In a sweeping legal move, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced a significant settlement with some of the nation’s largest wireless service providers. The $10.22 million accord involves AT&T Mobility, LLC, Cricket Wireless, LLC, T-Mobile USA, Inc., Verizon Wireless, operating as Cellco Partnership, and TracFone Wireless, Inc. The settlement, announced yesterday, resolves investigations by state attorneys general into misleading and deceptive marketing tactics used by these telecom giants.
Investigations uncovered misleading practices including “unlimited” data promos with undisclosed limits, “free” phone offers with strings attached, obscured conditions for network-switching incentives, and distorted wireless plan comparisons. As detailed on the Texas Attorney General’s website, the investigation revealed companies were not entirely transparent about such offers.
The newly reached settlement requires that these companies halt any deceptive marketing strategies, making a shift to more transparent and honest advertising. This entails clearly and conspicuously disclosing any conditions or limitations associated with their services and promotions. According to Attorney General Paxton, “Businesses cannot lure consumers into deceptive deals through misleading marketing schemes.” He asserts in his statement that the obligations of this settlement will enforce a more straightforward approach in the industry.
Out of the total settlement, the State of Texas will pocket $1,152,078.23 to cover attorneys’ fees and costs resulting from the case. Paxton’s office has expressed its commitment to holding companies accountable for deceitful practices, emphasizing that these settlements are a step towards fairer consumer transactions within the state. In an era where digital connection is vital, transparency in how these services are offered and sold is paramount.
Consumers looking for details about the settlements can review the agreements through the provided links on the Texas Attorney General’s website for AT&T and Cricket Wireless, as well as those for T-Mobile, Verizon, and TracFone. These documents provide an insight into the commitments made by the companies to ensure future advertising is clear, accurate, and does not misguide consumers.
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Not all heroes wear capes, in fact many wear activewear. That’s why we designed our Women’s Multivitamin to support your general health and wellness with 23 essential vitamins and minerals—such as Vitamins A-E, Calcium, Folate, Iron and Zinc—in one convenient capsule. With the addition of a Total Health Blend containing antioxidant Cranberry, Acai, Pomegranate and Papaya, it does (almost) as many things as you do in a day.*
Product Dimensions : 4.71 x 2.28 x 2.28 inches; 4.16 Ounces
Date First Available : October 3, 2022
Manufacturer : ZURU
ASIN : B0BL2GM261
Country of Origin : USA
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FORMULATED BY EXPERTS: Created by our expert research and development team — who have decades of experience between them — our clever formulations leverage active ingredients at the intersection of holistic and traditional medicines. The result? Solutions that support your desired wellness outcomes.
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MAYFIELD, Ohio — If Mayor Brenda Bodnar’s state-of-the-village address given Monday (April 17) was a movie, Progressive Insurance would have played the lead role. That’s because Progressive, by far the village’s largest employee, and the owner of much of Mayfield’s property designated for business, has been doing things differently for more than three years in that its employees, following the pandemic, have not been mandated to return to work.
In her 25-minute address, Bodnar explained that while Progressive still employs thousands, those employees are not working daily in Mayfield and, thus, not paying to the village income taxes as they did prior to 2020.
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At the same time, the company is ramping up investments in media and innovation to help preserve elasticities and build unit demand by boosting consumers’ value perceptions of its products, executives said during the company’s third quarter sales and earnings call yesterday.
This strategy also would allow General Mills to hedge against additional possible price hikes, should they be necessary.
“We continue to forecast total input cost inflation of approximately 14 to 15% for the full year in fiscal 2023, including double-digit inflation in the second half. Looking beyond this fiscal year, we expect inflation to decelerate but remain above historical averages” in the mid-single-digit range for total input costs in fiscal 2024, CEO Jeff Harmening told investment analysts.
While commodity costs are coming down from their peaks, CFO Kofi Bruce attributed the ongoing inflation to continued labor pressure, energy costs and “other conversion costs that go into taking raw materials, creating value-added inputs that go into our products.”
Other harder to calculate but still potentially impactful costs contributing to inflation are added pressure from supply chain disruptions and product changes that allowed the company to continue to serve in a disrupted environment, Bruce said.
On that note, Harmening acknowledged General Mills service levels still are below its “normal range of 98 to 99%,” but it is improving and should reach 90% in the US by the end of the quarter.
