Did you cancel your Hulu subscription, but are thinking about going back? In a deal that just happens to begin at the same time as Netflix’s upcoming price hike, Hulu is offering a discount on its service for new and returning subscribers for the coming year.
The discount is only available for the lowest tier of service, the plan that includes commercials, and cuts the price from $7.99 to $5.99. The more expensive ad-free and “live TV” skinny bundle service aren’t part of the offer.
The $2 discount stays in place for a year, and is available until Jan. 9, 2018. It’s not clear whether you can cancel your Hulu subscription now and sign back up on the same account, but you probably can’t.
The discount is the same as last year’s version of the same deal, but now former subscribers are included so Hulu can try to entice them back.
The streaming services compete, but their offerings differ slightly: Both have original content, movies, and old episodes of broadcast and cable series, but only Hulu has programs from current seasons. Hulu has no service tiers that are fully free of commercials, while Netflix programming includes no commercial breaks.
Hyundai may be one of the world’s largest car companies, selling some 5 million vehicles a year worldwide, and the company’s constant TV advertising has at least drilled into viewers’ head that it’s pronounced “Hyundai like Sunday.” But the Korean automaker is still a bit player in the U.S., responsible for only 1-in-25 cars on American streets. In an effort to stake a bigger claim stateside, Hyundai has introduced a new program intended to provide more transparent pricing and more consumer-friendly practices.
Dubbed “Shopper Assurance,” the program — announced today at a broadcast press event — Hyundai is seeking to combine some of the ease of online shopping while simultaneously not abandoning its network of authorized dealers.
Clearer Pricing
Rather than just listing MSRPs of a representative vehicle on its website and letting you find out what you’re really expected to pay when you show up at the dealer, Hyundai says that “participating dealers” (this is important as you’ll see in a second) will list the actual asking prices for the specific vehicles in their inventory.
But unless you live in Texas or Florida, don’t expect this transparent pricing just yet. As of right now, only 31 dealerships — 13 in Texas, plus another 18 in Florida — are part of this program. Hyundai says the goal is to offer it nationally and that it will update the participating dealership list at the bottom of of the Shopper Assurance page as dealers sign on.
Test Drive In Your Neighborhood
It’s never a bad idea to log some miles behind the wheel of a new car before you decide to buy it, but if you’ve ever gone to a dealership for a test drive, you are probably familiar with the high-pressure sales tactics that can be used to make sure you don’t leave the lot after a test drive without buying.
In an attempt to minimize the amount of time car-buyers spend dealing with a dealer, Hyundai (or rather, participating Hyundai dealerships; see above) will let customers schedule a time to do the test drives somewhere else, like their homes or offices.
Doing Paperwork Online
Another dreadful part of the dealership experience is being rushed through things like credit applications, or having to decide on the spot that you’re okay with the trade-in offer for your current car.
Hyundai hopes to quell some of these concerns by allowing customers to apply for credit, see a final calculation of the total cost of the car, and lock in the value of their trade-in — all online, without having to deal with salespeople.
3-Day Return Window
Regretting a car purchase is usually something that takes more than a few days, but if you do have a problem with your new Hyundai within the first three days (four, if the dealer is closed for business one of those first few days), the carmaker says you’ll be able to return it and get all your money back.
This, of course, comes with the usual raft of expected caveats: It has to be returned to the dealer where it was purchased; must be returned without any “dents, scratches, tears, breaks, cracks, stains, etc.”; and you can’t have put more than 300 miles on it since you purchased it.
Despite being a household name, Hyudai currently has less than 4% market share in the U.S., and that figure has been on the decline as steady or lowering gas prices have engendered more interest in SUVs, crossovers, and other larger vehicles, while Hyundai has continued to focus on the passenger vehicle market.
The company can also no longer claim to have the best warranty in the U.S., after Volkswagen’s recent decision to offer 6-year/72,000-mile warranties on almost all of its model-year 2018 vehicles. That’s a full year (or 12,000 miles) more than Hyudai’s heavily touted (and still highly respectable) standard warranty.
