Fortunes, Feb 3, 2014 (I)

choi

Anne Vandermey, The Big Rollout. From the billionaire couple who made pomegranates popular comes the next supermarket: the mandarin. One problem--there’s competition.
money.cnn.com/2014/01/16/news/companies/halos-roll-global.pr.fortune/index.html

Excerpt in the window of print: Despite the sleek ads and the glamorous rollout (including a $400,000 launch party at New Orleans' House of Blues), Roll Global's path to mandarin domination has been troubled.

Note:
(a) mandarin orange
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_orange
(Citrus reticulata; According to molecular studies, the mandarin, the citron, the pomelo, and the papeda were the ancestors of all other citrus species and their varieties; section 1 Varieties: Satsuma [the English name; “In Japan, it is known as mikan or formally unshu mikan (温州蜜柑, unshū mikan], etc)

(b) In print, this is a concise article.
(i) Online these consecutive paragraphs:

“In a sleek white conference room, Lynda Resnick, one half of the billionaire couple behind Roll Global, presided over the meeting. Resnick, 71, has big hair, big jewelry, and the outsize personality of a standup comedian. She counts Arianna Huffington and Walter Isaacson as close personal friends. Her house, a sprawling 25,000-square-foot mansion on Sunset Boulevard, has more than 100 citrus trees planted in the front yard, behind an ornate wrought iron gate. In short, for an agriculture magnate, she's not your typical farmer.

“‘That's my Clem!’ Resnick exclaims, as an executive brings out a mockup of the packaging, featuring a smiling clementine mascot. ‘I thought we had a better name besides Clem.’

“‘Little Angel?’ someone offers.

“‘I just wish it was cuter,"’ Resnick replies.

“‘Unfortunately Mandy and Dandy are taken,’ says one exec.

“‘God,’ Resnick deadpans. ‘What a crushing blow.’

“‘Well, Mandy like mandarin,’ he says.

“‘Not fruit names, he's a little guy,’ Resnick muses. ‘I want to play on “angel,” like Angie but not terrible. It's a boy. How do I know that? We've talked.’

“Resnick has credibility as a brand whisperer. She's the marketing guru behind Teleflora's Flowers in a Gift concept and the Franklin Mint's hyperrealistic tchotchkes. Resnick and her team have a history of turning commodity items into lucrative premium products -- most famously she catapulted pomegranates from obscurity into supermarkets everywhere with POM Wonderful, the juice that helped launch the superfood craze. No matter that its ads with slogans including ‘Cheat death’ and ‘Forever young’ eventually earned the company censure from the Federal Trade Commission for overstating its health benefits. The company's Fiji Water successfully sells for nearly three times the price of average supermarket bottled water. And its top-grossing product, Wonderful Pistachios, launched an all-out ad blitz that propelled the oddball nut from relative obscurity to what the company's market data show is now the ninth bestselling salty snack food. You may have seen the Super Bowl commercial last year featuring Korean pop sensation Psy, of ‘Gangnam Style’ fame, riding a pistachio with the legs of a Rockette. This year's Wonderful Pistachios Super Bowl commercial will star Stephen Colbert. Roll Global says the brand now brings in nearly $1 billion in revenue.

“The company hopes the ascendance of mandarins will follow a similar story line. Just 10 years ago, few people outside the East Coast had ever tried the sweet, diminutive orange. Today, more than half of all American households buy mandarins, which cost considerably more than other citrus. In Wal-Mart's central and western regions, clementines were the third bestselling fruit (after bananas and strawberries). But Roll Global can claim only partial credit for the mandarin's induction into the mainstream.

(ii) become in print:

“Lynda Resnick, one half of the billionaire couple behind Roll Global, is a brand whisperer--the marketing guru behind Teleflora's Flowers in a Gift concept and the Franklin Mint's hyperrealistic tchotchkes. Their challenge with Halos is unique: Between the Cuties breakup and the time the ripened fruit hit store shelves, Resnick and her team had six months to launch the new mandarin brand. They came up with the name in just a few hours. They are now competing against the best marketers in the business--themselves. Just 10 years ago, few people outside of the West [yes, West] Coast had ever tried mandarins. Today, in part because of the Resnicks’ push, the company says more than half of all American households buy the small citrus [infrequently, I dare say].

(c) For Lynda Resnick, see Stewart Resnick
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart_Resnick
(has been married to Lynda Resnick since 1973)
(i) The surname Resnick is “Germanized or Americanized spelling of Jewish Reznik.”
(ii) The Jewish (Ashkenazic) surname Reznik is “from Yiddish reznik (of Slavic origin).”
Dictionary of American Family Names, by Oxford University Press.
(iii) Czech English dictionary:
řezník (noun masculine): “butcher”
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/řezník

choi

Vivienne Walt, Antipathy for the Devil. Eugene Kaspersky made billions against the forces of cyber-evil, Now he’s living the high life.  
money.cnn.com/2014/01/16/technology/eugene-kaspersky.pr.fortune/
("One night last April, 500 cells at the Montgomery County Jail in Maryland clicked open. No convicts wandered out, and authorities brushed off the incident as a simple computer glitch. But across the globe in Moscow, the security breach sent chills through a Russian billionaire -- Eugene Kaspersky, CEO of Kaspersky Lab, one of the world's biggest computer-security companies. To Kaspersky, the malfunction proved his years of warnings: that increasingly digitized infrastructure is vulnerable to attack" which might be unfounded)

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest.
(b) What is intriguing is happenstance in Maryland jail.
(c) Dan Morse, Glitch Unlocks Montgomery County Jail Doors. Washington Post, Apr 27, 2013
www.washingtonpost.com/local/mal ... 2ed3cc27_story.html
(Twice in an April week: “Only cell-door locks opened, Wallenstein said. No housing unit doors or hallway doors were affected, he [Arthur Wallenstein, director of the county’s Department of Correction and Rehabilitation] said. Beyond those perimeters, inmates trying to leave would still have to get past corrections officers and a fence. Wallenstein said no inmates left their cells”)