Global Marketing News – 15th June 2015
Russia to create “right to be forgotten” law
The Russian government wants to implement its own “right to be forgotten” law by January 2016.
It will be similar to the law recently implemented in the EU, which allows EU citizens to request that search engines remove links to webpages containing inaccurate or outdated information about them.
Some commentators have raised concerns about the Russian version of the law, however, as link removal requests would be handled by the state-controlled watchdog Roskomnadzor.
Roskomnadzor has a history of heavily censoring content that is critical of the Russian government, including recently blocking access to a video by the band Pussy Riot which was negative towards the Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Big opportunities for Canadian businesses wanting to sell online
Research has uncovered a big opportunity for Canadian businesses who want to sell online.
Ecommerce is growing at a rate of 12% every year in Canada, but less than half of all sales are actually from Canadian businesses.
American businesses make up the majority of sites that Canadian shoppers are buying from, with Amazon, Ebay and Apple taking 31% of all revenue generated.
Indeed, almost 550 of the top 1,000 ecommerce sites, as ranked by Internet Retailer, were American sites that sold their products in Canada. In contrast, only 19 Canadian sites even made it onto the top 1,000 list.
Retailers who want to target the Canadian market would do well to optimise their sites for mobile, with the mobile ecommerce growing by 74% year-on-year in the country.
Several Asian companies predicted to hit the West soon
A Dutch professor from the International Business School of Hanze University has predicted that several big Asian brands will soon be entering Western markets.
Professor Segers has said: “Hundreds of Asian companies will reach out to the world and enter the global market. At this moment, these new companies are relatively unknown in the West. This will rapidly change.”
Among the predicted entrants are several Chinese tech companies, including the ecommerce site Alibaba, the social network Tencent, and the smartphone manufacturers Lenovo and Huawei. The Japanese tech companies Rakuten and Panasonic, as well as the Indian IT company Infosys, also made it onto the list.
Professor Segers has chosen these companies as potential entrants to the Western market due to their shared ability to adapt to change.
All the companies have demonstrated in the past that they can successfully identify when changes are needed and implement them. Both Tencent and Alibaba, for example, changed their focus from their websites to their apps when they realised the strength of mobile internet in the Asian market.
Amazon Europe sales increase by 20%
Amazon’s European sales have increased by around 20%, according to a report by Internet Retailer.
This is higher than the average growth of 16% seen across other “top 500” ecommerce sites selling in Europe.
Amazon has websites localised for 6 European markets: the UK, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
In 2014, these 6 websites brought in an estimated 20 billion Euros for the ecommerce company, up almost 3 billion Euros on the previous year.
Internet Retailer commented on the findings, saying: “Despite lingering recession in many countries, ecommerce in Europe continues to skyrocket”.
Looking at all “top 500” ecommerce sites, the European ecommerce market generated approximately 140 billion US dollars last year.
Disney partners up with Youku Tudou in China
And finally, Disney has entered into a partnership with the Chinese video platform Youku Tudou.
The partnership will see Youku Tudou being the sole promoter of Marvel films and TV programmes in China.
Youku Tudou is the most popular online video platform in China, with around 500 million monthly active users.
The video platform already has experience in successfully promoting Marvel products. It promoted the Marvel film Captain America: The Winter Soldier, which made 130 million US dollars in Chinese box offices – compared to just 13 million which was made by the first Captain America film, which was not promoted by Youku Tudou.
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Gemma Houghton
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