A discussion about how ads are creating advertising buzz. All that and more over the next hour. First, headlines from my radio cohost carol massar. I love the devil baby. Lets get to headlines. Jc plan jcpenney is planning to a lemonade about 2000 jobs to help save 65 million a year. The closings represent about 3 jcpenney stores. The dell cuts would be about 2 of its workforce. Bank of america posted quarterly profits that more than quadrupled, beating wall street estimates. Fourth quarter net income rose to 3. 44 billion from just 732 732 million a year earlier. The biggest railroad in the eastern u. S. Reported Fourth Quarter profit that missed estimates for the first time in two years. This as coal shipments declined. Net income slid more than 5 . We will be talking to the cfo of csx tomorrow. Our senior markets correspondent julie hyman joins us with more on jcpenney, the news that the company is going to be shattering 33 stores and laying off 2000 people. Yet the stock moved higher as that news hit the tape. Is this another may be of incremental step in the right direction in trying to change things at jcpenney . That is the question that investors are trying to answer at this point. To put these closures in perspective, it is about 3 of the companys stores. About 2 of its workforce. Of the 33 stores being closed, two of them are actually companyowned. The real estate is owned by the company. A lot of them are smaller format stores, which didnt necessarily get the whole ron johnson, the former ceo, the revamped he had done. Speaking of that, there was another announcement today or news that we learned about, which is that the company is reinstating sales commissions for about three thousands of its staff. That was another change that had been made underrun johnson. The commissions had been illuminated. Many of the other changes he had made have artie been changed back. Coupons were gotten rid of, and now they have come back. Registers for a while, you would go into a jcpenney, and you wouldnt find one of those. Some of the brands he had gotten rid of that customers were really loyal loyal to, some of those came back. There is this sort of process, this undoing of the things that ron johnson had done. Some of that appears to be beginning to bear fruit. The company, during the Holiday Season and in recent months, has seen some better numbers on the samestore sales front. You notice that jcpenney this is a company that was doing nearly 18 billion worth of sales in 2010. I think we are down to around 13. 5 billion dollars in sales. Thanks very much, julie hyman. Jcpenney, shuddering 33 stores and announcing the layoffs of 2000 employees. Not to something a little bit more tasty. Maple bacon, smoked ham, pork chop, sausages. My next guest knows all about the other white meat. Larry pope is the chief executive of Smithfield Foods. Chinas Shuanghui International paid nearly 5 billion for Smithfield Foods, and the deal closed in september. Larry, i want to begin what does pork have to do with nascar racing . That is an easy question. Go ahead. People who sit in the stands and people who follow racing are our customers. So, it is a way to communicate directly to our customer by Customer Loyalty between the fans and who sponsors the car. What are you doing . I know this has to do with the Richard Petty motorsports. The icon of the industry. Anybody who has followed motorsports knows who Richard Petty is. We just signed a new threeyear deal with him, increasing our sponsorship of the famous blue 43 car. We think it is a tremendous way to talk to our customers. Your customers are one base, but youve also got new owners. You have customers obviously in china. When you decided to continue this association with nascar, did you have to bring over the chinese executives and take them to a race to show them what this is all about . They has been to a race. It was an eyeopening experience for them to see nascar. Where was this . This happen to be in richmond, virginia. They enjoyed it. They are very supportive of it, anything that helps the marketing and brand and build brand loyalty our chinese partners and chinese owners now are trying to learn a lot about branding, and we are trying to show them how you build a brand in america. As i described, the deal closed at the end of september. What kind of changes have you seen . None at this point. The opportunity is all about growth. The ability to sell u. S. Pork into the Chinese Market, improve food safety in that country, and it is an export program. It is the inverse of war this country has been going for 20 years. It is bringing jobs into this country. Do you have any estimate about how many hams or how much smoked bacon, any numbers that you can share . We are still working through that with them. Chinas pork market is six times the size of the United States. It has a pork deficit. The opportunities there, we supply about 1. 