ELBLOGDEFORMACION

McDonald’s Admits That Its Menu Is Overcomplicated

In recent years, McDonald’s has been constantly tinkering with its menu, adding numerous limited time offers [LTOs] like the ill-advised and overly expensive Mighty Wings, and changing its Dollar Menu to the confusingly named “Dollar Menu & More.” In doing so, it’s angered franchisees, and alienated some customers who took their fast food money elsewhere. Yesterday, the company finally admitted that McD’s menu has gotten too McComplicated.

“We overcomplicated the restaurants and didn’t give restaurants an opportunity to breathe,” confessed Tim Fenton, McDonald’s chief operating officer in yesterday’s conference call with investors. “We need to do fewer products with better execution.”

CEO Don Thompson admitted that some consumers no longer connect with the McDonald’s brand.

“In the U.S. we’ve lost some of our customer relevance across several parts of the day,” said Thompson, who explained that “The key is going to really be to re-establish the trust of customers… That means basic execution at a restaurant level, marketing engagement at a much stronger level and also to make sure that our menu is relevant.”

McDonald’s sales and earnings for the most recent quarter were flat, with same-store sales slipping for the second quarter in a row.

A number of franchisees have complained in recent years that the constantly changing menu and the frequent LTOs have put an undue burden on them, requiring them to retrain employees, purchase new ingredients and do marketing for products that may not sell. Some say it has resulted in slowed-down service and confused customers.

In spite of a huge, star-studded marketing campaign, McDonald’s Mighty Wings failed to take off, mostly because customers could get better, bigger wings elsewhere for less money. This resulted in millions of unsold wings sitting in McDonald’s freezers.

In addition to the wings, other recent menu additions and LTOs include the the egg white McMuffin, the Premium McWrap, Steak & Egg Burrito, Fish McBites, steak breakfast sandwiches, new Quarter Pounders, Grilled Onion Cheddar, Hot ‘n Spicy McChicken.

“We stumbled a bit last year with too many new products, too fast and we created a lot of complexity,” confessed Fenton.

McDonald’s Says Its Restaurants Got Too Complicated [WSJ.com]

McDonald‘s: We Overcomplicated the Menu [BurgerBusiness.com]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Hacker Group Briefly Takes Over Some Of CNN’s Social Media Accounts

The “scene” of the alleged crime.

When a website gets hacked, what’s the best place to read news about that hack? Well at least in CNN’s case, the news organization wasn’t shy about revealing that some of its social media accounts and blogs were the victim of a hack attack last night. Everything appears to be back to normal now.

CNN reports on its own hack, which is being claimed by the Syrian Electronic Army, writing that CNN’s main Facebook account, CNN Politics’ Facebook page and the Twitter pages for CNN and CNN’s Security Clearance were compromised. That’s in addition to blogs for Political Ticker, The Lead, Security Clearance, The Situation Room and Crossfire.

“Syrian Electronic Army Was Here…Stop lying… All your reports are fake!” one of the posts on CNN’s Twitter account said, purportedly from the group.

It also wrote on its own account on Twitter: “Tonight, the #SEA decided to retaliate against #CNN’s viciously lying reporting aimed at prolonging the suffering in #Syria.”

It seems that the attack was quick, CNN claims.

“The posts were deleted within minutes and the accounts have since been secured,” the news site writes in its post on the attack.

This is not the first time we’ve heard of the SEA, of course, and definitely not the first time CNN has, either: The New York Times, Huffington Post and Twitter itself were allegedly attacked by the group back in August, while CNN’s site, the Washington Post and Time were also hit by the SLA two weeks prior to that attack.

Some CNN social media accounts hacked [CNN.com]

by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

FBI Warns Stores To Prepare For More Credit Card Hacks

(Jeremy P)

The recent malware attacks on payment systems at Target and Neiman Marcus may be getting all the headlines, but they weren’t the first such breaches, and they won’t be the last. This week, the FBI issued a warning to retailers, telling them to prepare for the inevitable hack attempts to come.

“We believe POS [point-of-sale] malware crime will continue to grow over the near term, despite law enforcement and security firms’ actions to mitigate it,” reads an FBI report recently sent to a number of the nation’s retail chains, according to Reuters. “The accessibility of the malware on underground forums, the affordability of the software and the huge potential profits to be made from retail POS systems in the United States make this type of financially motivated cyber crime attractive to a wide range of actors.”

The FBI says there have been about 20 cases of POS malware attacks that it knows of in the last year.

Unlike some data breaches that involve hackers breaking into retailers’ databases, the POS malware attacks are capturing credit card information as it is swiped at a credit card terminal. Through a process dubbed “RAM scraping,” unencrypted credit card data is captured in plain text during the brief period of time in which that information is live in the computer’s memory.

Wannabe cyber-criminals can purchase versions of POS malware in the back alleys of the Internet for a few thousand dollars, which is a small investment for people who could use the malware to capture thousands or millions of credit card numbers that are then re-sold.

“The high dollar value gained from some of these compromises can encourage intruders to develop high sophistication methodologies, as well as incorporate mechanisms for the actors to remain undetected,” reads the FBI report.

