It seems that by the time they are getting to Romania, most of the cool things/brands are going un-cool. Same with much rumored Starbucks, which

is going from hand-crafted beverages to machine-prepared beverages. Starbucks is replacing all of its La Marzocco espresso machines with automated espresso machines that dose, tamp, brew, and steam milk with the push of a few buttons. Automated espresso machines make beverage prep so much easier and so much faster for Starbucks Baristas … similar to the systems McDonald’s uses to make hamburger prep easier and faster for its front-line employees.

Well this it seems is not all, as there Starbucks and McDonald’s are becoming more and more alike. Kind of expected, I would say.

Read more about it here.

Technorati Tags: Starbucks, McDonalds, Romania

As Vodafone announced last week that it is ending its four-year deal with the once world richest football club’s, two years early, Manchester United is in talks with a number of global brands giants about replacing Vodafone as its shirt sponsor, according to reports.

Vodafone’s deal is set at 9 million pounds, or about $15.5 million. Some of the names reportedly thought to be willing to top that include Google, IBM and Yahoo but Coca Cola and Levi’s as well.

While for Yahoo this would not be a first, as  Yahoo has been quite successful in sports marketing with a 2001 global sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup and the Yahoo Dome, home to Japan’s Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks, it would definetly be a first for Google. Even if they recently opened their Manchester regional offices, as well as a London GooglePlex, I still can’t really see Google on football t-shirts, but who knows.

Technorati Tags: Google, Yahoo, Manchester United, Vodafone

As we’re getting to the end of the year, the time is coming for various tops and classifications for the year that passed.

For the eighth year, the Financial Times (reg. required) has published its World’s Most Respected Companies list. And for the first time, Microsoft garnered the number one position. Not only that — Bill Gates was named the World’s Most Respected Business Leader, and was second on the Most Influential Business Writer of Management Guru list, losing only to management theorist Peter Drucker, who passed away earlier this month.

As FT wrote in its announcement:

The new economy has finally triumphed over the old. For seven successive years, General Electric has topped the table of the world’s most respected companies. But for the first time it has been pipped to the post by Mircosoft, the software group.

The top ten comapnies, out of 50, named this year by the Financial Times, are:

1. Microsoft
2. General Electric
3. Toyota
4. Coca-Cola
5. IBM
6. Wal-Mart
7. BP
8. Procter & Gamble
9. Apple Computer
10. Siemens

Technorati Tags: World Most Respected Companies, Top 10, Microsoft, Business, Bill Gates

Senior Executives from 501 European companies, systematically selected from “Europe’s 15,000 largest companies”, gave their views on Europe’s leading business cities, in a study published by Cushman & Wakefield Healey & Baker. The principal findings are:

• In the overall rating of best cities for business the top cities of London and Paris continue to lead by a pretty big margin.
• The other cities to move up this year are: Berlin (9th to 8th), Lisbon (16th to 14th), Düsseldorf (18th to 16th), Budapest (23rd to 21st), Glasgow (24th to 22nd), Copenhagen (26th to 25th), Helsinki (28th to 27th) and Oslo (30th to 29th).
• Valencia and Bucharest head the list of other cities threatening to break into the top 30.
• Warsaw remains the city that can expect the biggest influx of companies over the next five years, with 41 of our sampled companies expecting to locate there. If this happens, Warsaw would move up to 6th position in terms of international company representation.
• Prague, Moscow and Budapest can also expect a healthy inflow of companies; and Bucharest is attracting interest. Paris, London, Madrid and Milan are the most popular nominations among the more established business cities.
• Worldwide, Shanghai remains the clear favourite – 41 of our companies expect to expand there.
• Beijing, followed by Mumbai and Mexico City can all also expect future investment from Europe.
• London extends its leading position over Paris but these two cities are well ahead of their nearest rivals. Barcelona overtakes Amsterdam in fifth place with the top seven cities clear of the rest. The small differences in scores of cities outside the top seven means that slight changes in score can produce a movement of several places in the rankings.

Here is the list of cities that made it to the top 10, along with their scores:

1. London 0.87
2. Paris 0.60
3. Frankfurt 0.33
4. Brussels 0.30
5. Barcelona 0.28
6. Amsterdam 0.24
7. Madrid 0.24
8. Berlin 0.19
9. Munich 0.18
10. Zurich 0.18

You can download the full PDF report here. Via Hotnews.ro

Technorati Tags: european+cities, city+monitor,, euro+cities+monitor

Edleman/Technorati joint survey, regarding blogger’s relation with public relations, are out.

The survey asked bloggers questions related to how PR companies can get the relationship right, how PR companies can help them rather than annoy them, how can improve the conversation, how can earn their trust. The survey questiones 821 bloggers from 53 countries, half of them (54,81% from US, 3 answers from Romania).

Some interesting results from the study include:

• 34% of bloggers blog to increase their visibility as an authority, 32% do it to create a record of their thoughts – so a majority do it for their personal image
• Executive bloggers are only half as believable as employee blogs – that makes for an interesting argument against CEO bloggers and in favor of employee blogs!
• When looking for product information, bloggers tend to trust way more other bloggers (62.85%) than company website (26.19%), corporate blog (6.09%) or company press releases (4.86%).

See full results of the study here. (via)

Tags: PR, Public Relations, Bloggers Survey