By pushing much of the buying process out of the dealership and online, Hyundai is following the trail blazed in recent years by companies like used car mega-seller Carmax, which lets users see actual prices and get pre-qualified for financing before they ever head to the lot, and electric vehicle maker Tesla, which uses demo showrooms instead of dealers, and does most of its selling online.
But as we’ve seen with Tesla’s efforts to upend the dealership model, there are often legal and political roadblocks to a car maker selling vehicles straight to consumers. A number of states have laws requiring that carmakers used third-party licensed dealers to sell vehicles. So even if Hyundai wanted to eliminate that middle piece of the distribution chain, it would face a huge fight from its existing dealerships and the powerful automotive sellers’ lobby.
The Federal Pell Grant Program provides billions of dollars in financial aid to college students in need of assistance, but these grants — and other aid — could disappear or be made worthless if proposals by Congress and the Trump administration are enacted.
The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income students to help pay for college.
Last week, the House of Representatives voted 219 to 206 to pass a 126-page congressional budget resolution [PDF] for fiscal year 2018 that would reduce education and workforce spending by $20 billion over the next nine years.
The bill came just days after the Senate Committee on the Budget passed its own budget resolution [PDF], that would keep much of the current funding levels steady.
Specific details of the House bill’s education cuts were not immediately available, as the resolution directs the Committee on Education and Workforce to submit changes in laws within its jurisdiction to realize the $20 billion reduction.
However, the House Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations bill [PDF], introduced in July, called for billions of dollars in cuts to the Pell Grant program.
That House plan eliminates all $78.5 billion of mandatory funding for Pell Grants. Mandatory funding currently covers over $1,000 (nearly one-fifth) of the current maximum grant.
Under that measure the government would also rescind $3.3 billion of the total $8.5 billion Pell surplus and freeze the maximum Pell Grant award at $5,920.
According to the report accompanying the House bill, there are several ways to realize cuts to the Pell Grant program.
For instance, the report suggests that the government could roll back certain expansions to the program to ensure that aid is available to student with the mot needs.
The government could also eliminate eligibility for less-than-half-time students or the administrative fees paid to schools that administer and disturb grants to students.
The report also calls for freezing the maximum award level to $5,920. If this were to continue, by 2026, the grants would cover just 23% of an individual’s education.
Though the relevant House committees have not yet provided specifics on how they intend to make the cuts required by the budget resolution, consumer advocates contend that any cuts of this size will likely harm Americans looking to attend college.
If the budget moves forward with cutting mandatory funding for the Pell Grant program, The Institute for College Access and Success notes it would force “millions of low- and moderate-income students to borrow more, drop out, or forgo college altogether.”
TICAS had previously estimated that the proposed $3.3 billion cut was equivalent to the average Pell Grant award for nearly 900,000 students.
“In passing its budget resolution, the House has advanced a vision wholly out of step with the needs of our nation’s students and economy,” TICAS said in a statement.
Consumer advocates weren’t alone in expressing displeasure for the House bill, lawmakers were too. Washington Representative Rick Larsen said in a statement last week that the measure “misses the mark” on many fronts.
“Without a serious investment in job training, infrastructure, or higher education, this budget fundamentally misses the mark as a blueprint for America’s priorities,” Larsen said.
Like its American cousin, Sears Canada is in financial trouble. Unlike Sears Holdings, it doesn’t have a vast real estate portfolio that it can sell to raise cash. To that end, the company announced today that there is no way to keep the business going, and it will close all stores and liquidate.
Since June, Sears Canada has been under the protection of the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, or CCAA, a process similar to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the U.S. The company’s leaders intended to sell the chain or find investors, which the court approved, but no buyers or investors were able to reach a deal.
Possible suitors included ESL Investments, the hedge fund run by Sears Holdings chairman and CEO Eddie Lampert, who owns nearly half of Sears Canada’s stock, and Fairholme Capital. The last potential transaction that would have saved stores and jobs was a bid by the company’s own executive chairman, Brandon Stranzl, but that also fell through.
“[F]ollowing exhaustive efforts, no viable transaction for the Company to continue as a going concern was received,” the company said in a statement, though there were buyers interested in purchasing unspecified parts of the Sears business.
