Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Playbook for Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) Companies

Companies, and specifically brands, that are able to establish direct and meaningful relationships with their target consumers can maximize their opportunity to gain a competitive advantage against companies who are not able to establish these types of relationships. Some industries rely heavily on product branding, create products that are frequently utilized in the daily lives of consumers, and compete in categories with fixed growth. These companies are particularly susceptible to being impacted, both positively and negatively, by building relationships with their consumers. Categories with fixed growth, or narrow categories, present challenges for marketers in terms of redefining the concept of market share and competing for a piece of a much smaller pie. Doug Anderson, Nielsen Senior Vice President (SVP), research & development said “Growth will only come from increasing share against competition”. (“Nielsen: Marketing \u27Gravy Train\u27 to Derail by 2020”) One such industry is Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG). CPG companies often spend a significant amount of time and resources collecting information about their consumers, but they have a need to develop meaningful ways to utilize the information to both provide value to these consumers, and provide the company with a positive business impact. Depending on the product’s life cycle stage, companies can potentially use consumer data to drive awareness, trial, conversion, loyalty, and/or advocacy of the brand or company. Over time, consumers have also shown a proactive desire to establish relationships with the brands that they are interested in, or already use, by exhibiting behaviors that include visiting company and brand web sites, joining user groups and forums, completing registration forms with personal contact information, and opting in to receive future communications from the brand or company. Web 2.0 is also influencing how companies build relationships with consumers. Consumers also engage with brands by: interacting with brands on social network sites such as Facebook fan pages and providing ratings and /or reviews about products on sites like Amazon.com. The consumer incentives for providing his/her information and agreeing to receive communications from these companies and brands can include: information relevant to the consumer based on past historical information, and free or discounted products or services based on follow up actions taken by the consumers. These follow up actions could be: redeeming a coupon, submitting a rebate, and/or earning points by purchasing products that can be redeemed for something of value at a later time. Customer Relationship Management (CRM), also known as Consumer Relationship Management (CRM), in the CPG industry, is an area that can be investigated to bridge the gap between companies and consumers, who both have a stake in the relationship. “CRM is a business strategy aimed at understanding, anticipating and responding to the needs of a company\u27s current and potential consumers in order to grow the relationship value”. (“CRM Defined and Understood”) This project will investigate the ways in which CRM can achieve business benefits using people, processes, and technology in a changing landscape using communication vehicles or touch points, such as e-mail, direct mail and text messages, to consumers across the offline, online, and mobile spaces. This project will focus on how CRM has been, and will continue to be, impacted by Web 2.0. The deliverable of this project will be a customizable CRM playbook for CPG companies to utilize. This toolkit will contain best practices, processes, and software that can be applied in a combination of ways to meet various CPG companies’ and brands’ needs. The best practices section of the playbook will include how to define appropriate CRM-specific objectives, goals, strategies, tactics, and measures for CPG companies and brands. Strategies and tactics include extending relationships with consumers in the social media and mobile spaces. The playbook will define the governance of consumer data based on business rules defined by the company and the standard processes. E-mail deployment software is an example of how technology will be highlighted in the toolkit. Success will be measured in various ways. As a strategic goal, companies should strive to maximize the utilization of data as a company asset and drive toward a higher degree of consumer segmentation and personalized communications. At a tactical level, companies can measure CRM program success though key performance indicators (KPIs) such as open rates, click through rates, and click-to-open rates of outbound e-mail communications. These are some of many vehicles used to build relationships with consumers

Lunar lander conceptual design

This paper is a first look at the problems of building a lunar lander to support a small lunar surface base. A series of trade studies was performed to define the lander. The initial trades concerned choosing number of stages, payload mass, parking orbit altitude, and propellant type. Other important trades and issues included plane change capability, propellant loading and maintenance location, and reusability considerations. Given a rough baseline, the systems were then reviewed. A conceptual design was then produced. The process was carried through only one iteration. Many more iterations are needed. A transportation system using reusable, aerobraked orbital transfer vehicles (OTV's) is assumed. These OTV's are assumed to be based and maintained at a low Earth orbit (LEO) space station, optimized for transportation functions. Single- and two-stage OTV stacks are considered. The OTV's make the translunar injection (TLI), lunar orbit insertion (LOI), and trans-Earth injection (TEI) burns, as well as midcourse and perigee raise maneuvers

Metastatic group 3 medulloblastoma is driven by PRUNE1 targeting NME1-TGF-β-OTX2-SNAIL via PTEN inhibition.

