Tag Archive for 'media'

On top again

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

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!

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.

50 years on the air

Turning 50 is more fun when there are lots of others around you sharing the same milestone.

This past weekend, members of our West Michigan media team—on the road for the holiday—were treated to Lansing-area radio station WFMK-FM’s special 50th anniversary programming. As we are busy preparing for our own 50th anniversary celebrations, it was a welcome diversion to hear how the station chose to honor their own birthday. Besides some clever contests with—you guessed it—50 winners, this particular weekend they took to the airwaves with random songs from 1959 to 2009, rather than their every day “lite rock” selection (with all due respect to fans of lite rock).

Happy birthday WFMK, from all of us here in Ada!

Tuned in and “tead” up

Amway India recently hit the airwaves on Radio Misty 94.3 FM, the first radio station to broadcast in North Bengal and Sikkim. Diptarag Bhattacharya, vice president for Amway India’s eastern operations, discussed the Amway Opportunity Foundation and Project Sunrise, which makes health care and safe drinking water accessible to children in need, as well as unique strategies to market our Artistry and Nutrilite brands across India in 2009.

Our “Diamond” level distributors in India also earned a brief bit of praise for partnering with a major tea company to help market green tea to Indian consumers that prefer black.

Artistry struts its stuff

ARTISTRYAmway’s top selling beauty and cosmetic brand Artistry made news at Miami’s Rock Fashion Week. Artistry’s Mobile Brand Experience (MoBE) was also on hand near the newly renovated Fontainebleau, this year’s Fashion Week host.

Next, Artistry is teaming up with NEXT Models, a leading modeling agency, to discover three new faces. Our MoBEs will accompany NEXT beauty scouts to 15 locations this year in search of the lucky three, each who will receive cash awards and guaranteed contracts with NEXT.

On the other side of the pond, Amway UK is sponsoring this year’s Clothes Show London, where ARTISTRY Crème LuXury has been short listed in the “Best Skincare Product of the Year” category of the 2009 UK Beauty Awards.

Amway in the tour business?

You’d have thought as much over the last two weeks if you read media reports out of Taiwan and China.

Each has recently relaxed travel restrictions, a step toward a more constructive political relationship and closer to today’s Sino-Taiwanese business chumminess. Record numbers of mainlanders have visited the island, and Amway has led the way, ushering some 12,000 employees and distributors on cruises to Taiwan.

By and large, we like what we’re seeing in terms of spirit of cooperation between the two, and we are pleased to be party to those efforts.

Amway has fan with major Indian pub

India’s prestigious Economic Times takes a shine to the changes and global expansion afoot at Amway during a turbulent worldwide economy.

The Times recently interviewed Amway president Doug DeVos, who noted in part that our company’s private ownership structure as well as our deep-seated inroads in India, China and Russia gives us a leg up on our competitors. China’s success, in particular, hints at changes to come at other Amway affiliates around the world. To Doug’s point in the article, change will help Amway to thrive over “the next 50 years and beyond.”

While we might nitpick a few points in the article, we gladly accept the Times’ pat on our back.

Special wheels for special kids

Riding a bicycle is no big deal for most kids, but for children with disabilities, it’s special. For these kids, Amway of Australia is making the dream become a reality.

Our affiliate there is a sponsor of the Freedom Wheels program which, in partnership with the Technical Aid to the Disabled charity, modifies standard push bikes to help kids with disabilities ride a bike for the first time. Through our One by One Campaign for Children, and the time and monetary support of our distributors there, we’ve been able to get the Freedom Wheels program up and running. As a result, bicycles have been redesigned and delivered to happy kids and their parents throughout the continent.

We were also pleased to see this make the March 17 print edition of The Daily Telegraph which gave us coverage across Australia. We hope to see plenty more.

Another ad double-take

Remember the “Bangkok briefs” post when we pointed out those nifty “Shine like new” ads for our car polish?

Check this latest spot for Dish Drops out of Amway India. It’s mind-bending—or at the very least, coffee cup-contorting.