Amazon Defies Predictions

Does anyone think of Amazon as one of the biggest media companies in the world? Well, it is. In 2014, Amazon’s media unit generated more revenue than Pandora and LinkedIn, selling about $1 billion worth of ads. The company’s stock price is also skyrocketing. Earlier this year, we predicted that Amazon would decline in value and influence. We could not have been more wrong.

Walmart is the loser in this scenario. Jet.com, the much-hyped startup advertising lower prices than Amazon, is also likely to struggle. The concept behind Jet is great, but it already exists. It’s called Amazon Prime and it has 50 million members.

Captain Morgan is a winner this week for picking Chrissy Teigen to be its peg-legged pirate spokeswoman. With 2.8 million Twitter followers, Teigen has 209 times the brand’s following.

The losers here: brands that pay big sums of money for celebrities that don’t have Twitter accounts. Jim Beam, what were you thinking?

Japan is now the number-one travel destination for wealthy Chinese travelers, making luxury brands another winner. Hermes sales in Japan surged 27% in Q2 as more Chinese picked Tokyo over Hong Kong, where demand for pricy bags and watches is slumping. Burberry, which gets 10% of total revenue from Hong Kong, saw a double-digit decline in same-store sales.

When NASA previewed the first image of Pluto on Instagram, it got more than 100,000 likes in a matter of minutes. NASA’s Twitter following is 4.75 times more than that of the entire lead cast of Interstellar, including Matthew McConaughey. Maybe it takes a rocket scientist to figure out social media…