Genetic modifications during development of paediatric groups 3 and 4 medulloblastoma are responsible for their highly metastatic properties and poor patient survival rates. PRUNE1 is highly expressed in metastatic medulloblastoma group 3, which is characterized by TGF-β signalling activation, c-MYC amplification, and OTX2 expression. We describe the process of activation of the PRUNE1 signalling pathway that includes its binding to NME1, TGF-β activation, OTX2 upregulation, SNAIL (SNAI1) upregulation, and PTEN inhibition. The newly identified small molecule pyrimido-pyrimidine derivative AA7.1 enhances PRUNE1 degradation, inhibits this activation network, and augments PTEN expression. Both AA7.1 and a competitive permeable peptide that impairs PRUNE1/NME1 complex formation, impair tumour growth and metastatic dissemination in orthotopic xenograft models with a metastatic medulloblastoma group 3 cell line (D425-Med cells). Using whole exome sequencing technology in metastatic medulloblastoma primary tumour cells, we also define 23 common 'non-synonymous homozygous' deleterious gene variants as part of the protein molecular network of relevance for metastatic processes. This PRUNE1/TGF-β/OTX2/PTEN axis, together with the medulloblastoma-driver mutations, is of relevance for future rational and targeted therapies for metastatic medulloblastoma group 3

Immunization with Radiation-Attenuated Plasmodium berghei Sporozoites Induces Liver cCD8α+DC that Activate CD8+T Cells against Liver-Stage Malaria

Immunization with radiation (γ)-attenuated Plasmodia sporozoites (γ-spz) confers sterile and long-lasting immunity against malaria liver-stage infection. In the P. berghei γ-spz model, protection is linked to liver CD8+ T cells that express an effector/memory (TEM) phenotype, (CD44hiCD45RBloCD62Llo ), and produce IFN-γ. However, neither the antigen presenting cells (APC) that activate these CD8+ TEM cells nor the site of their induction have been fully investigated. Because conventional (c)CD8α+ DC (a subset of CD11c+ DC) are considered the major inducers of CD8+ T cells, in this study we focused primarily on cCD8α+ DC from livers of mice immunized with Pb γ-spz and asked whether the cCD8α+ DC might be involved in the activation of CD8+ TEM cells. We demonstrate that multiple exposures of mice to Pb γ-spz lead to a progressive and nearly concurrent accumulation in the liver but not the spleen of both the CD11c+NK1.1− DC and CD8+ TEM cells. Upon adoptive transfer, liver CD11c+NK1.1− DC from Pb γ-spz-immunized mice induced protective immunity against sporozoite challenge. Moreover, in an in vitro system, liver cCD8α+ DC induced naïve CD8+ T cells to express the CD8+ TEM phenotype and to secrete IFN-γ. The in vitro induction of functional CD8+ TEM cells by cCD8α+ DC was inhibited by anti-MHC class I and anti-IL-12 mAbs. These data suggest that liver cCD8α+ DC present liver-stage antigens to activate CD8+ TEM cells, the pre-eminent effectors against pre-erythrocytic malaria. These results provide important implications towards a design of anti-malaria vaccines

Primary glomus tumour of the pituitary gland: diagnostic challenges of a rare and potentially aggressive neoplasm

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2020-06-05, rev-recd 2020-08-14, accepted 2020-08-24, registration 2020-09-02, pub-electronic 2020-09-12, online 2020-09-12, pub-print 2021-05Publication status: PublishedFunder: University of ManchesterAbstract: Primary non-neuroendocrine tumours of the pituitary gland and sella are rare lesions often challenging to diagnose. We describe two cases of clinically aggressive primary glomus tumour of the pituitary gland. The lesions occurred in a 63-year-old male and a 30-year-old female who presented with headache, blurred vision and hypopituitarism. Neuroimaging demonstrated large sellar and suprasellar tumours invading the surrounding structures. Histologically, the lesions were characterised by angiocentric sheets and nests of atypical cells that expressed vimentin, smooth muscle actin and CD34. Perivascular deposition of collagen IV was also a feature. Case 2 expressed synaptophysin. INI-1 (SMARCB1) expression was preserved. Both lesions were mitotically active and demonstrated a Ki-67 labelling index of 30%. Next-generation sequencing performed in case 1 showed no mutations in the reading frame of 37 commonly mutated oncogenes, including BRAF and KRAS. Four pituitary glomus tumours have previously been reported, none of which showed features of malignant glomus tumour. Similar to our two patients, three previous examples displayed aggressive behaviour

HOXB7 expression by myeloma cells regulates their pro-angiogenic properties in multiple myeloma patients

The deregulation of the homeobox genes as homeoboxB (HOXB)-7 has been previously associated to tumor progression and angiogenesis; here we investigated the potential role of HOXB7 in the pro-angiogenic properties of multiple myeloma (MM) cells. We found that HOXB7 was expressed in 10 out of 22 MM patients analyzed at the diagnosis related to high bone marrow angiogenesis and overexpressed in about 40% of myeloma cell lines compared with normal plasma cells. Enforced HOXB7 expression in MM cells by a lentiviral vector significantly modified their transcriptional and angiogenic profile, checked by combined microarray and angiogenesis PCR analyses, upregulating VEGFA, FGF2, MMP2, WNT5a and PDGFA and downregulating thrombospoindin-2. The pro- and anti-angiogenic HOXB7-related gene signature was also validated in a large independent dataset of MM patients. Accordingly, MM-induced vessel formation was significantly increased by HOXB7 overexpression both in vitro angiogenic and chorioallantoic membrane assays, as well as the HOXB7 silencing by small interfering RNA inhibited the production of angiogenic factors, and the pro-angiogenic properties of MM cells. Finally, in SCID-NOD mice we confirmed that HOXB7 overexpression by MM cells stimulated tumor growth, increased MM-associated angiogenesis and the expression of pro-angiogenic genes by microarray analysis supporting the critical role of HOXB7 in the angiogenic switch in M