Tag: Video

Latest Headlines June 10, 2016June 29, 2016

B-F’s still kinda, sorta behind Finlandia; and Yum CEO Creed talks tough on Domino’s: It’s the technology, stupid

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 4:51 p.m.

BROWN-FORMAN: Amid recent speculation the company is considering selling Finlandia, CEO Paul Varga threw tepid support behind the vodka brand during the fiscal fourth-quarter conference call with Wall Street analysts yesterday; he was responding to an analyst’s question about Finlandia’s being a “drag” on growth.

“Finlandia has been very important to particularly Jack Daniel’s development in Eastern Europe over the last decade,” Varga said, according to Seeking Alpha’s transcript. “It’s just a very difficult time for the vodka segments in those Eastern European countries right now, and we’ve seen this before with categories where they go through some rough times. . . . Right now, we continue to work Finlandia” (Seeking Alpha).

PIZZA HUT: Yum CEO Greg Creed, conceding in especially frank language that Domino’s has greater U.S. revenue momentum, says improving ordering technology is critical. “We have to get our technology in shape in order to be as easy to order, pay, and track [as possible],” he told an investor conference Wednesday, “and I think as we build the brand and we get that in shape, we’ll actually build more units and that will give us greater physical access.” Pizza Hut has 8,100 U.S. locations, including its Express format vs. more than 5,200 for Domino’s (The Street).

Technology is key to luring millenials and other young customers. Domino’s newest technology shows the challenge. The company’s biggest franchiser in Australia yesterday said it will start using satellites next week to follow customers as they approach stores to pick up already-placed orders, allowing the company to wait until the last moment to start cooking so orders stay fresh. The fast-food surveillance measure, which starts Monday, comes a decade after Domino’s started letting customers track their own orders. The newest service works with customers who place orders with their GPS-equipped smartphones, and opt in to be tracked. They can specify whether they’re coming on foot, on bike, or by car (Bloomberg). Other recent Domino’s innovations include the capabilities to order food via emoji, smartwatch, or a “zero-click” mobile app (Eater).

PAPA JOHN’S CEO John Schnatter promised neighbors in tony Anchorage he would limit his personal helicopter use to six or fewer times a week, and only between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m.; they had complained about the noise it created (Insider Louisville).

In other news, U.S. stocks accelerated their decline an hour before markets closed, as Wall Street looked ahead to a Federal Reserve meeting, and the U.K.’s so-called Brexit vote due later this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and other major indices were all down about 1% (Google Finance).

Oscar-winner and Louisville native Jennifer Lawrence will portray Elizabeth Holmes, the 32-year-old disgraced founder of the controversial blood-testing startup Theranos; the new film is still in development. Lawrence, 25, played an entrepreneur last year in Joy, about the inventor of a kitchen mop (Hollywood Reporter). Louisville filmmaker Matthew Fulks has sued singer Beyoncé, claiming a trailer for the Grammy winner’s new Lemonade movie copied elements of his 2014 short film Palinoia (Spin and Vulture).

Watch the trailer, and Fulks’ film:

Latest Headlines June 7, 2016June 29, 2016

In secrecy, Ali himself made sure his final show in Louisville would be the greatest of all

KFC Yum Center night — Ali’s funeral will be a publicity jackpot for Yum Brands and other companies. Some 15,000 mourners are expected at his memorial service Friday at the Yum Center.

Muhammad Ali planned his celebrity-packed Louisville funeral events this week in a two-inch thick document he developed in secret with his inner circle of family and advisors during a years-long battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Ali and his book — Ali and his 1975 memoirs.

Ali signed off on the plan in 2010, according to NBC News, although revisions continued until just days before the prize fighter and globally famous humanitarian died late Friday in a hospital in Phoenix, his primary home; he was 74.

In other words, the Thrilla in Manilla and the Rumble in the Jungle are about to meet the Burial ‘n Louisville before a television audience of untold millions, plus hundreds of thousands more attending in person across the city. The multi-day lineup may well rival “Operation Serenade,” the grand finale President Ronald Reagan’s aides orchestrated for his funeral 12 years ago. (Latest Ali funeral news, plus Twitter updates.)

Ali’s plans are virtually without precedent in recent Louisville history. They will demand the coordination of scores of businesses and government agencies. Although the final cost may never be known, it could run well into seven-figures. The events will be a publicity boon to companies from Yum Brands and KFC to A.D. Porter & Sons Funeral Home; storied Cave Hill Cemetery; a local public relations firm — and even street vendors selling souvenirs along the funeral procession route. Others are trying to cash in, too: One Craigslist advertiser in Nashville is offering a pair of boxing gloves purportedly signed by Ali himself for $20,000.

