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Every year, American cars hit a staggering 1 million large animals like deer and elk. In Californiaa roadkill hot spotvehicle collisions with animals cost more than $200 million every year.To address the problem, experts have long advocated for wildlife crossings that either span over high-speed freeways or burrow under them to help animals cross over safely. (The worlds largest wildlife crossing is set to open in 2026 in California, where it will help reconnect habitats bisected by the 10-lane 101 Freeway.) Other strategies involve reducing traffic or closing roads altogether at peak animal crossing times. Now, a new solution might be on the horizon, and it is mounted on the culprits themselves: cars.December 2024 marked the beginning of an ambitious experiment on the Japanese island of Amami Oshima. The island is known for its beautiful beaches, its handwoven silk, and a particularly dark-furred species of rabbit known as the Amami rabbit. Since 2004, the Amami rabbit has been an endangered species because logging and urban development have reduced its forest habitat, but also because the animals are often hit and killed by cars. According to Japans Ministry of the Environment, incidents involving Amami rabbits have increased for seven consecutive years, culminating in 147 deaths in 2023 alone.Three years ago, a team comprised of designers, government officials, researchers from three different universities in Japan, plus one automaker, set out to find a solution. The automaker? Nissan. The solution? A high-frequency alarm that is mounted at the front of the car to warn animals of its presence. The project, which was funded by Nissan, has been dubbed Animalert, and it is the brainchild of Tokyo-based ad agency studio TBWA\Hakuhodo.[Image: Nissan]An alert is bornThe story began while TBWA\Hakuhodo was working on a marketing campaign to promote the sound that Nissans EV cars make to alert pedestrians. (Stripped of the loud engines that come with their fuel-powered counterparts, electric vehicles are twice as likely to hit pedestrians.) Back in 2010, Nissan was one of the first automakers to introduce this kind of alert, which is known as a Vehicle Sound for Pedestrians, or VSP. But as Shuichiro Tsuchiya, project lead at TBWA\Hakuhodo, notes, not many people know they exist (hence the marketing campaign).[Image: Nissan]The team was brainstorming ideas when the news came out that Amami rabbits were being killed by cars at unprecedented rates. Almost immediately, they thought: could the vehicle sound for pedestrians be adapted to warn not just humans but animals, too?To find the answer, the team embarked on a journey that would end up taking more than three years. If the experiment proves successfuland enough automakers jump on the bandwagonthe technology could be expanded to work on other animals, and help reduce roadkill worldwide.A double-whammy marketing campaignAccording to Japans Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, more than 120,000 animals were killed on Japanese roads in 2022. The most commonly affected species were dogs and cats, closely followed by raccoon dogs, birds, and deer.Rabbits, in particularly those who live on Amami Oshima, were not on the list. Nonetheless, they were the perfect species for a pilot. Deer and other animals are scattered all over Japan, which would have made testing a new alarm with them difficult. We would need devices for hundreds of thousands of cars, Tsuchiya told me. The team only had one car at their disposal: a Nissan Sakura.Instead of launching a nationwide experiment, they narrowed down their focus on Amami Oshima, which covers about 275 square miles. The contained environment helped increase the teams chances of encountering rabbits. And becauselets not forgetthe project still doubled as a marketing campaign, it helped them weave a compelling story. That of a conscientious automaker working to save rabbits lives. Fine-tuning the sound From the very beginning, TBWA\Hakuhodo partnered with the Ministry of Environment and the Amami City Government, which helped speed up government approvals. They also partnered with three universities, particularly Masachika Tsuji from Okayama University of Sciences, who has previously studied sound as an animal deterrent. (Most recently, his team helped install speakers at three major airports in Japan, where each speaker emits high-frequency waves designed to deter birds from flying near the runways.)Together, the team worked to find the right range of high-frequency sounds. The exact frequency remains undisclosed, but the resulting sound is one that rabbits have never heard before because it doesnt exist in the natural world. Its almost like they encounter a ghost, Tsuchiya says.The team performed two initial tests. First, they ran tests at Nissans R&D lab, to determine the most suitable position for the speaker that would emit the sound. Then, they traveled the island, where they placed a speaker in a field where rabbits are known to live t gauge their initial response.The first experiment worked and the rabbits that were there left the field almost immediately. So, the team installed the speaker on the car, and took to the roads. Amami rabbits are nocturnal, so the team ran tests at night. So far, they have tested the speaker over the course of five nights, driving the car at 6 miles per hour between 10 p.m. and midnight. Each time they drove, they recorded the view in front of the car with a drive recorder, so they could analyze it later.The ripple effect So far, they have encountered about 100 rabbits. Tsuji, the professor, explains that the team also tested the sound on other animals including deer, wild boars, and birds. He says that the car-mounted alarm only lasts for a fleeting moment (as long as it takes for a car to pass by). That time is long enough to deter animals, but not long enough to harm them. And since sound gets absorbed by trees and grass, it only affects animals on or near the road. So far, the results are promising, but more research is necessary before they can make concrete claims or publish a paper. The team is yet to identify the exact radius within which Animalert would be most effective. (In the artificial conditions of a lab, they say it can go as far as 160 to 200 feet.) Also, they are yet to test the technology while driving at the local speed limit, which is about three times the speed they used during testing.For an animal alert like this to be effective, critical mass is key. Eventually, the team is hoping to develop various high-frequency sounds that can force other animals, like deer, to flee the road as a car approaches. These sounds could be switched on by the driver based on the animals that live in the area. Or more aspirationally, they could be automatically adjusted by the cars GPS.But for the technology to really make a dent and reduce roadkill worldwide, it would have to be implemented by as many automakers as possible. Like so many problems plaguing the world today, this is a problem that can only be addressed if competitors band together to solve the same goal.Still, Animalert is a promising start to a solution that could easily ripple across the industry. It would save many livesand many dollars, too.
