BING IS NOW THE DEFAULT SEARCH FOR CHATGPT
Key Point: Assertions that Google is untouchable as the world’s favorite search engine may need to be reexamined. Bing is now the default search engine for ChatGPT.
Here’s how Yusuf Mehdi, Bing’s head of consumer marketing, described the move: “Foundational to our progress with the new Bing is our fantastic partnership with OpenAI. ChatGPT will now have a world-class search engine built-in to provide timelier and more up-to-date answers with access from the web.”
Samsung decided to go the other way. Their computers will stick with Google rather than switch to Bing. Will users do the same and continue to favor Google … or is the tide about to turn?
KRAFT HEINZ UNVEILS CUSTOMIZABLE SAUCE DISPENSER
Key Point: Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could choose your own ingredients for dipping those fries at McDonald’s? Kraft Heinz thinks so. The company says it will soon unveil Heinz Remix — a dispenser that will allow customers to concoct over 200 possible recipe combinations.
Rollout to restaurants is expected late this year. Not only will the new machines give users more choices, it will give Kraft Heinz another way to predict customer acceptance of products sold at the grocery store.
Here’s a quote from Alan Kleinerman, the “head of disruption” at Kraft Heinz: “We’ve been on this journey to make innovation the number one growth driver across our business. To do that, we knew we needed to operate differently than we had in the past, to think bigger, to be more consumer-centric.”
And that brings up something about this story that could interest marketers: Is “freedom of choice” a trending public sentiment?
TARGET’S DELIVERY OPERATIONS EVOLVE WITH IMPROVED CAPACITY, LOADING SPEEDS
Key Point: Target’s last mile delivery operations reaped a “meaningful cost savings” in Q1 2023. Attribution points to a switch from delivery by sedans to delivery by larger vehicles — especially high-capacity vans. Target COO, John Mulligan, announced the news on a recent company earnings call. Supply Chain Dive says Target’s new strategy will “more closely mirror parcel carriers’ processes.”
Target is also optimizing package-to-van load time, containerization, and package identification processes. Target sortation centers delivered about 26 million packages in 2022, and the company plans to double that total this year. Looking forward, Target says it will devote $100 million to building additional sortation centers to expand next-day delivery capabilities.
NIKE CEO SAYS DISENGAGING FROM CHINA WOULD BE DISASTROUS
Key Point: Should the United States keep depending on Chinese manufacturers or bring more jobs back home? Some say China is a major threat to national security, but others — like Nike CEO John Donahoe — say it would be “disastrous” to allow political tensions with China to disrupt trade relations.
During a recent CNBC CEO Council Summit interview, Donahoe said this: “I think decoupling would be disastrous economically between the U.S. and China or China and the European Union. If you really look at the trade flows, both ways, they play a mutually valuable role. Again, we believe in global trade and we’ll continue to try to do everything we can to support that.”
Donahoe went on to note that China, Nike’s third largest revenue source, is critical to the company, while stressing the idea of balancing local standards with global standards to avoid violating human rights. Nike is under scrutiny for labor policies. A 2022 statement by Nike on forced labor says the company is careful to build “long-term relationships” with companies in agreement with their “strict standards of sustainability and human rights.”
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