Kyung-Hoon Kim

How important is it for top executives to know what their customers think of the businesses that they run? Most agree that it helps, but on Black Friday, chief executives of two of the country's most popular venues for frenzied, over-caffeinated shoppers said they don't shop at their stores at that time of year.

We could think of plenty of good reasons not to hit the chaos scenes known as big-box retailers on Black Friday. For one thing, it's crowded and you have to wait in line all day while you're holding boxes of stuff. Add a couple of cranky toddlers, and you could envision hundreds of reasons to stay home.

The CEOs of Best Buy and Toys "R" Us have different explanations.

"This is my 25th year in a row I am working on Black Friday… so I don’t get the chance to shop," Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn told Reuters in an interview. "I work it, they shop.”

Toys R Us CEO Jerry Storch prefers the old, reliable punching bag: He blames the media. "Mostly on Black Friday, I talk to you!" Storch said.

(Photo: Reuters)

You can spend millions of dollars on an advertising campaign if you have something to sell. Alternately, you can try some cheaper experiments and hope that downmarket charm trumps slickness.

Somebody liked the latter idea at the Chase bank branch on Seventh Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan, as this picture, taken by one of our editors, Leslie Gevirtz, shows.

We can't decide if this is a Black Friday coup of marketing genius or if one of the tellers was forced to use only materials in the branch's broom closet. After all, this is the heart of Times Square, a place where every square millimeter is available for your ad, and at very high prices. Major corporations rarely spare expenses -- or electricity -- in presenting their best advertising campaigns in the heart of the U.S. financial capital. On the other hand, Chase *is* handing out $100 to everyone who starts an account. Maybe that's the ad budget, already spent.

Though many New Yorkers complain that tourists are underfoot and in their way, retailers across the city see them, and their strong euros, pounds and Canadian dollars, as a blessing.

Tourists helped Saks Fifth Avenue's flagship store last quarter perform in line with the chain's other stores, and Macy's CEO Terry Lundgren told Reuters on Friday that lately he was hearing more languages besides English than ever on the store floor.

Judging by some of the shoppers Reuters interviewed this week, visitors from abroad plan to spend plenty in New York:

- "Stuff is always cheaper here anyway and even more so with the dollar," said Katy Moore, a visitor from Ireland, who was shopping at Foot Locker on Thanksgiving day.

-  Laurence Moran, a 30 year-old actor visiting from London, was waiting in line with a couple hundred people outside the Abercrombie & Fitch in Manhattan to splurge... on himself. Weak pound or not, Moran said he could not resist the Black Friday sales.

- Deb Curley, a British tourist in her 60s, said , “The toy stores here are crazy. We have nothing like this in England.”

In addition to these shoppers, Reuters encountered tourists from Israel, the Netherlands, Canada, Belgium, Venezuela, Vietnam and many other countries intent on shopping til they drop.

(Additional reporting by Dhanya Skariachan)

(Photo: Reuters)

The Spanish Catholic Church will deny communion to members of parliament who have voted in favour of a bill to make abortion more readily available, the spokesman of Spain's Bishops' Conference said on Friday.

"This is a warning to Catholics, that they can't vote in favour of this and that they won't be able to receive communion unless they ask forgiveness," Rev. Juan Antonio Martinez Camino told a news conference in Madrid. "They are in an objective state of sin."

The government-sponsored bill, which passed the first of a series of votes in parliament on Thursday, will allow abortion until the 14th week of pregnancy and, in cases of extreme foetal deformity, at any time in the pregnancy. The bill will also allow girls to obtain abortions from the age of 16 without parental consent, a clause that has generated dissent even within the governing Socialist Party.

In the United States, Congressman Patrick Kennedy has said his bishop has slapped a communion ban on him for his support for abortion rights.

Read our full story from Madrid here. See also Reuters in Spanish --Votar a favor del aborto es pecado, según los obispos.

