Yahoo! has built a much stronger brand as a provider of core consumer Internet services, like e-mail.
The ructions in the currency markets came despite official consumer price inflation figures for December showing a strengthening of core consumer price inflation from 1.2 per cent to 1.4 per cent.
And the rise in labor costs has been accompanied by an increase in core consumer prices, growing at an annual rate of 2.7percentt so far this year, up from 1.9percentt in 1999.
Unlike Munchery's core consumer offering, most of Munchery's lunch meals will be ready to eat, Munchery CEO Tri Tran (pictured above) told me.
During the stock market rallies since 1995, the rate of core consumer inflation, which excludes the cost of energy and food, was in decline.
"There's a distinct risk of alienating your core consumer when you tweak a sacred character, but at this point it's a risk they have to take," said Matt Britton, the managing partner of Mr. Youth, a New York brand consultant firm.
But, more importantly, they seem to have missed an important lesson about a core driver of consumer behavior.
It was apparent, too, in a Dolce & Gabbana show that was conservative even by the standards of a company whose designers are now well aware that their core consumers, men of the hip-hop generation, have probably mothballed their expensively wrecked denims, joined the work force and are in need of a good interview suit.
To this end, the company, grounded in an in-depth understanding of its core consumer segments, has enlisted its customers as marketers, offering discounts on products for group purchases.
But these jitters were partly calmed when core consumer prices registered a modest rise of 0.2% in January and 2.3% in the year to January, only slightly higher than the 2.2% increase in the year to December.