The company has asked the court for permission to begin liquidation sales, which would start on or after Oct. 19 and last for 10 to 14 weeks. Around 12,000 Sears Canada employees will lose their jobs, and the company ended severance pay when it entered creditor protection.
Sears Canada began in the early ’50s as a joint venture between the Canadian department store chain Simpsons and American catalog and department store retailer Sears Roebuck. In 1978, the Hudson’s Bay Company acquired Simpsons, and Sears took over the entire Canadian venture. Sears owned 51% of the company until 2014, with the rest owned by stockholders, and successor company Sears Holdings sold most of that stake to raise cash in 2014.
As of the beginning of 2017, Sears Holdings, the parent company of Kmart and Sears in the U.S., owned 11.7% of Sears Canada. Sears Holdings chairman, CEO, and chief manifesto-writer Edward S. Lampert owned 45.3% of the company’s shares himself or through investment funds that he controls.
We’ve written too many stories over the years about pay-TV and telecom companies still insisting that customers keep paying for service in the wake of natural disasters that destroyed their properties. So it’s nice to hear that the nation’s two major satellite TV companies are being proactive about the millions of Americans in Puerto Rico who are trying to rebuild in the wake of Hurricane Maria. However, Dish and DirecTV have decided to take two very different approaches toward not piling on on Puerto Rico.
AT&T announced last week that it is providing one month of bill credits to its wireless and DirecTV customers in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Service — if you can still get it, given the condition of your home, TV, electricity, and satellite dish — remains uninterrupted.
It’s not clear how AT&T will handle DirecTV customers who will be without access to their homes (and therefore their TV service) for more than the one month covered by the bill credit. However, DirecTV does allow customers to put their service on hold for up to six months if the balance of their bill is zero, so that appears to be one way that affected subscribers in Puerto Rico and the USVI could put things on hold while they focus on rebuilding.
While DirecTV is going the bill-credit route, Dish said yesterday it was temporarily halting all TV service to Puerto Rico and the USVI.
That means that even those Dish customers whose homes survived the storm without too much damage won’t be able to access their satellite service without taking the extra step of actually contacting Dish and letting them no they want their TV feed back.
On the one hand, the Dish approach does make it easier for those whose properties were ravaged and won’t be back to normal any time soon. The last thing you want to think about when your house has been flattened by winds and flooding is whether or not you shut off your pay-TV service. Whereas the DirecTV bill credit only lasts for one month and won’t be applied for two to three billing cycles, meaning the customer may still be continuing to pay despite not being able to watch TV.
At the same time, this preemptive pausing of Dish service does arguably put a burden on those customers who aren’t in a position to lounge about and catch up on the adventures of Young Sheldon but who could really use occasional access to news, particularly since there are still problems with data connections in islands hit by Maria. These folks must go through the hassle of calling or emailing Dish to have their service restored.
We’ve asked Dish to comment on why it chose to shut down TV service instead of going the bill-credit route, but thus far the company has only restated what it said in yesterday’s press release. If we get a more substantive response, we will update this story.
At the end of September, a contractual dispute with Lilly Broadcasting took three Lilly-owned stations — CBS Puerto Rico; WENY, the ABC affiliate in the USVI; and One Caribbean Television — off Dish feeds in the region. One Caribbean was subsequently restored, reports FierceCable, but only on an emergency basis. It’s unclear what, if any, impact this blackout has had on Dish’s decision to pause satellite TV service in the area.
Kids love wiggly, easy-to-grasp toys. Some kids also like putting little pieces of brightly colored plastic in their mouths. So when one of those wiggly toys has pieces that can break off and find themselves in a baby’s mouth, it’s time for a recall.
Toys ‘R’ Us recently announced the recall of 29,700 Bruin Infant Wiggle Ball toys that could break, increasing the risk of choking for children.
The blue ball, which wiggles, vibrates and plays three different musical tunes, has textured bumps for gripping and has orange, green, and yellow rubber knobs around the ball.
According to a notice posted with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the rubber knobs and plastic back could detach.
If this occurs, children could put the items in their mouths, potentially choking on the toy.