(Photo: Rev. Juan Antonio Martínez Camino, 18 June 2009/Sergio Pérez)

Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld

-- Bryant Simon is professor of history and director of American Studies at Temple University. He is the author of “Everything but the Coffee:  Learning about America from Starbucks”. The views expressed are his own. --

Last week, Roy Street Coffee and Tea, located at the corners of Roy Street and Broadway in Seattle, opened.  This is another one of those stealth Starbucks – Starbucks stores without the Starbucks name over the front door – the coffee giant has been opening in its hometown and in London as of late.  Like the other shops of this new vintage, this one is appointed with antique-style furniture, retro lighting, and a distressed looking table top salvaged from an old ship.

The rough-hewed interiors of these not Starbucks Starbucks haven’t really mattered to the journalists and bloggers who have been writing about them.  They talk only about the naming patterns in Starbucks’ most recent branding strategy.

To them, the names of the stores represent a brand crisis.  Quite rightly, they point out, when a brand hides its own identity, it is in some ways admitting defeat, saying that its name – a central part of any brand – has lost value.  When it comes to Starbucks, all of this is true, but the question is why?  Why has the Starbucks brand lost so much value that it has to hide from customers and act like a small business?  The answer to these questions rests with communities and consumers, what they care about and desire the most these days.
Over the last several years, a quiet but decided shift in buying patterns has taken place.  Really, there is something of a velvet revolt or a quiet rejection of brands going on.

In the early years of this century, the then mayor of Baltimore Michael O’Malley begged Starbucks to come to his city.  He thought these big name stores would lend his de-industrializing hometown a much needed upper-middle-class sheen.  Same with the residents of Landsdowne, Pennsylvania.  In 2004, the town had several mom and pops diners and coffee shops.  One day, though, a team of local residents lined up in three rows of forty in an empty lot where a 7-11 used to be.  When the photographer gave them the sign, they turned over the letters.  Their message read: “Got Location! Need Starbucks!” Afterwards, the Greater Lansdowne Civic Association sent this “visual petition” to Starbucks headquarters. Landsdowne never got a Starbucks, but Benicia, California and a lot of other towns got plenty of Starbucks.

By 2007, Benicia didn’t want them anymore.  When Starbucks tried to open a fifth store in the northern California coastal town some residents balked. “It’s a serious problem,” former city councilor Danielle Samaniego, and owner of an independent coffee house, told the Contra Costa Times. “People need to wake up to it,” she proclaimed, “When you drive through a town and everything is so homogenized that you can’t tell where you are anymore, that’s a problem.”  She had an idea.  Limit the number of chains.  Ban them even.  Encourage, instead, small, one-of-a-kind businesses.  Soon her idea gained the support of local officials looking for ways to curtail the opening of more chain stores without violating state and federal laws.  When the city council started to debate a ban on all “formula” businesses, city manager Rachel Raskin-Zrihen told the Contra Costa Times, “it’s about protecting the unique character of the commercial areas of Benicia, and there’s nothing unique about a store that has the same look and style, not just here, but everywhere.”

BRAND AVOIDANCE

This wasn’t just about Starbucks.  This was about a growing resistance to brands, and their dominance of the landscape, symbolized by Starbucks. With their feet and their purchases, individual consumers are revolting as well.  Scholars have started to call this trend, “brand avoidance,” as consumers worried about the larger social and economic impact of brands on society look for other options, even if those options cost a bit more.  In growing numbers, buyers are choosing the local over the brand, the farmers market over the supermarket, the Main Street strip over the mall.  Same with coffee.

While Starbucks closed down outlets in 2008, citing the New Recession as the cause, independent coffee houses, the Seattle Times noted, brought in new customers and they didn’t cut prices.  Over the last few years, in fact, the number of independent coffee houses in the U.S. has jumped past the number of chain store outlets, and now represent 54 percent of the coffee market.