5 of their domestic consumption we think that can go to 2 3 . We are going to be the recipient of that benefit. Are there specific products that you are going to be designing for the Chinese Market . They want every cut of meat we have. They love pork in that country. It is their primary protein. Over 60 of all the protein they eat. It is the ability to ship everything we have, largely our fresh cuts, but we will further develop our packaged meats inside the country. You talk about the idea of giving them what they want. Will that affect prices . In the United States . Not in any significant way. It is a supply and demand business. You will have the normal upand down when the supply and demand are out of balance. It is really an opportunity for the industry to grow. Pork in this country has not been growing for some years. The pork industry beyond smithfield sees this as a whole new market that the u. S. Has had limited at 62 limited access to. Half of all the pork in china. Beef versus pork . In the United States, can you track pork consumption based on the rise and fall in price of beef . They track to one another. Obviously, they are substitutes. Beef, pork, and chicken are substitutes. If trades are the top. Chicken trades at the bottom. Work trades in between. There is a relative price point between the three. As chicken goes down, pork goes down with it. Is that something that is taking place in the United States . Cattle prices have pulled everybodys prices up. Most people know that they are paying more for all their protein. That is largely a green issue in this country. When you announced that you were going to do the deal with shuanghui in china, did you expect the vocal debate about a companys change of ownership . Were you surprised . I will have to tell you i was actually i thought it would be worse than it was. Most people have some concern about china taking over america. That was the visceral response. I think, as you look at this in a more levelheaded way, people see that this is good for america. This is opportunity. There are opportunities for this country to xl and what it does ato excel what it does best, which is agriculture. Did you have to win over any large shareholders . They have a 30 premium on the stock price. That was a good an easy chance. Will there be any big expansion in the United States, or will it be more geared towards the overseas market . The expansion of manufacturing could be in the United States. I think you will see expansion in this country. That means jobs in the country . That does mean jobs. Chinese Companies Want to get into the u. S. Markets. Do you have any advice for them on how to do it . I guess it is a market quite a bit different from theirs. We are a mature market in the United States. China is an emerging market, which means demand is exploding forward. I think there is a complete misunderstanding in terms of the two markets. We operate in a very mature market with sophisticated buyers and sophisticated sellers. They deal largely in an inefficient market. They need to trust their u. S. Management team and understand that it has got to be a learning process. What works in china wont work in the United States. What works in the United States doesnt really work in china. We will keep you working. Weve got more with larry pope, the chief executive of Smithfield Foods. We also want to get his insight on some recent recalls of poultry. Also, some closures of chicken plants related to contamination. We are going to find out, how safe is your chicken . Details from a new National Study next on taking stock. . A fragile food supply, problems with poultry the safety of chicken in the u. S. Food chain. This week, tyson foods recalled more than 30,000 30,000 pounds of poultry because of possible salmonella contamination. In 2013, two cases of salmonella were linked to foster farms. Is chicken safe to eat, and what role does the usdas food safety and Inspection Service play . Consumer reports sets out to answer that question in a recent study called the high cost of cheap chicken. Im joined by Smithfield Foods chief executive larry pope. We are putting some poultry together with the port. We will get to you in a second. Why did you do this report . We have been concerned for some time about the safety of chicken. It probably has the most diseasecausing bacteria of any of the foods that we commonly eat. We checked periodically to see what the situation is. You did check, and you took various samples, and you check for salmonella . What did you find . We found about 14 of all samples had salmonella, which is not good odds. Every six or seven times you have chicken, youre going to find salmonella. Worse than that, just about every piece of chicken you buy is going to have something in it that could make you sick. What are those other somethings . E. Coli, other diseases. We checked for six disease causing bacteria. More than half of the samples have something . More than 90 have something. Half of those bugs qualify is what you might call a superbug. What is a superbug . Something that is resistant to more than three classes of antibiotics. If it makes you sick, it is going to be very hard to find a cure. Larry pope, come in on the topic of food safety. You cant have any problems with your food. Otherwise, it damages the brand and sickens or customers. Sure. I am in the pork industry. I am not speaking for the poultry industry in any way. We take food safety, we all take food safety very seriously. We all know we are in a zero tolerance world. We know we have to take great pains in our plans to make sure that what we served consumers something they can eat, and they are not going to have a problem. Talk about zerotolerance. The rules, at least as far as i understand it, are that a recall for food is voluntary, something that the company does not have to do, but in the case of tysons food, they decided they are going to recall that 33,000 pounds of chicken. The usda has far from zero chicken. Nella in in fact, it is perfectly legal. There is not even any standard at all. They have a lacks standard of 7. 