Catch up on this week’s industry chatter with these click-worthy links:
- Branding site brandchannel spoke to Brian Kagen, CMO of Medifast, about the challenges facing weight-loss businesses as a growing number of products and programs flood the market. Kagen shared how the company manages consistency across its diverse business units, including direct sales arm Take Shape For Life, and hones in on the things that set Medifast apart from the competition.
- After Avon Products Inc. announced plans to relocate its corporate office to Britain, BBC News magazine took a look at the brand’s place in British culture and spoke to current Avon ladies about building a business in the digital age.
- Avon also made headlines for a very different reason this week, when federal authorities arrested a 38-year-old Bulgarian man for faking an $8 billion buyout of the cosmetics company back in May 2015. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission initially identified the suspect, Nedko Nedev, less than a month after he allegedly disrupted U.S. stock markets with a fraudulent filing indicating that Avon had received an $18.75 a share buyout bid from an unknown private equity firm, PTG Capital Partners.
- Talk Fusion’s new Video Chat, officially launched just weeks ago, earned a prestigious 2016 WebRTC Product of the Year Award from Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC), a global media company that has been recognizing technology innovators for more than two decades. WebRTC is the realm of programming that enables all kinds of real time communication—including audio, video and text—via web browsers. With Talk Fusion’s new Video Chat service, users can talk to anyone by simply sending them a link.
- Cindy Monroe, President and CEO of Thirty-One Gifts, the accessories and home organization company she founded in 2003, was chosen as the 2016 Enterprising Women Hall of Fame inductee by Enterprising Women magazine. During its annual celebration of the world’s top women entrepreneurs, the publication recognized Monroe’s efforts to advance women in business and Thirty-One’s charitable work on behalf of women and girls.