How can we explain these consumer choices and the growth of these smaller business sectors?  Consumers, just like the towns they live in, are starting to think that going to the branded store – to Starbucks or Cosi or Chipotle – costs too much.  It makes them look too ordinary and too much like everyone else.
This is what those not Starbucks Starbucks stores tacitly acknowledge. By hiding their logos, they speak to the growing appeal of the locally owned small businesses.  (Remember the stealth Starbucks stores are individually designed and named after the streets they are on – the places themselves.)

Apparently the experiment isn’t working.  A former Starbucks insider said that Seattle’s 15th Ave. Coffee and Tea – the first of the new not Starbucks stores (its website, by the way, is called www.streetlevelcoffee.com) – is doing only a third of the business of the regular green-logoed Starbucks store that used be at that site.

Perhaps consumer really do want something more than branded artifice; they want something genuinely local.

The revolt against sameness may actually be real, too real for a fake Starbucks.  And certainly this growing rejection of brands presents an opportunity for entrepreneurs and small business owners to create something authentically local for their customers.

The phrase “catching a few rays” might conjure up images of lying on a sunny beach.

But Germany’s Renewable Energy Act has given that phrase a whole new meaning. I’ve discovered that you can get paid for capturing the sun's energy on your roof, converting it into CO2-free electricity with the help of special equipment, and feeding it into the grid -- and watch the investment yield handsome long-term returns.

The German feed-in tariff system is as simple as it is successful – which is probably why Germany produces as much solar power as the rest of the world combined. German utilities are obliged under the Renewable Energy Act to pay above-market feed-in tariffs to producers of photovoltaic or wind energy for a period of 20 years. Germany will add up to 3 gigawatt of PV electricity this year. 

Here’s how the system works. 

Two years ago, after writing this feature  on why Germany leads the world in photovoltaic electricity production despite being covered by clouds half the time, I decided to crack open my piggy bank and borrow some money to invest in a modest 6.8 KWp solar power system for my roof (below). I added a carport (right) so that I could put up more solar panels. 

The system cost a total of 30,000 euros and it produces about 5,000 kilowatts of electricity each year. More important, that saves about 2,700 kg of CO2 emissions. The 5,000 kw is about 500 kw a year more than we use. The local utility is required to buy those 5,000 kw of CO2-free electricity that spin through a meter and into the grid from me at 49 cents per kilowatt for a fixed 20-year period. I buy about 4,500 kw back each year at the current rate of about 18 cents per kw. That amounts to about 2,400 euros of revenue per year, with monthly payments from the utility peaking at about 500 euros in June. (I pay a separate 70 euros per month to the utility for the electricity we use).

I got such a buzz from watching the meter spin green energy off the roof and into the grid that I asked myself: Why stop there? I started looking for another roof.

The national feed-in tariff the utility pays for each kw of green electricity I pump into their grid fell from 49 to 46 cents in 2008 but the price of solar panels fell even further.

So I borrowed 40,000 euros from a bank and rented the roof of a local kindergarten (below) in late 2008 to build an even larger PV system – 10 KWp that produces about 9,000 kw per year (saving nearly 5,000 kg of CO2). That brings in about 3,900 euros per year that will pay off the bank loan over about 12 years. 

After that, I asked myself again: Why stop now? The feed-in tariff fell to 43 cents per kw in 2009 but the price of solar panels fell even further. So I borrowed an additional 80,000 euros and rented the roof of a local school’s gymnasium (below) – 20 KWp producing about 19,000 kw per year (cutting 10,000 kg CO2) and yielding some 8,200 euros. My revenues from the utility also go directly to the bank to repay the loan.

I was hoping to rent another school roof in Berlin this summer but there were all sorts of bureaucratic snags and the project was scrapped. But in 2010 – even though the feed-in tariff will fall to 39 cents for the 20 years to 2030 – I’m hoping to find another roof for an even larger system.

There's no getting rich quick using this "business model", but it is eliminating a few tonnes of CO2 each year and the loans will have been paid off in little more than a decade.