5 for whole chickens, but for breasts and legs, it is just fine to have salmonella in the chicken, as long as you are operating your plant along what they call sanitary rules. What about all the labeling that goes into the food, particularly into the labeling of chicken . Does that matter . For the chicken that is raised without antibiotics and that is organic, that did have a slightly better record in terms of antibiotic resistance, even though overall it was really hard to distinguish it in terms of whether there were bugs. The bugs were not quite as terrible. Not quite as vicious. Not quite as vicious. What are some of the ways that individuals can combat this . You say it is the nature of the situation. How about making sure that you cook it or that your hands are washed and taking all the regular precautions . Consumers are being asked to be Something Like operating a level three biohazard lab. That is really what you have to do. You have to be extremely careful. You must always cook the chicken thoroughly, use a meat thermometer, cook it to 100 65 degrees, but most of the contamination people get sick from using the knife on the chicken and then using it on your lettuce without watching it washing it. Crosscontamination in the refrigerator, kitchen counter, if it drifts in your shopping bags. You have to be extremely careful to keep your chicken separate from everything else. May be separate from the spiral cut ham. Once it is cooked, you can go ahead and do that. You dont have to worry about anything else. Most in the industry always indicate to the consumer she makes the point very clearly your grandmother knew what she was talking about when she said, wash your hands, and cook your meat. The final action you take is to kill the bacteria. Kill it at 165 degrees. It is a simple solution. It works. Unfortunately, some people do not take that kind of precaution. She is right about cross contamination. I feel safe going out and eating with both of you. Thank you very much, larry pope, chief executive of Smithfield Foods. Also, my thanks to jeanne holl erman. Still ahead, the ups and the downs of investing in biotechnology companies. I will stick with the chief Financial Officer of a Biotech Company working on treatments for what are called orphan diseases. They are mostly ignored by big pharma companies, but they can produce some big profits. This is taking stock on bloomberg. Investing in biotechnology. You can call it an inexact science. Take chelsea therapeutics for example, shares plunging last week, but soaring today after the fda recommended approval of its bloodpressure drug. Other shares shot up last week after the company said its drug for Liver Disease performed well in a clinical trial. The shares of ptc therapeutics, of about 40 in the last week. The company is working on one drug for muscular dystrophy. Joining me from San Francisco is the chief Financial Officer of ptc therapeutics, shane colfax. Tell us about the super bowl of biotechnology taking place right now in San Francisco. Thanks, pimm. Thank you for hosting us. We are out of the j. P. Morgan conference, the Healthcare Conference in San Francisco, and like you said, this is like the super bowl of biotech going on right now. Effectively, anyone in the world in healthcare is in San Francisco this week. You are talking about thousands of individuals, trying to make deals, trying to learn things. What would they learn if they asked you, ptc therapeutics, about your treatment for muscular dystrophy . What is it . It is one of the orphan genetic diseases, one of these devastating diseases that affects young boys. This is one of the main focuses of our lead asset, where these boys who cannot otherwise produce a specific protein, our drug is potentially a therapy that will help change the course of these diseases for these boys by effectively enabling them to produce the protein that they cant otherwise produce. What classifies a drug as an orphan drug . An orphan drug is for an orphan disease, and orphan is defined as a prevalence of less than 200,000 potential patients. One of these diseases where historically it was probably underserved, but now today, a lot of companies are focused on orphan or even altraorphan diseases ultraorphan diseases. Where is this new drug in the pipeline . We are currently in the final Clinical Study for duchenne muscular dystrophy. We are enrolled in a 220patient study globally. This is the largest study ever conducted for duchenne muscular dystrophy. We will be fully enrolled in that study this summer, and actually the outcome from the study it is a oneyear study about a year later, we will have the data. How many other orphan drugs are you working on at ptc . It is a great question. It is the focus of our company. We are really focused on these rare, devastating disorders that affect children, often. Our lead asset has potential with a number of these orphan disorders, where the cause is what is called a nonsense mutation. Weve got to leave it there, this is taking stock on bloomberg. This is taking stock on bloomberg. I want to go to my radio cohost carol massar. President obama has nominated Maria Contreras to head the Small Business administration. In a white house speech today, the president stated that she understands the needs of Small Business owners. Apple is saying today that it would refund at least 32. 5 million to consumers. This is to settle ftc complaints in which parents were billed for mobile application purchases made by children without consent. Under the settlement, apple will change its billing processes for items sold and mobile applications. Those are some of the top headlines. Thanks very much. General motors is forecasting profits, and they raised their dividend to . 30 a share. Actually, they initiated a dividend. At the north American International auto show, the attention is not only on the automobiles but also on their new chief executive, 52yearold married bar. Here is the founder and chief executive of you are not detroit, and she wasnt giving press conferences or big speeches. What does mary barra bring to the brand of gm . Does it change it . I think it will, and in a good way. Mary has been there for 33 years. She worked her way completely up through the organization. She has real knowledge of kind of where everyone goes if they work their way up and make it to the top. She is also a mother. I think that there will be some thinking around child safety, child accessibility, and things that moms think about. Women make 85 of the influences on car purchases. I was going to say, who actually buys the car in the family . 