Search giant Yahoo announced earlier this week that it was buying blogging service Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer claimed that it was going to be run as an independent entity, with Tumblr David Karp still at its helm as CEO, but it still has some consumers nervous that the site will be changing. This does, however, prevent a huge business opportunity for brands that have their own Tumblr accounts, since this deal is expected to grow Yahoo’s audience by 50 percent and increase traffic by 20 percent.
Meanwhile, while most brands have been flocking to China, Neiman Marcus has announced its plans to pull back just a touch. The company aims to downsize its team there and ship from U.S.-based inventories, rather than holding inventory in Chinese warehouses. However, most changes seem to be behind the scenes; Neiman Marcus’ China site, for example, will stay intact.
Millward Brown released its 8th annual Global Brand Value list, with Apple leading the pack at No. 1 Other luxury brands such as BMW, Louis Vuitton, Hermes, Gucci and Prada made it into the top 100, with the latter two making their first appearance. The list serves as a metric for how much brands are valued in a year based on consumer reaction to brands, financial data analysis, market valuations, analyst reports and risk profiles. Some brands increased in value this year; Prada’s brand value went up 63 percent and Gucci increased 43 percent. However, although Louis Vuitton was the most-valued luxury fashion brand, its value decreased 12 percent.
Finally, Saks Fifth Avenue threw the industry for a loop when reports surfaced this week that it may be bought out. Saks allegedly hired Goldman Sachs to drive its stock up, which led to more than 23 million shares changing hands, which is about 10 times the daily average. Saks has still not confirmed that it is working with Goldman Sachs, but this scenario is definitely bringing about some interesting guesses for Saks’ future.