So far, Toys ‘R’ Us says it is aware of six reports of rubber knobs breaking off, including four reports of pieces found in children’s mouths.
Parents who have purchased the toy are urged to immediately take it away from babies and return them to Babies ‘R’ Us or Toys ‘R’ Us for a refund.
Affected balls — sold at Babies ‘R’ Us and Toys ‘R’ Us from June 2016 to Jan. 2017 for about $13 — can be identified by the model number 5F6342E and Toys “R” Us printed on the product.
Customers with questions about the recall can contact Toys ‘R’ Us at 800-869-7787 or online at www.toysrus.com and click on Product Recalls for more information.
Have you ever come home, expecting to see an Amazon delivery waiting by your door only to find that it had been pilfered by “porch pirates” who will swipe any box with that trademark grin printed on it? But what if that same package could be delivered inside your home?
Only weeks after Walmart said it would test a grocery delivery service that puts your order right into your fridge, Amazon is reportedly looking to develop its own methods for more securely delivering orders.
Two “sources familiar with the matter” told CNBC that the company is working on a smart doorbell that would allow delivery drivers to type in a one-time use code so they could enter a home and leave packages inside. This sounds a lot like Walmart’s new test, which also allows delivery personnel access to customers’ abodes with a one-time passcode.
Amazon is also reportedly talking to a company called Phrame, which makes a secure box that fits around a person’s license plate, and can hold keys to the car. Users can grant access to others remotely, allowing them to input a code to get the keys out. They can then unlock the trunk and place the packages inside.
Sadly, we’re all too familiar with porch pirates, as we’ve covered quite a few of these thefts in the past. For example, there was the time a video allegedly showed an Amazon delivery guy’s friend stealing a package right after it was delivered; or the terrible person who was filmed apparently instructing a boy to swipe items off a homeowner’s porch.
But these villains don’t always get away so easy: One maligned homeowner posted surveillance video of a package theft on Facebook, and ended up finding the alleged thief.
And then there are those who express their frustrations with package thieves in a more ah, direct approach, like the man who set a porch pirate trap with a giant box of dog poop, or the couple who was so tired of holiday package thefts, they filled a box with excrement and set up a camera to film what happened.
Imagine that you open up your email and find a message from your credit card company with the attention-getting subject line, “Important: What you can do now about the recent data breach.” Would you think that Discover had had a customer data breach? You wouldn’t be alone.
Plenty of Discover customers were confused by the above message, including Christopher Zara, a writer for Fast Company, who wrote an article to clear things up for other users with similar questions.
“You can’t just say ‘breach’ and expect everyone to know which one,” notes Zara.
The email turned out to be about protecting oneself after data breaches in general, and the message was intended to be about the catastrophic breach of personal data that credit bureau Equifax has gathered about people who have credit accounts.
An extra-cynical interpretation might be that hey, more customers probably opened the email if they believed it was about a previously unannounced breach of their personal data.
Other than the Tweet, Discover hasn’t responded to questions about this email. Zara contacted the company and didn’t hear back, and Consumerist contacted Discover as well. If we hear anything back, we will update this post.
More than a year after a Chicago resident filed a class-action lawsuit against Uber, claiming the company violated federal law by sending unsolicited text messages to people who want nothing to do with the service, the ride-hailing company has agreed to pay $20 million to put the legal challenge behind it.
Under the proposed settlement [PDF], which will be heard by an Illinois District Court judge in January, Uber would pay each of the six named plaintiffs $10,000 and about $6.7 million in attorneys fees and expenses, leaving around $13.2 million to be split between an undetermined number of class members.
According to the settlement, the amount of payment these customers will receive depends on the number of people who submit a valid claim by Dec. 15. The original lawsuit had sought $500 per class member.
The settlement comes nearly 13 months after Uber was first accused of violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and invading consumers’ privacy.
According to the lawsuit [PDF], Uber’s practice of contacting potential customers via text messages and phone calls violated the TCPA because the company did not ensure the accuracy of the telephone numbers it was provided when customers signed up for service. This led individuals to routinely receive unsolicited messages from the ride-sharing service.