52 of women by, but 85 of women are somewhere in the influence chain on what kind of vehicle will be purchased. At the very least. Having said that, more than half, 52 , how is it that in 2014 that we dont have a woman at the head of one of these major corporations . It is still baffling, but i think this is the right place and right time, because of her experience, her knowledge of the industry, and she is a real people person. That is how she describes herself. I think that will be evident as she motivates the team to hopefully get their profits back where they need to be. One of the things they are going to have to contend with is the way people consume information, particularly advertising, and viral ads, for example. If you have been studying viral ads. What works and what doesnt . It is funny. This took off a few years ago with you to becoming a phenomenon. The interesting thing is a lot of marketers and advertising people try to create this a viral ad. Many of them just flop because they are working at it too hard and they dont have the right recipe for how to do it. My personal favorite right now is the selfie shootout with kobe bryant, running all over the world with turkish airlines. Obama had a speech around december 15 at the mandela funeral, taking a selfie. You think everybody out there googling selfie. Here comes their added. It was the right place and right time to read they launched ahead of that. That played into it. That is one of my favorites right now. It is worth a look. It is endearing. Did you get a chance to see the think motto baby ad . It is a matchup that creates camera presentations at times. I have to admit, i am a mother, and i dont really like seeing babies look gross and disturbing. It is just not my thing. If it is someone elses, more power to them. That raises a good point. It doesnt matter. They got 5 million views. Does it matter . Yeah, but im going back to the one that i like, and it has 137 million views. Look at the difference. We will see where this baby thing goes. Thank you. Pushback. Changes in the way that Companies Fund themselves. Push back when it comes to crowd funding. Right now, it is a donation market. You make a donation, and there is no legal contract between you and the company. That is maybe going to change . We are really excited about this. I have one company in particular that i would love to talk about. Here is the sweet spot. It is the smartest wearable out on the market right now. It was interesting introduced at ces. We have invested our marketing expertise as a piece of equity into this company. Then it went on indygogo about a week ago, and we are on track for raising this money. Who is donating this money . It is young guys with money. It is like they are buying it, investing in the company and buying it. They are hoping this product will be everything it is promised a day. They are willing to pay 150 to get the first one. It is an interesting technique that is being used. For about 7,000, you can get a tech company out there in one of these crowd sourcing venues. I was going to say, you can pivot to where the money is, right . Yeah. What is up with these marketing terms . It is a buzzword, pivot. What is that supposed to mean . I think every industry and every group i was at a m a Group Meeting yesterday, and all these ventures have these terms and languages did they use the word or phrase big data . Over and over. If i hear that again, im going to say, how big can it be . What about realtime marketing . What does that really mean . It is what is going on on your mobile device, so that we are able to affect what is happening to a consumer as they may be driving around. You look at google. They will be in your home. Talk about that. What does it do for google . Now they own a company that controls the temperature at thermostat. Exactly. Where this goes, or what we are going to see in marketing because of that, we can only speculate, but i think the interesting thing about it is not only does google have access into a persons personal environment, but look at the great engineers they got out of that purchase. Half of the people there worked at apple. They have some real brainpower they just bought, as well as the access into the home. It might be a specific challenge, but do you think monitors, thermostats, smoke detectors it doesnt sound very hightech, and yet the way they present it, the way they branded the product, it looks like they are going to produce a lot more of these kinds of things. Is that already thought about . Yes, and i think this is going to prove that 2014 i think we will look back my friend said this yesterday at the conference we are going to look back in five years and say, 2014 was really the year of the internet of things. It is appliances and consumers and all the interactivity coming together. I think we are going to see more and more of it. As is only the beginning of what i think is good to happen this year. Thank you very much, gay gaddis chief executive and founder oft3. Of t3. Vsp runs americas largest notforprofit vision benefits and services company. It serves 60 million members. It has 47,000 business clients. Joining us from San Francisco to talk about the company and its expansion in 2014 is rob lynch, the chief executive and president of vsp. Thank you very much for joining us. Explain, what is vsp . How did it start more than 50 years ago . Vsp is an