The feed-in tariff for new systems will probably fall by about 10 percent each year and the price of solar panels will probably keep falling at a similar rate. By about 2015, it's quite possible that the feed-in tariff utilities pay will have fallen to the same level as cost of conventional electricity -- the magic "grid parity" point.

We were wondering earlier today how much longer it would take until customers shopping for Black Friday deals got rowdy. We told you about one shoving match in Centennial, Colorado, that involved dropping a little old lady. Now we have a "disturbance" at a Walmart store in Upland, California, near Rancho Cucamonga in Southern California's Inland Empire. What motivates some of these attacks? Toy hamsters! (See our earlier entry on this phenomenon. Also, look toward the bottom of this blog entry.)

The San Bernardino Sun reported details:

"Upland police officers received reports of the disturbance about 2:45 a.m. Friday and sent about four officers to the store at 1540 W. Foothill Boulevard, Lt. Jim Etchason said. 'A manager at the store called it in to the police department,' Etchason said. '(The manager) said numerous customers were causing a disturbance with each other.'"

The cops told managers to close the store while they cleared out shoppers and made them wait in the parking lot. A few hours later, they were allowed to go back inside, the Sun reported. There were no reports of injuries or damage, the paper said on its website.

A company spokesman confirmed the incident, but said the store was cleared out and closed for 45 minutes.

"We're hearing positive feedback from customers and associates in our stores across the country today. Our store plans are helping our customers have a safe and enjoyable shopping experience at Walmart," the spokesman also said.

As long as it's positive feedback.

Other incidents of retail aggression also surfaced on Friday in Brandon (over GPS systems) and Seminole, Florida -- also at Walmart stores. Here's Florida Today:

"People were gathered at the items they wanted to buy. The customers claim the person at the GPS location started selling the devices before 5 a.m. and they started a brawl. In Seminole County, another fight at a Walmart ended with three law enforcement agencies responding. According to WKMG Local 6, the Seminole County Sheriff’s office, Lake Mary Police Department and the Sanford Police Department were all called out to the Walmart about 5 a.m. Officers secured that store before shoppers were told things were safe again."

One big cause of aggression in Colorado and, apparently, the Indianapolis region is the Zhu Zhu -- fuzzy, electronically operated hamsters (The real ones never seem to spark this much annoyance). The Indianapolis Star reports:

"Despite the lines, several shoppers at the Northeastside Toys “R” Us and the Downtown Mass Ave Toys said this afternoon they’d never even heard of the hamster robots. But when the Toys "R" Us opened its doors at midnight Thursday, a huge line backed up into two adjacent parking lots. People tried to cut the line, not listening or cooperating; and there were reports of people fighting at the back of the line. Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department was called after a report of a fight, and dispatched at least three squad cars to the scene, said IMPD Sgt. Paul Thompson. The scuffle was over by the time police arrived, but IMPD stayed in the parking lot for an hour as a precaution."

UPDATE: We weren't joking about the Zhu Zhu hamsters. Read this report and especially watch the video. Thanks to Fox's affiliate TV station in the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida, area for letting us witness the horror:

"If there was any debate about what this season's hottest toy might be, a group of Black Friday shoppers in Clearwater seems to have settled it. They descended on Zhu Zhu Pets like a pack of starving wolves, tearing through the entire display in seconds. Employees at the Toys R Us in Clearwater could only watch as the madness unfolded (watch to the left). There were an estimated 1,000 people in line before the store opened, and at one point, store managers asked police to keep an eye on the line, which wrapped around the building."

(Photo: Reuters)

Watching a movie like “De Dana Dan” in a single screen theatre where people are hooting and clapping at crass humour on screen may give you an insight into Indian audiences.

This audience doesn’t really mind that Archana Puran Singh uses foul language or that people randomly slap their husbands and wives or that there is really no logic to speak of. They found all of the above hilarious.