Getting Phone Numbers
As an ordinary business practice, when enrolling new customers Uber collects phone numbers and informs those consumers they can expect to receive text messages to the number provided.
For instance, the company sends text messages confirming the creation of an account and routinely informs customers their ride is on the way via text.
However, the lawsuit claimed that the ride-sharing company didn’t employ procedures to confirm the accuracy of the telephone numbers submitted by potential customers before dispatching text messages.
Unwanted Messages
As a result, the plaintiff believed that many of the numbers in Uber’s possession are inaccurate, resulting in the company routinely sending unsolicited text messages to individuals who never provided consent to be contacted, according to the lawsuit.
That was the case for the lead plaintiff, who claimed to have received at least nine unsolicited text messages from Uber since June 2016.
According to the lawsuit, beginning on June 14, she received messages from an Uber-identified phone number that read: “Your Uber account verification number is: 9274. Enter this in our app to confirm your Uber account.”
Several days, later the woman says she received a similar message. Then in early August, she received at least six more text messages from the ride-sharing company.
“At no time did Plaintiff attempt to acquire the Uber application, become a customer of Uber or otherwise use Uber,” the lawsuit states. “Moreover, at no time did defendant confirm the ownership of the phone number to which Defendant was transmitting text messages or otherwise confirm that Defendant had obtained Plaintiff’s consent to send any such text messages.”
The lawsuit claimed that Uber’s practice of sending unsolicited text messages violated consumers’ privacy and resulted in monetary losses, because individuals frequently had to pay for text messages and calls they did not authorize.
Uber has denied the lawsuit’s allegations and any wrongdoing. However, to avoid continued litigation the company negotiated the $20 million settlement.
Consumerist has reached out to Uber for comment on the proposed settlement. We’ll update this post if we hear back.
In addition to providing compensation to affected customers, Uber agreed to not send server-assisted driver-referral text messages from the Uber app for two years, and to maintain an opt-out protocol for text message recipients.
The company will also implement a system to verify that the phone numbers collected during the sign-up process are accurate. To do so, the company will display the phone number submitted on the app screen where a new verification text can be requested with the note “Did you enter the correct number?”
Uber will also delete from its records any phone number entered during the sign-up process that is not verified within 15 minutes.
The settlement applies to any individual who received one or more unsolicited text message from Uber between Dec. 31, 2010 and Aug. 17, 2017.
Valid claims include those related to Uber’s Refer-A-Friend program, individuals who started Uber’s driver application process but did not become an “active” driver, and those who were not party to a contract with Uber or did not provide their phone number to the company.
Class members must submit a claim form by Dec. 15 to receive a payment or to exclude themselves from the settlement. Claims can be filed online or by mail. Information about filing a claim can be found at http://ift.tt/2xx0y5a.
We truly are approaching a Jetsons-like future where the most quotidian tasks are fully automated, and where elderly Millennials will harrumph to their cloned grandchildren about the good old days when their watches — “we called ’em ‘smartwatches’ back then!” — came with bands that had to be adjusted by our own non-cyborg hands.
Apple has been granted a patent for a “Dynamic fit adjustment for wearable electronic devices,” also known as a watch band that adjusts itself.
A tensioner in the Watch or electronic device would tighten or loosen the band, without the wearer having to do anything.
Apple notes in the patent that watch bands often have limitations when it comes to adjusting, and not everyone may find the perfect fit as a result.
“Despite the prevalence of issues associated with improperly fit bands, adjusting the size or fit of conventional watch bands often requires multiple steps, specialized tools, and/or technical expertise,” Apple writes in its patent. “For example, a metal link band may require specialized tools to remove one or more links of the band to resize the band. In other cases, a leather band with a deployment clasp may need to be physically cut to size in order to resize the band.”
To address all of these things, Apple’s system would be capable of adjusting upon request, via an onscreen option, or doing it automatically depending on biometric sensor readings.
Of course, this is just a patent — it’s unclear if Apple will ever make self-adjusting bands a reality. However, it does makes sense for the company, which has been pushing its Watch’s fitness tracking capabilities.
