Tag Archive for 'media'

Sound advice

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Corporate Communications
on Tuesday, January 19, 2010
in Amway
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When Robert Pagliarini became an Amway distributor in 1995, he experienced a mindshift. His words:

“If you’ve never had your own business, you can’t understand what it feels like to be CEO of a company and to be responsible for marketing, generating clients, cash flow, recruiting, training, and all of the other hats an entrepreneur must wear.”

Today, Pagliarini writes for the CBS Moneywatch.com Human Capital section and is a frequent guest on Good Morning America and NPR’s Marketplace, offering financial and career advice.

He’s no longer a distributor, but 15 years later, Pagliarini penned a blog post titled Why You Should Join Amway. As he says, it’s the “easiest and quickest way to start your own business” and an opportunity worth considering.

Sound advice from someone who makes his living advising others.

All in a day’s work

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Corporate Communications
on Thursday, December 10, 2009
in Amway
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For a global company like Amway, headquarters may be Ada, Mich., but “the office” is wherever our business takes us.

Our execs log hundreds of thousands of miles each year visiting our colleagues in the more than 80 countries and territories in which we operate.

This week, for example, Amway Chairman Steve Van Andel was in Vietnam, visiting with the Amway Vietnam team, media, and government officials, including President Minh Triet.

Now, we don’t meet with the president of a country every day.

But for our globe-trotting leaders, a “day at the office” might be anywhere from Ada to Uruguay and involve anyone from a distributor to a dignitary.  It’s all in a day’s work.

Honorable mention

Published
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Corporate Communications
on Friday, September 18, 2009
in Amway
. 1 Comment

Candace MatthewsToday the CEO and other execs from Black Enterprise came to Amway’s World Headquarters in Ada to officially honor Candace Matthews  as the magazine’s Corporate Executive of the Year.

Matthews, Amway’s chief marketing officer since 2008, is the first leader at a privately-held company to receive the magazine’s annual honor.

In presenting the award,  Black Enterprise CEO Earl “Butch” Graves Jr. said of Matthews,  “through her business prowess and innovative thinking, she is helping transform Amway into a 21st century global powerhouse.”

This is definitely an honor worth mentioning.

Power player

Published
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Corporate Communications
on Friday, August 21, 2009
in Amway
. 0 Comments

For the second year, Amway executive vice president Eva Cheng has been named to the Forbes “100 Most Powerful Women” list.

The list, which Forbes has compiled since 2004, is a virtual “who’s who” of the top women in business, government and entertainment worldwide. As Forbes says, the list isn’t about celebrity or popularity. It’s about a more precious commodity: influence.

Forbes calls Cheng “fierce in the boardroom and on the social circuit.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Eva joined Amway more than 30 years ago as a secretary in our Hong Kong office. Today she runs our biggest affiliate, China, which she launched in 1995, as well as our other Southeast Asian markets. Her leadership has made Amway one of the most admired companies and best employers in China.

Eva’s a power player on the Amway team. And according to Forbes, in the rest of the world as well.

Amway teams up with Orlando’s new sports and entertainment center

Published
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Corporate Communications
on Wednesday, August 5, 2009
in Amway
. 5 Comments

Amway CenterThe Orlando Events Center — the new venue for sports, concerts, and family entertainment — has had a “namelift.” As of today, it’s called the Amway Center.

The 875,000-square-foot facility, slated to open in the fall of 2010, will replace the nearby, two-decade old Amway Arena, a complex half the size. The Center will be the new home of the NBA’s Orlando Magic starting with the 2010-11 season.

Amway chief marketing officer Candace Matthews and Orlando Magic chief operating officer Alex Martins announced the naming today to a host of city dignitaries and the Orlando-area media. Said Matthews:

“We’re excited to continue this partnership with the Magic and Orlando, one of the world’s greatest tourist destinations. The NBA is one of the most popular sports leagues in the world. But this is much more than simply securing naming rights and continuing our partnership with the Magic. Rather, this takes us into partnership with the Orlando community, as we have partnered with other communities around the world where we do business, in aligning with our corporate vision of helping people live better lives.”

To get a preview of the Amway Center, go to www.amwaycenter.com.

Interns meet and compete

Published
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Corporate Communications
on Tuesday, August 4, 2009
in Amway
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Competition for summer internships is tough. But that’s nothing compared to competition between interns.

Interns from six West Michigan companies faced off this week in the second annual West Michigan Intern Olympics. We developed the event last year with office furniture manufacturer Steelcase to foster some healthy competition and camaraderie between our summer interns.

More than 160 interns from six local companies competed in events like marshmallow dodgeball and a hula hoop race to have fun in the sun and do a little networking. Local FOX affiliate WXMI and The Grand Rapids Press were among the media covering the event.

This summer we’re hosting more than 90 interns in 20 divisions at our Ada, Mich., world headquarters. Interns also are on the job at our Nutrilite facility in California, at Amway de Mexico, and at Amway Hong Kong, among other locations.

It’s all part of grooming the next generation of talent at Amway. (Marshmallow dodging and hula hooping skills are optional.)

Power of the press (visit)

Published
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Corporate Communications
on Sunday, July 26, 2009
in Amway
. 1 Comment

Each year Amway opens its doors to about a dozen groups of journalists from our markets all over the world. We also host individual media who visit our world headquarters in Ada, Michigan.