Some proposals were scrapped, including having his body lie in repose at the Muhammad Ali Center downtown, according to long-time family spokesman and Boxcar PR owner Bob Gunnell. Ali’s wife, Lonnie, worried it would interrupt the center’s operations. “Instead,” says NBC, “Ali added a slow procession through the streets of the city, past the museum built in his honor, along the boulevard named after him and through the neighborhood where he grew up and learned to box. That will happen Friday morning, before the funeral service itself at the KFC Yum Center.”

Royalty in the house

Ultimately, a good portion of the cost will be borne by taxpayers for what will be a huge turnout of Louisville police officers, plus the U.S. Secret Service, FBI and other law enforcement needed to guard the Porter & Sons Funeral Home; control crowds, and protect visiting dignitaries — including at least one sitting king.

Actor Will Smith, who played Ali in the 2001 film of the same name, will be a pallbearer. Former President Bill Clinton and the comedian Billy Crystal will deliver eulogies at the massive public memorial service at 2 p.m. Friday at the Yum Center.

King Abdullah II of Jordan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan had been scheduled to speak. But yesterday, they were bumped to make room for two other speakers whom Gunnell, the Ali family publicist, said would be identified later. President Obama could be one of them, along with First Lady Michelle Obama.

The Yum service is open to the public, but tickets — there will be 15,000 — are required; (how to get them). That’s already spurred out-of-towners as far away as Ottawa to offer $200 — and possibly even more — to anyone willing to stand in line to get one on their behalf when they become available tomorrow starting 10 a.m.

“Willing to pay any amount!!!” a man named Adam says in this Craigslist ad. “I am flying in from Canada to pay respects to my childhood hero, Muhammad Ali.”

At least one company was advertising for street vendors to hawk Ali flags, buttons, and other commemorative merchandise from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday along the Muhammad Ali Boulevard procession route and in front of the Yum Center.

Earn $200-$300!

“Seeking outgoing sales team,” the Craigslist poster said, before taking the ad down. “You will be selling Muhammad Ali flags and buttons, celebrating the life of Louisville’s hometown hero (and world hero)! Your pay: 20% commission; average earnings $200-$300.”

In Nashville, a Craigslist advertiser is selling what they claimed are a pair of boxing gloves signed by Ali at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, where Ali himself lit the Olympic Cauldron. Asking price: $20,000. “This is a treasure find,” the ad says.

Porter & Sons Funeral Home on Bardstown Road is coordinating at least some of the services. The public ceremonies will be followed by a private burial in Cave Hill Cemetery in the Highlands, a much simpler event planned in accordance with Ali’s Islamic faith. He’ll be among other prominent figures from Louisville and Kentucky history in the historic burial ground, says The Courier-Journal. (More about Cave Hill.)

Here’s Will Smith in the Ali movie trailer:

The A-list June 6, 2016June 22, 2016

Oh, deer! We’re stalking a Louisville society columnist — and the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire

Our favorite shiny sheet scribe, Carla Sue Broecker of The Voice-Tribune, continues her overseas dispatches from Merry Old England, giving Boulevard another opportunity to post photos of ~~real estate porn~~ stately country houses we’d like to visit, too!

This week’s entry is Chatsworth House — “home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, set in Derbyshire’s magnificent Peak District. One of Britain’s greatest historic homes offers beautiful rooms, famous works of art, a 105-acre formal garden, farmyard and enough deer to feed all of Jefferson County!”

Yikes! That’s a lot of venison. We’d need 6,200 for all the county’s residents — plus Martha Stewart’s Roasted rack of venison with red currant and cranberry sauce. (Confidential to the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire and the TSA: better check Carla’s steamer trunks on the way back home!)

Chatsworth (photo, top) hasn’t remained standing all these 463 years through the efforts of serfs alone. Now, it requires day visitors and brides who put the “d” in destination weddings. The house is open through Nov. 4 this year. Tickets are £23 for adults ($33.50 at current exchange rates). For £40 a ticket ($58), you’ll also get a traditional afternoon British tea. (“Homemade dainty finger sandwiches of smoked salmon and cream cheese, roasted ham and wholegrain mustard, free-range egg mayonnaise and cress and cucumber and mature cheese, plus cakes and pastries.”)

Jane Austen featured Chatsworth in her 1813 novel Pride and Prejudice, and it stood in for Fitzwilliam Darcy’s Pemberley in the 2005 film adaptation starring Keira Knightly (swoon!) and Matthew Macfadyen (double-swoon!). Let’s watch:

Latest Headlines June 3, 2016June 29, 2016

New $13B Aetna bonds prime Humana buy; 再见, GE!: $5.4B deal may close Monday; PepsiCo CEO in Yum spinoff dies at 71

Appliance Park aerial — An aerial view of the mammoth GE Appliance complex.