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E-Commerce
As shoppers have turned to cheaper alternatives to beat inflation, retailers from CVS to Target and Walmart have invested heavily in their private-label brands over the past year, wrapping store-branded products in new design-forward packaging. A new report finds that retailers efforts have paid off. Private-label goods accounted for one in every four food and nonfood grocery products purchased in the U.S. last year, according to a report from the Private Label Manufacturers Association (PLMA), which also found that sales of private-label products in the U.S. topped $270 billion in 2024, a record. Once purposefully packaged with no frills to convey their low price, retailers’ private-label products have gone from generic discount off-brands to colorfully packaged, beloved brands in their own right designed to appeal to a wider consumer base and higher-income shoppers. [Photo: Target] Target, a leader in the private-label space, recently updated its Up&Up brand to more colorful packaging courtesy of the design agency Collins. It’s a brand that’s been around for a long time, has lots and lots of items, but it needed a refresh, Rick Gomez, Target’s chief commercial officer, said on the company’s most recent earnings call. And so we went in and invested in the brand, redesigned all the packaging graphics, took about 40% of the line and did product improvements, new fragrances, more sustainable packaging. To Gomez, it was a no-brainer. That’s what we think you need to do to keep brands contemporary and relevant, he said. [Image: Walmart] Competitors have taken notice. Late last year Walmart introduced Bettergoods, a private-label brand with bright, color-on-color packaging; product offerings include plant-based, organic, and gluten-free food meant to appeal to the high-income shoppers who’ve increasingly turned to Walmart since inflation spiked. Walmart said last year that high-income shoppers represented the majority of its share gains, telling Fast Company that the Bettergoods brand had a high repurchase rate. CVS’s private-label brand, Well Market, also launched last year and showed the trend extends to pharmacies too. [Image: CVS] While national brands accounted for more sales overall in 2024$1.3 trillion compared to more than $270 billion sold in store-brand products, according to the PLMA reportthe growth of private-label products has proven key for retailers aiming to lure customers into their stores. Sales of store-brand products in the U.S. rose nearly 4% from 2023 to 2024, while sales of national brands grew just 1% in the same time period, according to the report. Once viewed as cheap knockoffs, private-label brands have become mainstays for consumers and retailers alike.