The National Retail Federation tells Reuters that “Retailers have been and remain vigilant in their efforts to provide the highest level of security for their data systems in order to protect against malicious and criminal acts… you can be sure that the retail industry will be responsive and engaged to ensure this particular cyber-attack does not happen again.”

According to the FBI report, the bulk of the malware attacks it knows of have involved small to mid-size retail operations, which don’t always have the sophisticated systems used by large national retailers.

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

Victoria’s Secret Apologizes After Store Tells Mom To Breastfeed In Alley

(afagen)

When the mom of a 4-month-old asked the clerk at a Texas Victoria’s Secret if she could use one of the store’s fitting rooms to nurse her child, she was doing so out of courtesy, as Texas law allows mothers to breastfeed in all locations. She certainly wasn’t expecting to be told that she should feed her infant in an alley next to the store.

The 27-year-old mom tells Austin CultureMap that she was shopping at the Victoria’s Secret store earlier this month, and after purchasing around $150 worth of VS merchandise, she posed the question to a sales clerk about using the fitting room to nurse.

“The woman who checked me out began to nod her head yes, but before she had a chance to respond, the employee next to her immediately responded by telling me I was not allowed to nurse my son in her store,” recalls the mom. “Instead, I could walk outside to a nearby alley.”

She says the sales clerk then told her that she should go all the way to the back of the long alley if she didn’t want anyone to see her nursing.

“I was instantly confused and shocked, so to clarify, I asked her, ‘You want me to take my son outside, down an alley, and nurse him?’” she says. “She responded by saying yes. It was cold and windy — there was no way I was going to walk down an alley in the middle of the elements to feed my son.”

Rather than opting for the alley route, the mom went to a nearby bathroom and breastfed her baby in a toilet stall.

“I had never thought of breastfeeding as such a shameful thing, especially in a store where breasts are visible in every corner,” she explains. “But at that moment, I began questioning myself. Why is this not allowed? For a chain that promotes ‘the beauty’ of the female body, and that shows pictures of almost nude women, breastfeeding should most certainly be welcomed.”

Texas Health Code Ann. § 165.002 states in no uncertain terms that, “A mother is entitled to breast-feed her baby in any location in which the mother is authorized to be.”

One could argue that the store had a right to not let her nurse in the fitting room as it may have needed the space for customers, but the employee should not have told the mom that she could not breastfeed in the store.

The mom later contacted VS customer service by phone and spoke to someone for more than 30 minutes. He promised that someone would respond to her complaint.

“However, the next day, when I called them back, there was no record of my complaint, so once again, I was on the phone for another 30 minutes explaining my experience. The new contact said they would be in touch as well.”

She also spoke to the manager of the store where she’d been told she couldn’t nurse. The manager promised to respond via mail, but never made good on that promise. An e-mail to VS CEO Sharon Jester Turney went unanswered.

Of course, after the local media got involved, Victoria’s Secret was finally apologetic:

“We take this issue very seriously. We have a longstanding policy permitting mothers to nurse their children in our stores and we are sorry that it was not followed in this case. We have apologized to [the mother], and we are taking actions to ensure all associates understand our policy that welcomes mothers to breastfeed in our stores.”

The mom isn’t terribly impressed with this bland corporate apology.

“It really doesn’t seem like Victoria’s Secret is taking this seriously,” she says.

As happens when someone takes a story like this online, there are skeptics and folks putting the blame on the mother.

To those who accused the mom of staging the incident, she responds, “I have much more to do than take my son to VS with me on a Monday and hope they deny me the right to breastfeed.”

And what about those who say she was acting irresponsibly by taking her child out when she could have done her shopping online?

“So I should never leave my house in order for you not to have to witness a baby eat?” asks the mom. “Truthfully, this is all pretty embarrassing and stressful. However, now that it has become such a story, I hope people will at least be more sensitive to new moms who are just trying to do what’s best for their children — whether it’s breast or bottle. I am just an everyday mom doing what I think is best for my son, as are all the other mothers in the world. I just hope Victoria’s Secret understands the urgency on their part to support moms and nursing moms alike.”

For those curious about the laws governing nursing moms in their states, the National Conference of State Legislatures has this very helpful guide to each state’s particular laws on breastfeeding in public.

[via SFgate.com]

by Chris Morran via Consumerist

McDonald’s Admits That Its Menu Is Overcomplicated

Hacker Group Briefly Takes Over Some Of CNN’s Social Media Accounts

FBI Warns Stores To Prepare For More Credit Card Hacks

Victoria’s Secret Apologizes After Store Tells Mom To Breastfeed In Alley

Las mejores herramientas web gratuitas para educación del 2013

5 consejos para construir branding personal efectivo #infografia #infographic #marketing

¿Con qué frecuencia tuitear? #infografia #infographic #socialmedia

Los 7 pecados capitales del Marketing #infografia #infographic #socialmedia

Cómo Google está cambiando la educación #infografia #infographic #education

Manual del mal empresario: guía paso a paso #infografia #infographic #entrepreneurship