Global Marketing News – 6th May 2016
Russia looks to China for internet censorship advice
Russian multi-millionaire and founder of the censorship lobbying group Safe Internet League, Konstantin Malofeev, has begun a campaign to tighten internet censorship across the country.
Malofeev, who has close ties to the Kremlin, will welcome a large Chinese delegation in Moscow, led by China’s head of cybersecurity and the mastermind of its Great Firewall.
The Russians want to learn techniques for filtering sites that are considered disagreeable or inappropriate and prevent them from being viewed.
He also suggested that there were plans to regain its internet sovereignty and move Western servers containing Russian citizens’ data, such as Facebook or Google, onto domestic territory.
Whilst Moscow has said that moving the servers would allow Russian citizens greater security, it would also allow for greater surveillance.
Rwanda pushes for country-wide 4G
The African country of Rwanda is pushing for universal access to 4G connections.
Even though most of the country’s population are currently still using 2G or 3G, the launch of 4G last year was seen as a big step towards making faster internet services available on a wider scale.
Tongai Maramba, CEO of Tigo Rwanda, believes that the faster connectivity 4G allows is crucial to the development of business and communication in the country.
To promote the new technology, telecommunications provider Tigo has held a 4G festival, where potential users experienced the benefits of the faster connection speed.
Current Rwandan 4G users have also spoken out to support the technology, with one user saying that using the internet had been a challenge in the country, due to the speed of the 2G and 3G services.
Thai review portal Wongnai receives funding
The Thai review portal Wongnai has been injected with an undisclosed amount of Series-B funding.
The move is expected to increase the five-year-old company’s revenue by around 200%.
With this fresh investment, Wongnai is due to launch its new online-to-offline services, and assist in an expansion outside the food and beauty lifestyle verticals which it currently occupies.
Whilst the platform features 200,000 restaurants, beauty salons, and spas across Thailand, the company’s CEO, Yod Chinsupakul said that the release of evouchers on the service last year was the first move towards O2O services.
With 600,000 monthly active users and six offices, Wongnai hopes to increase this to 1 million users and six offices outside Bangkok by the end of 2016.
Luxury brands turn to digital platforms
Top-end brands are starting to appeal to affluent consumers successfully for the first time on digital platforms.
A new study from LuxHub reported that the most relevant information sources used by this demographic during the path-to-purchase were the physical boutique experience and boutique window displays.
But in third place for the first time was official brand websites, which 54% of affluent buyers used before buying.
It was also revealed that amongst luxury-fashion buyers, physical shops stimulated interest in products even before the research phase.
However, the study showed that outside Europe, in China and the Middle East social media was a much more significant step for buyers purchasing from high-end brands.
Amazon looks into buying an airport
And finally, the internet giant Amazon has reportedly taken a step closer to buying its first airport.
Frankfurt-Hahn Airport in Germany is currently for sale and had received several bids, from numerous parties.
After recently signing a lease for a fleet of 20 of its own Boeing 767 aircraft in the US, an airport would be the next step in expanding the Amazon Logistics operation into Europe.
The company’s logistics operation has been set up to provide guarantees around its one or two-day national delivery services in the United States.
The purchase would help ensure that the company could challenge big courier and logistics organisations like DHL or FedEx, and cut costs by transporting its own deliveries long distance.
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Cal O'Connell
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