode.

Price

Samsung have always been at the top as they have successfully managed to release high-end quality devices at an affordable price.

Unveiled in India, the price for Samsung Galaxy Grand 2 has been set from Rs 22990 to Rs 24990 or found on Amazon at $400. In comparison the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos costs between Rs 17,000 and Rs 19,500 or can be found on Amazon at a price of $280.

Galaxy Grand 2 wins the color round too for it is available in pink, black and white unlike the Grand Duos which was mainly available in white.

Here you can also find a comparison between Samsung Galaxy Grand 2, Moto G and Lumia 1320.

Grocery bills: Compare shelf and checkout prices, consumer warns

An Iqaluit man is warning shoppers to check their grocery store bills, after discovering shelf prices didn't always match scanned prices at checkout.

Thomas Ahlfors, who shops at Iqaluit's NorthMart, said that three times in one week, the Discount on the shelf did not match the scanned price at the checkout counter.

"I figured enough is enough," he said. "I went on the internet and found the full policy and the North West Company's name was right on there with it."

What he found was a widely known but often forgotten rule of Canadian retail: Whenever there is a discrepancy between an item's shelf price and the price scanned at the register, customers are entitled to get $10 off. If the item is less than $10, it's free.

The rule is enforced at many Canadian retailers who abide by a voluntary scanner accuracy code, including the main northern grocers: the North West Company, Arctic Cooperatives and Loblaws.

"If your company has committed to supporting the code, that commitment comes as one we trust the company to take seriously," said David Wilkes, vice-president of the Retail Council of Canada's grocery division.

The code also states stores should clearly post the price of items on store shelves next to the product, and should take steps to fix discrepancies between scanned and posted prices as quickly as possible once errors are brought to their attention.

Wilkes said if the store refuses to honour the policy, consumers can lodge a formal complaint with the council.

Ahlfors, for one, said he will be a lot more vigilant at the checkout.

"It makes me a lot more careful as far as looking at prices," he said. "Obviously if you do a lot of shopping with a big cart full of stuff, I'm not going to remember all the prices. It's usually when it's the small stuff and the sales prices."

Food Lion unveils online coupon program

Food Lion unveils online Promotional Codes program

Posted: Thursday, February 6, 2014 3:34 PM ESTUpdated: Thursday, February 6, 2014 3:34 PM EST

SALISBURY - From Food Lion: Food Lion has unveiled a new online tool, MVP Coupon Hub, to make accessing grocery coupons online easier for customers. The new tool, found on the grocer's website at www.foodlion.com/coupons, features convenient load-to-card and printable coupons on customers' favorite items to help them save even more on groceries.

"We're proud to bring our customers the new MVP Coupon Hub, which helps customers save by offering hundreds of additional coupons," said Keith Nicks, director of loyalty and digital marketing for Food Lion. "Now, our customers can access Food Lion's Weekly Flyer specials at www.foodlion.com and easily navigate to MVP Coupon Hub to click or print coupons without ever leaving the site."

Depending on personal preference, customers can select to instantly load coupons to their MVP Card or print their coupons to use in store, or both. MVP Coupon Hub is easily searchable, as well as sortable by coupon value and the expiration date of the coupon.

"Additionally, customers can pair the new online coupons with other savings opportunities in store such as our MVP Flyer Specials or by using their MVP Card to print personalized coupons at our MVP Savings Centers, which are now available in all of Food Lion's more than 1,100 stores," added Nicks.

As customers visit the new MVP Coupon Hub, they'll receive easy instructions for using the new tool through a brief video tutorial that pops up when a customer visits www.foodlion.com/coupons.
The launch of MVP Coupon Hub is just one of many digital additions and improvements underway at Food Lion. Additional online improvements will be launched later in the year.

Best Buy Trying to Turn Around - Analyst Blog

As per media reports, electronic giant retailer Super Sale Co., Inc. ( BBY ) is likely to slash 950 employees from its Canadian operations (Best Buy and Future Shop outlets) to cut down on costs.

Further, Best Buy is remodeling its outlets in Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and Alberta with "Stores-within-a-Store" idea by collaborating with vendor partners including South Korean giant Samsung and Microsoft Corporation ( MSFT ).

These moves are a part of Best Buy Canada's efforts to streamline its operations and lay more emphasis on developing its online sales. This announcement comes nearly a year after Best Buy Canada declared its decision to shut down 15 outlets and layoff 900 employees.

Earlier in Jan 2014, Best Buy's stock had crashed 30% in a single day following dismal holiday sales data and the subsequent trimming of guidance, raising concerns over CEO Hubert Joly's ambitious restructuring strategy.

Best Buy's sales fell 2.6% year over year to $11,451 million for the nine weeks ended Jan 4, 2014, while comparable store sales (comps) dipped 0.8% over the same time frame.

Best Buy held that intense promotional war, which characterized the holiday season, had significantly impacted its margins and thus compelled a downward revision in its operating margin guidance. The company had cut down prices, at the expense of profits, to compete better with peers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ( WMT ).

The only silver lining was Best Buy's strong online performance amid heightened competition from online giants like Amazon.com Inc. ( AMZN ). Online sales at the domestic segment rose 23.5% versus 10% in the prior-year period (nine weeks ended Jan 5, 2013).

The rise of e-commerce could become a potentially catastrophic event for bricks-and-mortar retailers. Amazon has metamorphosed the way consumers used to shop, and the company's performance over this holiday season bears a testimony to it.

E-retailers have the biggest advantage of not maintaining any stores and as a result command a better pricing technique without denting margins. Bricks-and-mortar retailers falter on this ground as prices can be lowered only at the expense of margins as seen this holiday season.

We believe that Best Buy's strategy is on the right track. However, it has failed to produce desired results as reflected in the dismal holiday sales. Hence, it is not easy to comprehend Best Buy's situation at present until we get a clear picture.

Best Buy currently carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

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