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 9:52 a.m.

HUMANA: Aetna sold $13 billion of new bonds yesterday to pay for its $34 billion purchase of Humana, the latest sign of growing confidence anti-trust regulators will OK the deal. Shares of both insurance giants jumped on the news, narrowing the discount at which Humana trades to the original $230 cash-and-stock offer price. That gap, around 17% at yesterday’s close, is the smallest since early April (Wall Street Journal). Humana’s stock surged 5.5% to $187.23; Aetna, up 4% to $120.05. Aetna’s CEO said recently that he expects the deal announced last July will close in the year’s second half. Humana employs about 12,500 workers in Louisville, part of its nationwide workforce of 50,000; that figure would double under the Aetna deal. More about Humana’s history.

GE: Haier Co. is expected to close on its $5.4 billion purchase of the iconic 50-year-old Appliance Park as soon as Monday. That would “sever Louisville’s half-century ties to General Electric,” The Courier Journal says, “and turn over ownership of one of the community’s flagship employers to a major Chinese appliance and consumer electronics maker” (Courier-Journal). The complex employs 6,000 making dishwashers and other home appliances. Still, GE is advertising jobs there starting at $15.51 and hour, or $32,000 a year (company website).

(Here’s how Google translates our GE news summary in simplified Chinese: 海尔股份有限公司有望尽快结束其$5.4十亿收购标志性的50岁的家电园区，截至周一。这将“切断路易斯维尔半个世纪关系到通用电气，”信使杂志说，“和社会各界的旗舰雇主之一的所有权移交给大中国家电和消费电子制造商”（信使报）。复杂的员工6000人。 GE尚广告工作开始出现在$15.51和时间，或每年$32,000.” Our headline should say: Goodbye, GE!)

Watch an inside tour of Appliance Park:

YUM: Retired PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico, who spun off the company’s restaurant division into what is now Yum Brands, died suddenly Wednesday while on vacation with his family in the Cayman Islands. The cause of his death wasn’t immediately known. He was 71 (The Drum). CEO from 1996-2001, Enrico was known for turning Pepsi-Cola into a pop-culture leader with groundbreaking sponsorships with Michael Jackson and Madonna in the “Choice of a New Generation” campaign (The Wall Street Journal and AdAge). Watch one of the Jackson commercials. Yum’s history in Louisville started with KFC founder Harland Sanders.

AMAZON: About 40 bike messengers employed by Amazon contractor Fleetfoot Messenger Service have been laid off, effective today, as the company rethinks the way it makes quick deliveries in its corporate hometown of Seattle. The messengers carried packages and groceries for Amazon Prime Now, a popular one- to two-hour service seen as one of Amazon’s big bets to beat brick-and-mortar retailing (Seattle Times). Geekwire said the number laid off was closer to 60, and quoted one saying: “A lot of people, including myself, are thinking, ‘Why are we going to stick around and bust our ass and put our lives on our line when they don’t give a shit?’ They just cut our jobs. A lot of us just walked out” (GeekWire). Expectations were high for the couriers — with heavier-than-normal loads, fast delivery times, careful tracking, and demands for near-perfect execution (GeekWire, earlier). Elsewhere in Amazonia, the company blows away all competitors in time spent on their mobile websites by a long shot; mobile visitors spent an average 103 minutes on Amazon vs. Target’s 20 minutes and Walmart’s 14 (Business Insider).

BROWN-FORMAN: Billy Walker, who sold the BenRiach Distillery Co. scotch whiskey business to Brown-Forman for $405 million million, has been named entrepreneur of the year in the Scotland Food & Drink Excellence Awards; the deal closed Wednesday (Herald Scotland).

CHURCHILL DOWNS: Hosting a party at the iconic racetrack runs from casual to a formal sit-down meal surrounded by historic racing décor (press release via Insider Louisville).

In other news, U.S. employers added only 38,000 workers in May, a significant slowdown in hiring that could push back a decision by the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates (New York Times). Wall Street wasn’t keen on the report; all major stock indices retreated (Google Finance) and the 11 big employers in Boulevard’s Stock Portfolio all tumbled.

Jim Brown, Muhammad Ali — Ali last year.

Finally, Louisville native and humanitarian Muhammad Ali has been hospitalized again and is being treated for a respiratory issue in Phoenix, where he lives. Ali, 74, has been battling Parkinson’s disease for years. The Associated Press said last night that his condition may be more serious than in his previous hospital stays (ESPN). His $80 million Muhammad Ali Center opened in downtown Louisville in 2005.

