Morning Advantage: Going Way Out on a Limb for Profits
HBR.org 2012-06-25
As befits a Monday, we’re into contrarians this morning. Whatever it is, they’re against it, and we find that attitude bracing. Contrarian Number 1 is George Elliott, founder of a hedge fund (Naftilia Asset Management) that plans to buy nothing but stocks from – wait for it – Greece. Bloomberg reports that he’s already raised 50 million euros. Don’t knock this idea, Elliott says: Investing in Greece right now isn’t much different from investing in Russia after its 1998 currency crisis, in Argentina after it defaulted on its debt, or in the S&P 500 at its March, 2009, nadir. In hindsight, all of those would have been superb investments for anyone gutsy enough to take a chance. Elliott does say he’ll be avoiding Greek banks, though. He may be contrarian, but he's not crazy.
Forget Those Narcissists (Business Horizons)
Contrarians 2 through 4 are Hemant C. Sashittal of St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, and his two coauthors, who are telling advertisers to stop wasting money on Facebook ads. Their research shows that Facebook users are primarily motivated by three desires: to voyeuristically peer into others’ lives, to create a distinctive identity for themselves, and to act on their inner narcissistic tendencies. Facebookers are thus uninterested in ads and oblivious to marketers’ brand-building efforts. Nearly all of the 141 respondents in the study indicated they find advertising on Facebook to be annoying, intrusive, insensitive to their needs, and peripheral to their interests.
One Man’s Crazy Idea About Non-Boring Yogurt (Wall Street Journal)
Contrarian Number 5 is Hamdi Ulukaya, who was deemed by his friends to be soft in the head a few years ago when he bought a yogurt factory in Columbus, N.Y., that Kraft was selling. Ulukaya, who already managed a small cheese company, had been mulling over the lack of good yogurt in the U.S., so he hired a family friend from Turkey who’s a master yogurt maker, and they came up with a creamy yogurt that would be less boring than American varieties. Thus was launched Chobani, which started the craze for Greek-style yogurt in the U.S.
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