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E-Commerce
Recent market swings are causing whiplash for everyday investors. Sarah Levy, CEO of the digital investment platform Betterment, offers her advice during this volatile moment. Amid the noise around our economy, Levy extends a clear-eyed vision for how to help everyone find their own unique approach to leadership, saving, and investing. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. The investment markets this year have been nutty so far, a booming Trump Bump followed by the so-called Trump Slump. Betterment’s clients must be concerned about this whipsawing back-and-forth, as we all are. Are there things you’re hearing from them? Are there things you’re telling them in this environment? In large part, our advice is stay the course. It can be a good moment when markets are volatile to think about your tax strategy and tax-loss harvesting. So sometimes there are opportunities. But beyond that, we generally believe that the right long-term allocations set you up to withstand volatility. Some of the long-term tenets about investing have been questioned a little bit of late because the market and indexes have become so concentrated in a handful of Big Tech names (Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Google). The indexes that maybe we’ve thought of as diversified investments may not be quite that way anymore. Do you have a philosophy about that one way or the other? Well, I think your point is absolutely right when you’re thinking about the S&P 500, for example. And I think the point of a diversified portfolio, which incorporates international, small cap, fixed income, really is an attempt to say, “Look, when you’re having these anomalies that sometimes are short-term and sometimes are permanent corrections, if your time horizon is long-term, that should correct itself. And the right allocations should withstand the test of time.” And that’s how we build our portfolios. But it takes steeling yourself against maybe the headlines, and the fear, and stuff that is prevalent around us. Our advice would be, don’t get sidetracked by the headlines. President Trump seems undeterred by the falling stock market, or even the idea of a recession, though he doesn’t use the R word, right? He talks about a little pain from tariff fallouts and whatnot. Do you get what the strategy is of the administration? I’ll say that I find myself confused sometimes. I think it is very difficult to get into the mind of the administration right now, so I wouldn’t want to prognosticate on that. I tend to focus on questions like, what are the things that directly are going to impact my business and on what time horizon? Some of this short-term stuff, I’m trying to ride it out. Are there any new products you’re considering given the market volatility? I saw that Goldman Sachs has offered clients a stable stock list to consider in case of a recession. Nothing like a market downturn to get folks focused on risk again, right? Well, the interesting thing for us is that we have investing and savings on the platform. And over the last couple of years, while rates have been high, introducing bond investing has been really like the next wave for us. When there’s volatility, we see more deposits flowing into cash, that’s still paying. We have a high-yield cash account paying 4% or 4.25%. That’s still a really good principal protected return. But we don’t have anything in particular. We’re not a shop that is asking people to check in daily on their investments because we just don’t think that breeds good behavior. While you ran Nickelodeon as COO, the mission was what’s good for kids is good for business. I’m curious how much responsibility you think business has, particularly today, to be part of the checks and balances in American society? That’s a perfect question for me because I’ve always been super private. I’m not big on social media. And I have always felt it was controversial. I didn’t want to speak out on everything because I’m not comfortable doing that. And because I want to separate myself personally from the brand. And coming from a founder-led organization where he really was the brand, I think speaking out with his opinion made a lot of sense because they were one and the same. And one of the distinctions I wanted to make, and it was controversial with the employees more so than anything else, was they wanted to hear from me. And I said, “Look, if it impacts the business, I’ll talk about it loud and proud. But if it’s not about the business, we serve customers with different viewpoints, and my perspective is, we need to be a platform that offers choice.” And so, if that choice includes crypto, for those who like it, great. And for those who don’t want it, also great. Same with socially responsible investing portfolios. We have a climate portfolio. There are people who love that, and there are people who want nothing to do with it. Great. Nobody is asking you to opt in or to opt out. We’re giving you a choice so that you can pave your own way. And when at Nickelodeon you said, “What’s good for kids is good for business,” you meant, “What’s good for kids right now,” as opposed to what might be good for them in the future. That was when we started the early days of Nickelodeon, and we did a lot of research around preschool content, for example. We always wanted to enrich the content with good lessons. There was always a lot of educational underpinning and educators helping us with it. We were not trying to just sell kids a toy. Now, what ended up happening is if they fell in love with those characters, and they learned to count, then maybe they’d want to buy the toy that counted with them there. So hence, why it was good for business to basically do the right thing. Now we talk about eating your vegetables versus eating candy. Taking Robinhood as an example, I think they’re serving you a piece of cake, and then you wake up the next day, you’re like, “Oh, I really need a diet.” We’re saying, “Eat your vegetables, have some spinach.” You may be choking it down, but you feel pretty good the next day. So what’s at stake for everyday investors right now? How should they think about the role of their portfolio in their lives, in their personal values, in their future? What we always tell people is, “Think about your money. Which is to say, “Okay, you should always have an emergency savings account that is three to six months relatively liquid assets,” so that if you get in a bind, which happens on a lot of occasions, that’s there for you. That’s an early first principles recommendation that our folks make. Think about retirement early. Take advantage of whether it’s an IRA, a Roth versus a traditional. There are different rules depending on where you are in your life journey, and where your income is, and where you can really get great advantages from government policies, in terms of tax advantages. To me, at the end of the day, be invested with whatever you can. Start early. And in these worlds, and this time of uncertainty, people with advisers do better because they have someone they can call who they trust, who prevents them from making mistakes. We believe deeply that human and digital go hand in hand and everyone should choose how much of each they want and they’re comfortable with.
Category:
E-Commerce
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