Winners and Losers: Netflix Speeds Up, Video for Hard Job
From a greeting card giant's savvy viral video catching fire to a key Best Buy executive calling it quits, here's a rundown of the week's smartest moves and biggest blunders in the business world.
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) -- Winner
Johnson & Johnson's signature Band-Aids and its "No More Tears" baby shampoo won't be necessary after the consumer and pharmaceuticals giant posted better than expected quarterly results.
Adjusted earnings climbed to $1.54 a share from a $1.22 a share showing a year earlier. Analysts were holding out for a profit of $1.48 a share. Revenue also clocked in better than expected, topping $18 billion. A good report sometimes isn't enough to please the market, but Johnson & Johnson kept the positive vibes coming by raising its forecast for all of 2014.
US Airways -- Loser
It's probably the nightmare of anyone working social media for a major corporation. You're surfing the Web between posting corporate tweets, you come across something shockingly naughty, and you want to share it with a friend so you copy the link.
Unfortunately you forget to update your copied link when publicly responding to a client on Twitter, only to realize that you're sending a link of a naked woman getting intimate with a model airplane to more than 420,000 followers. This is what happened to American Airlines Group's (AAL) US Airways on Monday. It quickly deleted the tweet, but not before word spread of the deed.
Accidents happen. Even folks on top of the social media universe are human. It's still embarrassing.
Netflix (NFLX) -- Winner
Comcast (CMCSK) customers should experience better Netflix connections. We figured this would happen back in February when Netflix struck a deal with the country's largest cable and broadband Internet provider to improve video quality, but now it's official.
Netflix publishes monthly data on connection speeds for its service across all of the leading access providers. It's a smart move by Netflix, shaming the slower players at a time when more than 33 million families in this country are counting on Netflix as active subscribers. On Monday it revealed that Comcast speeds have improved dramatically, up 66 percent in March relative to where they were in January.
We still don't know what kind of financial considerations Netflix had to offer to make this happen, but it seems as if the public shaming is starting to improve things for customers.
Best Buy (BBY) -- Loser
%VIRTUAL-article-sponsoredlinks%Best Buy's stock was one of last year's biggest winners, but it's been a dud in 2014 as its turnaround plans haven't panned out. Things got worse this week when Shawn Score -- the consumer electronics retailer's president of U.S. retail stores -- announced that he was retiring.
The abrupt departure is troublesome, and not just because it's a 48-year old retiring. Score had been promoted just seven months ago. Clearly there's something not right at Best Buy if someone is stepping down just months after stepping up.
American Greetings -- Winner
If US Airways flunked out in social media this week, American Greetings was its star pupil. The greeting card giant scored a viral hit with a video about an employment opening billed as an interview for World's Hardest Job.
There's no point in playing spoiler if you haven't seen the video, but let's just say that the timing is relevant for the company behind the video to benefit from its impact. The clip attracted more than 3 million views in the first two days after being uploaded on Sunday. Well done, American Greetings.
Motley Fool contributor Rick Munarriz owns shares of Netflix. The Motley Fool recommends Johnson & Johnson and Netflix. The Motley Fool owns shares of Johnson & Johnson and Netflix. Try any of our newsletter services free for 30 days.
