🛞 “Restaurants sell Tires” — Michelin’s Guide’s wild history. Meta’s AI celebs. ExxonMobil’s OPEC-killer.
Oct 9, 2023
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Michelin Guide expands to hotels, Meta launches AI celebrity chatbots, and ExxonMobil plans major acquisition. Michelin's guide history, from tires to charging for the guide. Connection between Michelin guide and tire sales, and ExxonMobil's potential impact on the oil industry. ExxonMobil's claims of net zero while focusing on oil drilling. Michelin guide boosts restaurant sales, corrections, birthday shoutouts, and promotions.
The Michelin Guide's expansion into reviewing hotels showcases the enduring marketing success of the guidebook, which not only impacts the culinary world but also the tire industry.
ExxonMobil's potential acquisition of Pioneer would make it a major oil-producing powerhouse, but raises questions about its commitment to green initiatives.
Deep dives
Michelin's Expansion to Hotels
The Michelin Restaurant Guide, known for its prestigious ratings, is now expanding to review hotels as well. Michelin, the tire company behind the guide, has a fascinating history of using the guidebook to promote their tires. With only 143 restaurants worldwide holding the coveted three-star rating, the average price per person at these establishments is around $357. Now, Michelin is venturing into the hotel industry by offering three-star ratings for the best hotels. This move showcases the enduring marketing success of the Michelin Guide, which continues to sell millions of copies annually, and its impact on both the culinary world and the tire industry.
ExxonMobil's Ambitious Acquisition
ExxonMobil, the major oil conglomerate, is reportedly planning its largest acquisition since its merger with Mobil in 1998. The target of this acquisition is Pioneer, an oil company producing 700,000 barrels per day in West Texas. If successful, this would make ExxonMobil a powerhouse with an oil production of 4.5 million barrels per day, surpassing all OPEC countries except Saudi Arabia. However, this move raises questions about ExxonMobil's commitment to green initiatives, as it significantly outpaces its investments in low-carbon technologies. While other tech disruptors often dominate emerging industries, AI's scale requires substantial resources, and meta's recent AI event showcases the advantage of big companies in developing and marketing AI technologies.
Meta's Celeb-based AI Assistants
Meta (formerly Facebook) unveiled its latest AI technology, allowing users to interact with AI assistants that take the form of 26 popular celebrities and influencers like Snoop Dogg and Tom Brady. These AI bots not only respond through text or voice but also have a physical form that can be seen, heard, and interacted with through various meta devices. Meta's significant investment in AI, which included paying celebrities large sums to create their virtual versions, reinforces the trend that big companies like Microsoft, Google, and meta hold a significant advantage in the AI field due to the enormous resources required to develop and scale AI technology. However, the introduction of human-like AI companions raises the question of privacy and the role of AI in society.
The Michelin Guide is expanding from restaurants to hotels — This tire company (Michilin) getting into travel guides is one of the great stories of marketing history.
To make AI happen, Meta launched 26 celebrity-based chatbots who look and interact like real people — Zuck paid the celebs millions, proving that AI fortunes favor the huge.
And ExxonMobil is reportedly planning its biggest acquisition since… Exxon acquired Mobil — The $60B deal would make ExxonMobil the 4th biggest oil-producing (country) on Earth.