Media get behind-the-scenes tours of our manufacturing facilities, access to our leaders and experts, and the opportunity to ask whatever they want about our company, business opportunity, and products. These journalists run the gamut from managing editors to television reporters to business writers.

Case in point: A tale of two visits this month. A week or so ago we hosted 12 high-level journalists from some of India’s most influential media. They spent time with Amway chairman Steve Van Andel and other top execs to understand the company’s history and vision. Stories already have appeared in media like The Telegraph, India Retailing and The Economic Times about the future of Amway in India. There’s more coverage to come.

Meanwhile, our local Fox TV affiliate spent time touring our cosmetics facility to get the scoop on how ARTISTRY cosmetics and skin care are developed. The coverage aired locally and is viewable online. (Click on the “Amway’s Artistry Plant [#1-4] 7.22.09″ segments).

Both are examples of how we invite journalists in to learn about our business and products. We host these visits not just to encourage news coverage but to help journalists understand our business and accurately cover us. They ask us tough questions and get candid answers. And in just a few days they can see our facilities, hear from our scientists and experts, and get access to company leaders who may not travel often to their home countries. We can’t bring our mile-long manufacturing facility to Makati, but we can bring Filipino journalists to Ada. And we will later this year, along with media from Japan, Thailand, Turkey and Ukraine.

So, we roll out the welcome mat for journalists—or the maligayang pagdating banig, as the case may be.

On top again

Published
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Corporate Communications
on Thursday, June 4, 2009
in Amway
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Amway Global, our North American business, continues to dominate online health and beauty retailing in the United States. For the sixth year running, we are Internet Retailer’s top online health and beauty seller.

The magazine also ranked us 28th in overall web sales in its ranking of the top 500 e-commerce companies.

Steve Lieberman, Amway Global’s managing director, cites our company’s sales force and powerhouse brands Nutrilite (vitamins, minerals, and supplements) and Artistry (skin care and cosmetics) as key to our leadership in this category:

“The ranking would not be possible without the hard-working [people] who drive our sales. It’s also a great testament to the quality and appeal of our key health and beauty brands, Nutrilite supplements and Artistry skin care and cosmetics.”

Social butterflies

Published
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Corporate Communications
on Wednesday, April 15, 2009
in Alticor and Amway
. 1 Comment

The heart of today’s business world is aflutter with social media. You could even say “a Twitter.”

Not too far from our world headquarters, the Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park is featuring its annual spring butterfly exhibit, where visitors may freely mingle with approximately 6,000 butterflies of all sizes and species.

How might Meijer Gardens build some buzz around the event? Like butterflies, they get social. They regularly blog and are on several social networks such as Flickr, Facebook and Twitter.

And good for Meijer Gardens: Earlier today, comscore blogged that Twitter traffic in the United States increased by 131 percent in March to 9.3 million visitors. Twitter has 5-10 million active users (current estimates vary and Twitter keeps you guessing), far more than the “maybe a million” figure conjectured last year. Who wouldn’t want in on that?

We tweet, sure. You can officially follow us at @amwaymediablog, @amwayglobal, @amwaycanada, @amwayeurope, @artistrybeauty and @nutrilitehealth. When we broke the news that famed Chinese Olympic hurdler Liu Xiang will keep running for Team Nutrilite, or that many of our European markets launched new e-commerce sites and charitable efforts for UNICEF, we did so via Twitter.

Back on Facebook, home to 200 million active users, we are building presence for our exclusive E. Funkhouser New York cosmetics brand as well as Nutrilite’s Every Kick Counts campaign, starring global soccer phenom Ronaldinho. Even our “MoBEs.”

Sure, we’re on YouTube. Yes, the Opportunity Zone. Our hotel properties even joined the party, recently rewarding guests whenever they rate their stay on certain social networks. Said Chad LeRoux, director of corporate marketing for Amway Hotel Corp.:

“If you’re not engaged in this social media arena or arenas relative to your business, then you could be missing out on key opportune things that you may not be aware of that the populace is talking about. If you made this small tweak or modification to the product, it will enhance that product experience and thus create more-favorable opinion out there about you in those social media arenas, which in turn increases business.”

Of course, you can always find us here on this very blog, subscribe to our RSS feed and find us on Technorati, FriendFeed…the list goes on.

We hope our friends in the media are listening. Oh, and if you’re in town, we’ll drive you down to see the butterflies. Better make it fast: the exhibit winds down in two weeks.

Talk about service!

Published
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Corporate Communications
on Tuesday, April 14, 2009
in Alticor and Amway
. 0 Comments

When a hotel gets mentioned in USA Today for offering special perks, it must be doing something right.

Our exclusive JW Marriott Grand Rapids offers manicures, pedicures, facials, mud wraps, massages and more—as do many high-end hotels. What makes ours so special is that the spa wheels right into your room.

Downstairs, the dining experience six.one.six (a play on the Grand Rapids area code) was recently featured in Michigan’s official tourism website, GreatFoodandTravel.com:

[six.one.six] espouses a farm-to-table philosophy and their menu is created around what can be obtained from area farms. They bring fresh vegetables, locally made cheeses, and other foods harvested from farms in the area to their sophisticated trendy dining room.

All of this, right here in Grand Rapids. We’re just happy to be of service.