If the Watch doesn’t fit so well, that could impact sensor readings, especially when you’re doing things like working out or otherwise being active. It’s likely that you may want your watch to fit one way when you’re jumping around in a workout class and another when you’re just sitting on the couch.
[h/t Apple Insider]
When it comes to ice cream, everyone has a favorite flavor. But if you want to become a true ice cream flavor connoisseur, one expert suggests starting with a simple classic – vanilla — and building your tasting skills from there.
Scott Rankin, a professor and the chair of the Food Science Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, tells Consumerist that it’s a great idea to become an expert on what a good vanilla ice cream tastes like by buying a pint or so of different products whenever you go to the grocery store.
RELATED: What’s The Difference Between Ice Cream, Frozen Custard, And Gelato?
Here are a few things to look for when you’re tasting ice cream at home.
“In general, most good ice creams, including vanilla, have a very ‘clean’ flavor,” he explains. In other words: If you take good quality milk and dairy ingredients, they should have “virtually no aroma” after they’ve been pasteurized. Along with a robust vanilla flavor, the ice cream should have a a “little cooked flavor to it,” but that’s about it.
If there’s anything extra to it — or it resembles the flavor of say, a sheet cake from a mix — it usually doesn’t reflect what Rankin considers a premium ice cream.
Use the standard of good dairy ingredients, Rankin suggests, meaning it should taste nothing more like cooked, sweet milk. “That should be your golden standard.”
Like “fine wine or a sophisticated beer” that tells a story, a good vanilla should have a rich bouquet — for example, fruity, raisin-like, or smoky — instead of monochromatic.
“If it tastes like more wedding cake, like the sheet cake you get at a wedding” or somewhat like a can of frosting, that’s indicative of lesser quality products, Rankin notes.
Ice creams can vary “terrifically” by their weight, Rankin notes, so it’s a good idea to pick up that pint before you buy it: If it feels heavy, and then you grab another pint and it feels light, that means one likely has more air in it.
In general, heavier pints will be reflective of higher quality.
“If you put air into it, it makes it very light and fluffy,” he points out, which is not bad, per se, but “for that pint of ice cream, you’re buying a lot of air instead of ice cream.”
Vanilla ice cream mix is very, very white, Rankin explains, with the exception of ice creams that use a high level of vanilla extract , which can make the resulting product a bit more brown. Haagen Daz, for example, is a bit off-white because of the amount of vanill ain it.
Even if you’re buying a custard that uses egg yolks or egg solids, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will make it yellow.
In general, vanilla ice creams should be pretty white — the color of milk, essentially, and not yellow or butter-colored.
They say that before you can be in a truly happy relationship you have to be happy with yourself. This apparently applies to retail, too: Target executives say the company isn’t trying to compete with Amazon to get customers in the door, instead the retailer is just tying to be the best version of itself for customers.
Instead of focusing on initiatives to bring in new customers, Target is focusing on improving itself and making its current customers happy.
“We are going to win when we’re the best Target, and not trying to be a competitor against Amazon or anyone else,” Target CFO Cathy Smith said at the Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C., as reported by Fortune.
To that end, the retailer has recently revamped its in-store offerings, launching new clothing and home goods lines, and designer collaborations.
Smith added that Amazon’s increased presence in the physical retail world validates that fact that stores still matter, while also pushing retailers like Target “to step up our game.”
While Smith noted during the conference that Target is “just trying to make sure we’re executing, not trying to compete with someone like Amazon,” the company isn’t brushing off the competition altogether.
Last week, Target expanded its test of curbside pickup at some stores to include actual customers after testing the service with employees in the Minneapolis area.
In August, the retailer purchased a shipping tech company, Grand Junction, in order to speed up its deliveries, a sign it was looking to compete with Amazon.
Back in May, the company began testing a program that gave customers the ability to get one-day shipping household items.
Restock allows RedCard holders to fill a giant box with their household products, food, or baby and pet supplies, and then have it shipped for a $4.99 flat rate. Orders placed by 2 p.m. will arrive by the end of the next day.
While we’ve heard of people calling 9-1-1 to report complaints they have about their food, police in Pittsburgh say one fast food customer took things a step too far when he allegedly called in a bomb threat to avoid paying his bill.