Strategies for managing inflation
To manage rising inflation, Bruce said General Mills will “approach the fiscal year with an eye towards leveraging first, the productivity we get through our HMM cost savings programs. And to the extent that there is additional margin that we need to protect, we’ll use the other levers we have up to and including SRM.”
The company also will take into account inflation as it plans merchandising and marketing, said Jon Nudi, president of North American Retail at General Mills.
He explained that while General Mills is “getting back into merchandising in some categories that we couldn’t support from a service standpoint over the last few years,” it also knows that “ everyone in the industry is dealing with increased costs and inflation as well, so we expect to make sure that we’re rational from a merchandising standpoint as we move forward.”
Given that price points were up double digits across General Mills’ categories, the company is loath to pile on extra hikes, preferring instead to leverage price architecture and mix, Nudi said.
“We are much more sophisticated today than we were even a few years ago, and I think that’s helping us to make the right moves in the market, which is helping with the elasticities as well. So, it’s something we’ll stay focused on,” he explained.
Marketing, innovation investments keep consumers engaged
If price increases become necessary, General Mills is laying the foundation to justify them by investing in marketing and innovation – strategies that also should protect market share from private label if the economy drops into a recession.
“If we do run into a recessionary period, historically, we’ve held up pretty well. Obviously, private label does well during that period, but we’ve held our own and hold share relatively flat. It is really the third and fourth tier players in categories that seem to get hit the hardest from a share staple,” Nudi said.
General Mills’ ability to hold its own against private label “is not really an accident,” but rather can be attributed to its investment in consumer spending, Harmening said.
“We’ve been investing in marketing. And so, you see, over the last four years, our compound annual rate of growth and marketing spend is up, I think, about 4% or 5%” to keep pace with pound growth if not sales growth, Harmening said.
Explaining that “healthy investments in brands is critical for long-term growth,” Harmening said General Mill is investing behind “compelling, digitally enabled, high ROI campaigns, such as Cheerios’ heart health, 20% More Meat news on Blue Buffalo’s Wilderness line and our latest global Haagen-Dazs campaign.”
Innovation reinforces elasticities
General Mills also is investing in innovation to keep consumers engaged with brands and drive sales.
“Over the past three years, we’ve kept up our innovation pressure, and our new product retail sales have been 30% higher than the category average. We are continuing that focus with our fiscal 2023 innovation,” Harmening said.
As examples, he pointed to the company’s recent launch of mini versions of its Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Reese’s Puffs and Trix.
Many of these strategies already are paying off for General Mills, which reported net sales of $5.1b – a 13% increase – in its third quarter, along with a 16% increase in organic net sales. Operating profit also was up 20% in constant currency and earnings per share were up 17%.
“With stronger and more broad-based business momentum, we have raised our guidance and now expect organic net sales to increase 10 to 11%, adjusted operating profit to grow 7 to 8% in constant currency, and adjusted diluted earnings per share to grow 8 to 9% in constant currency,” Kofi said.
He added: “These profit and EPS ranges include a three-point headwind from divestitures and an estimated one-point headwind from the ice cream recall.”
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Not all heroes wear capes, in fact many wear activewear. That’s why we designed our Women’s Multivitamin to support your general health and wellness with 23 essential vitamins and minerals—such as Vitamins A-E, Calcium, Folate, Iron and Zinc—in one convenient capsule. With the addition of a Total Health Blend containing antioxidant Cranberry, Acai, Pomegranate and Papaya, it does (almost) as many things as you do in a day.*
Product Dimensions : 4.65 x 2.36 x 5.04 inches; 10.23 Ounces
Date First Available : August 20, 2022
Manufacturer : ZURU
ASIN : B0BB9T88BD
Country of Origin : USA
THE MULTIS: These Multivitamins are our multi-taskers. Much like you, they do way more than one thing at a time, with the essential vitamins and minerals you need to feel like your best self.
THE POWER OF HABIT: At Health By Habit we know maintaining your health is hard enough, so we don’t overcomplicate it. We’re democratizing wellness by making products that are affordable, accessible and straight-forward. That do what they say on the label.
FORMULATED BY EXPERTS: Created by our expert research and development team — who have decades of experience between them — our clever formulations leverage active ingredients at the intersection of holistic and traditional medicines. The result? Solutions that support your desired wellness outcomes.
MAKING IT A HABIT: Health By Habit vitamins are housed in fun, color-coded bottles you’ll want to show off (rather than stash away out of sight and forget about). Routine doesn’t have to be boring — and neither does taking your vitamins.
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