I am not judging that audience. After all, we all have our own tastes. I guess this is what they mean about Hindi movies that you have to “leave your brain behind and then watch”.

Akshay Kumar plays Nitin, a down and out young man who works as a servant with a rich woman in order to pay off his father’s debt to her. He is in love with Anjali (Katrina Kaif) but doesn’t have the money to marry her. He meets Ram (Suniel Shetty), a courier deliveryman who also needs money to marry his rich girlfriend (Sameera Reddy).

They decide to kidnap Nitin’s mistress’s dog, which she holds very dear. However, the plan goes awry and that is the start of the “confusion” in the film. One mistaken identity leads to the other and yet another, until the plot becomes so convoluted that you lose track.

I am writing this an hour after watching the film and if you ask me for the rest of the plot, I will be unable to tell you. It baffles me as to how the scriptwriter remembered all the twists and turns.

For all the confusion however, the end is so lame you feel the entire team was so tired of the film they just put their hands up at one point and said, “That’s it, this is where we end it”.

There are no performances to speak of -- in fact none are required. The “Hera Pheri” team of Akshay Kumar, Suniel Shetty, Paresh Rawal and Priyadarshan don’t reproduce even half of the magic on screen.

This is entertainment at its lowest level. Take your chance though. To each his own.

In the run-up to the annual Reuters Media Summit, taking place in New York and London next week, we have been asking experts and executives how they think media companies should reinvent themselves for the 21st Century.

Will the big need to get bigger? See Comcast's bid for a controlling stake in NBC Universal.

Or will it be a question of being slimmer and more focused? Like Time Warner,  which is now essentially a pure content company after spinning off Time Warner Cable in March and AOL next week.

All these businesses are heavily impacted by the Web as a distribution tool and they are doing various things to counter that. But it won't be easy, say analysts in our Summit preview. While content will continue to be extremely valuable, content owners will need to figure out how to make money from the Web and other new platforms of distribution.

Stephen Prough, of Salem Partners, a boutique investment bank that has backed several Hollywood deals, said the models are still not clear:

I think it's great that people are experimenting with content for the Web. In theory, that's a great concept. Right now, I haven't seen a business model that works for original content for the Web. The experience of companies that repurpose content for the web is they're generating per viewer.

Over at IAC/InterActiveCorp, Ricky Van Veen, founder of Collegehumor.com and CEO of Notional productions, thinks that developing original content that moves seamlessly between the Web, TV, and wireless devices will be key for the modern media company.

The crucial parts are the advertiser's brand, the content creator and the consumers. What if it was the brand getting the content to the consumer rather than a cable company? With the Internet, you don’t really need a lot TV networks, film studios and cable operators. In the future you have a great idea they’re going to be able to get the content to consumers on their own or with the help of a brand. That’s what’s interesting to me.

Bargain shoppers turned out en masse across the land on Friday morning to observe Black Friday rituals, while retail temples from Target to Macy's to Saks slashed prices to get people to do one simple thing: buy more stuff.

But upscale stores -- and some their shoppers -- seemed to think the Black Friday extravaganza beneath them.

I got a sense of this while I was interviewing people outside Saks's flagship store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue this morning. I asked a customer exiting with a Saks bag full of merchandise what she thought of the sales. She sniffed:"I'm not here for Black Friday. All the stuff I bought was full price!"

Peter Bertling, a lawyer visiting from Santa Barbara, California, had a different point of view about discounts. "I hadn't planned on buying a suit," Bertling said as he left Saks. "If not for the Black Friday sale, I'd probably be at the hotel with my wife right now."

While Saks discounts many items by 40 percent between 8 a.m. and noon on Friday, other upscale rivals seemed to the think holiday discounts were déclassé. At 9 a.m. on Friday, while Saks and Tiffany were open, other upscale stores that line Fifth Avenue, such as Cartier, Versace, Prada, Piaget and even Bergdorf Goodman, were closed.

(Photo: Reuters)