According to WPXI.com, a 40-year-old man tried to run out of the restaurant twice to avoid paying his tab at sandwich shop Primanti Bros.,
Although someone eventually offered to pay the bill, police arrived on the scene. At some point, officers said they heard him call in a bomb threat to a restaurant a few blocks down the street.
“His tab is paid. They get ready to let him go and the bomb threat comes in and he takes off!” a witness told the station.
From there, police claim the man ran down the street, where he was eventually shocked with a stun gun and arrested. Authorities say the man told them his friend advised him to call in the threat to make a distraction so he could get away.
He’s now charged with threats to use weapons of mass destruction, public drunkenness, false identification to police, terroristic threats, and escape.
Oreo’s stunt flavors are now a normal part of the cookie landscape, with snack giant Mondelez announcing new limited-time flavors like cinnamon bun or fruit punch every few months. Now the company has taken stunt food even farther, introducing cookies with “mystery flavored creme” and asking the public what flavor it is.
No, Mondelez isn’t doing this because it has no idea what the flavor is. It’s a sweepstakes with cash prizes. Anyone can enter, but only people who guess the mystery flavor correctly get an official entry in the contest.
Naturally, people have already started to share their guesses online. Whatever the flavor is, Oreo has paired it with chocolate cookie wafers. The most common guess so far is “Froot Loops.” Other guesses have included creamsicle and lemon. None of these flavors pairs particularly well with chocolate cookie wafers.
@hodakotb awesome reaction to @Oreo #mystery flavor @klgandhoda #TodayShow
http://pic.twitter.com/ESu2ketKXj
— m pappas (@soxfanmap) October 9, 2017
An editor at Delish described the creme flavor as “like the Axe body spray of Fruity Pebbles.” Keep that in mind if you want to try it.
Oreo’s last cereal-themed flavor was the colored and flavored crisped rice most commonly known as Fruity Pebbles, but the company went with the generic “Fruity Crisp.”
This isn’t the first contest where a company has asked customers to try mystery flavors: Doritos ran a similar promotion in 2014. In that case, though, customers were asked to choose a favorite, not to identify a vaguely fruit-like artificial flavor.
For years, Walmart has been offering ways for customers to shop online and pick up in stores. But Walmart’s new idea to attract online shoppers flips things on their ear by using its retail stores as the places where you return unwanted online purchases.
Walmart announced Monday that it will launch Mobile Express Returns at stores in November, a system that allows customers who make online purchases to use the retailer’s mobile app to speed up the returns process.
Walmart claims that the new option is its way of making the return process “a little enjoyable” for customers, while also appealing to consumers’ desire for convenience.
Using the app, customers select the Walmart transaction and items they would like to return. They then follow the prompts to start the return process.
Customers then have to drive to the store, find the Mobile Express Lane at the customer service desk, scan a QR code displayed on the app, and hand the item to the waiting associate.
Returns are then credited to the customers’ payment account.
To begin with the system will only be available for customers making online purchases, but Walmart notes that it will work for in-store purchases starting in 2018.
“By leveraging our physical stores and the Walmart app, we’re changing the returns game in ways that only Walmart can do,” Daniel Eckert, senior vice president, Walmart Services and Digital Acceleration, said in a statement.
While the new return system will no doubt be convenient for many customers, Walmart isn’t exactly the first company to try to streamline online returns.
Just last month, rival Amazon announced that it would allow the return of some items to local Kohl’s stores, removing the sometimes longer wait time for online returns.
Through that program, customers can simply take their unpacked Amazon orders to Kohl’s and have the return completed instantly. The Kohl’s employee will then package the item and ship it back to Amazon.
Still, Walmart’s push for a simplified returns process for online products comes as the company continues to push new e-commerce initiatives in order to compete with Amazon.
Over the past year alone the company has purchased a handful of online retailers including ModCloth, Moosejaw, and Bonobos.
Related: 6 Things We Learned About Walmart’s Love-Hate Relationship With Online Sales
It has also installed giant vending machine-like Pickup Towers at stores, added online grocery pickup to hundreds of locations, and dispatched employees to make online deliveries.