We like to remember him for his stunning Sonny Liston knockout punch after 104 seconds on May 25, 1965:
Embed from Getty Images

Diversions June 1, 2016June 1, 2016

Once the nation’s glittering disco ball star, Omega’s now barely stayin’ alive

During the late 1970s, when the Bee Gees made Saturday Night Fever a box-office hit, Louisville’s Omega National Products factory on Baxter Avenue nearly cornered the market, churning out 90% of the spinning dance floor ornaments in the U.S.

“That was the heyday, I’m telling you,” said Yolanda Baker, now 69, and the last of dozens of women still making the mirrored globes by hand at Omega, according to The Wall Street Journal. These days, production is down to about 15 or 20 a month, nearly all Baker’s work. The culprit: overseas competition has cut prices; a 12-inch Omega ball retails for about $135 vs. one made in China that’s $25 on Amazon. (Of course, Boulevard notes, it doesn’t help that mirror balls are nowhere on Omega’s product list.)

As for the Bee Gees, the city’s still breakin’ and everybody’s shakin‘ — on video.

Latest Headlines May 30, 2016June 1, 2016

Amazon rips new high; B-F’s shares said looking ‘pricey,’ could tank 10%; and Pizza Hut, KFC push ahead in Myanmar

Amazon Japan — Amazon launched its Prime video service in Japan last fall.

A news summary, focused on big employers; updated 4:12 p.m.

AMAZON shares notched a record $724.23 intraday high before closing moments ago at $722.79, up 1.5%; U.S. markets overall were weak (Google Finance). The online giant announced at least a dozen original video series for Amazon Japan, less than a year after entering the video market there (Deadline). More fresh Amazon news.

BROWN-FORMAN‘s stock is now looking pricey after a decade of 12.5% average annual returns that beat the Standard & Poor’s 500 index by five percentage points, according to financial weekly Barron’s. Class B shares closed at $98 on Friday and are now trading at 27 times forward earnings forecasts vs. a 10-year average of 21. The culprit: Revenue growth at the spirits and wine giant has slowed on currency swings, a problem that could soon fix itself. But by then, the company will face tough comparisons in a market that’s already crowded. Only one or two things must go wrong for shares to fall 10% or more (Barron’s). B shares were trading modestly lower 90 minutes into trading; the voting Class A shares were flat. About Brown-Forman.

PIZZA HUT and KFC are charging ahead with expansions in the former pariah nation of Myanmar after the U.S. Treasury’s easing of sanctions over human rights abuses. Pizza Hut opened one outlet last year; plans another three this year, and 20 over the next five years. KFC opened two locations on top of five others — including one at Yangon International Airport that was blessed by monks during an opening ceremony April 6 (Global Meat News).

TACO BELL is planning three more urban-focused Cantinas, in Atlanta; Fayetteville, Ark., and Austin — areas with lots of coveted millennial college students attracted to the alcoholic beverages on menus; these newest locations follow another already in the works in Berkeley, Calif. (Eater Atlanta). Launched last year with locations in Chicago and San Francisco, Cantinas also rely heavily on technology: Every part of ordering is made easier through digital menu boards, TV monitors and Taco Bell’s mobile ordering and payment app pick up (press release). Also, 300 junior and senior high school students from 38 states who’ve won $1,000 scholarships from the Taco Bell and Get Schooled foundations will get their photos featured on a six-story digital billboard June 8 in the nation’s No. 1 tourist attraction: Times Square. This is the Graduate for Más Times Square Yearbook’s second year (Magnolia Reporter).

In other news, KMAC has postponed its reopening until July 1 because of construction delays. The $3 million renovation of the arts and crafts museum will streamline 20,000 square feet of exhibition space and 6,000 square feet of public area at its historic location at 715 West Main St. (press release). KMAC was to open June 4, with admission free for a year, underwritten by a gift from Dental Dental of Kentucky.

U.S. stocks zig-zagged, with major indices closely lower as traders looked for fresh clues on whether the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates in June (Google Finance). Shares in the 11-employer Boulevard Stock Portfolio tanked, too; Churchill Downs was the biggest loser, closing down 2% at $125.51.

And Louisville native Jennifer Lawrence’s newest entry in the “X-Men” franchise, “Apocalypse,” took the top box office spot with an estimated $80 million sales over the four-day holiday weekend. But that was a big decline from “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” which opened to $110.5 million on Memorial Day weekend in 2014 (WMDT). Watch the trailer:

Royalty in the house

Earn $200-$300!

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