The retailer also tried — and then ditched — a subscription service called ShippingPass in favor of offering free two-day shipping on millions of products with a lower minimum purchase price and began offering discounts on products ordered online but picked up in-store.
These online-focused initiatives are apparently paying off. The retailer announced during its annual meeting today that its online sales have increased 60% in the second quarter of the year. And that growth is expected to continue, as Walmart estimates it will increase online sales by 40% over the next year, as the company continues to integrate its online tools to stores, including 1,000 additional online grocery pickup locations.
“We’re combining the accessibility of our stores with e-commerce to provide new and exciting ways for customers to shop.” Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said in a statement.
The company notes in its annual report [PDF] that it will continue focusing on its existing stores and making them more appealing to customers.
“Historically, new stores have been the key contributor to Walmart’s growth,” the report notes. “Going forward, more growth will come from comp sales at existing stores. By leveraging technology, executing more frequent remodels and providing more sophisticated training to our associates, we’ll deliver a better experience to customers.”
To that end, the company says it will cut its capital spending by about $1 billion, significantly slow its new stores and instead spend more on remodels and e-commerce technology.
It’s like The Mindy Project being cut by Fox only to find a second life on Hulu, or that annoying Verizon guy being dusted off by Sprint to irritate a new generation of TV viewers: Burger King has resurrected the spicy chicken nuggets that were killed off by Wendy’s earlier this year.
We actually don’t know yet if the spicy nuggets that BK is launching are identical (or close enough) to the former Wendy’s value menu fave, but the burger chain is making no attempt to conceal its intention to woo fast food customers who miss Wendy’s spicy bits of breaded chicken.
In fact, it’s being rather obvious about it. This Friday, Oct. 13, customers named Wendy can get a free 10-piece Spicy Chicken Nugget order if they show valid ID at a handful of BK locations in Los Angeles, Miami, or New York City. (A partial list of BKs offering the free nugs is at the bottom of this story.)
The spicy nuggets are not a permanent menu addition for Burger King, which hasn’t put an end-date on when they will once again vanish into the spicy, slightly oily, ether.
As Business Insider points out, BK did permanently bring back its Chicken Fries in 2015 after customers demanded it, so it’s possible the spicy nuggets could stick around. At the same time, items like the Fiery Chicken Fries, or the Cheeto’s version, did not have that staying power.
Now that Whole Foods has been folded into the grasping embrace of e-commerce giant Amazon, others in the food business appear to be angling for an invitation to become part of the family: Carl’s Jr. has been busy Tweeting up a storm in an effort to convince Amazon to buy it.
In a day-long series of Tweets — including 24 “Big Ideas” for the future — Carl’s Jr. started its campaign yesterday morning with a simple post about a drone for the office that had arrived via Amazon:
The account goes on to marvel at the speed of the delivery, and praise the company’s “smiling” boxes. From there, Carl’s Jr. makes the leap to the fact that it sells food in boxes, and a dream was apparently born.
…US. @Amazon YOU. SHOULD. BUY. US.
— Carl's Jr. (@CarlsJr) October 9, 2017
The way Carl’s Jr. sees it, two-day shipping meets double cheeseburgers is something people will love. The brand claims this is not a joke:
In fact, the fast food chain had 24 ideas to pitch yesterday in its purported quest, complete with its own #AmazonBuyUs hashtag. A sampling:
Digital assistants that have biscuit-alarms:
A Tender Button:
A self-driving Carl’s Jr. restaurant:
New TV content for Amazon:
Sniffable tape:
The sibling of Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s, chimed in as well, though it let the other chain do most of the work:
As for whether or not this is actually a serious overture, company executives say this is about “generating a conversation around a partnership.”
“The tweets are obviously a start to try and see where the dialogue goes …have a lot of fun with it, and see if they find the spirit of it as fun as we do,” Jeff Jenkins, Chief Marketing Officer, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s told USA Today (warning: link contains autoplay video).
Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are owned by CKE Restaurants, a privately held company that is itself controlled by a private equity firm, Roark Capital Group. We’ve reached out to reps for both CKE and Roark to inquire about whether this is a serious overture and will update if we receive a response.