absolutely unique and fascinating story. It was started 58 years ago, actually, i a group of forward thinking optometrists in Alameda County in california who really wanted to provide access to highquality, lowcost eye care and eyewear to as many as possible. The mission of the company is really just that, to provide vision care to as many in the United States and around the world. We have been very successful at it. We now have 60 Million People covered here in the United States. We have extended our coverage to canada, to the uk, ireland, and also to australia. We are the Third Largest manufacturer and designer and producer of the frames. We are the largest Practice ManagementSoftware Management company, providing practice Measurement Software for optimal edgy ophthalmology for people to run their business. Tell us about the Insurance Business part of vsp. Is it like dental insurance, or is it Something Different . It is similar to dental care, but it is a little different. Like dental, and over the years, think the dental Care Industry has done a good job of connecting Good Oral Health to the broader healthcare spectrum i care has become so important. Obviously, you need to see to be able to live your life productively and to do your job, to learn. What has happened over the last 1015 years is the association of good i care, quality eye care with the healthcare continuum, and the fact that diseases can be contacted can be detected in a regular eye exam around hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol what i want to know is, why is it better to have a health plan that is specific for eye care . What are the cost benefits . We did a study on this for years ago with Human Capital management systems. We just refresh that study and will be publishing the results in the next couple of months. The original study looked at the largest clients we have. We ensure about half of the fortune 500 companies for vision care. For every one dollar spent on an eye exam, there was a savings of about 1. 27 in healthcare costs. That has to do with presenting absenteeism and engagement. We have updated that study. We have been able to quantify with each of those disease states, basically, i doctors diagnose diabetes 34 or send the time. They die 34 of the time. They diagnose high cholesterol 32 of this time. That results in savings over a fouryear period of about 5. 8 billion. Rob lynch, described the way your corporation is set up. It is a nonprofit. How is that possible . We were set up as a Community Benefit notforprofit. It was felt that the best way to provide these services to as many people as possible was through a Community Benefit based notforprofit vehicle. We have been able to grow because we reinvest basically any surpluses we generated back into the system to make it more available and affordable for more participants. When you say you invest back in the system, back in the insurance arm of the business . Back in the entire business. We are a software business. We are also a frame manufacturing and design business, as well as an Insurance Business. Manufacturing, that part of the sp was something you acquired about five years ago . We had actually been in the frame business and the lab of business, doing prescription lenses, but we really didnt get into it into a significant way until the last five years. We did acquire a company out of new york. Marchand is the Third Largest producer of eyewear. Rob, just to go back to the nonprofit status. Who runs the company . Who is financially benefiting . I get this question all the time. We get called by private equity and by others asking about investing in vsp can we buy vsp . We are not for sale. We have no owners as a notfor profit. We run the business to grow the business. Any surpluses that get generated are put back into the business to make the business more productive. I understand that. Who is responsible for making the decisions about what to do with the money . If you are a nonprofit, you have to have an Oversight Board of some kind. We do. We have a board. The board is representative of pretty much all the geographies we are doing business in today. It is also representative of optometry and ophthalmology. The board, in conjunction with myself and the Senior Management team, really sets the direction for the company and ensures all stakeholders benefit. We take a very long view. As we invest in the industry, we are looking for returns that goal go out over a longer time horizon. I want to thank you very much, rob lynch, the chief executive and president of vsp. Now to a big personnel move from yahoo chief executive Marissa Mayer says chief operating officer Henrique De Castro is leaving the company. Our senior west coast correspondent John Ehrlichman has the details. Any reason for the sudden departure . I think this is a reminder that there are still some struggles for the yahoo business. We have talked about this being one of the hottest stocks around over the last 12 months and the fact that they have a prized position possession in their stake in ali baba. It is very difficult these days when youre competing with the likes of google and facebook. That has shown up in their numbers, the operational performance, and this is the operations guy. This is somebody that Marissa Mayer did know from her time at google. Do we know whether he went on his own, or was he pushed . Well, we know this is somebody who got a lot of money. A big signing to come to yahoo when you look at somebody who is getting paid versus his performance, and some of the people who have been trusted executives in the inner circle of Marissa Mayer, that is how these pieces seem to come into play, and to suggest that there is another coo coming into this job right away doesnt seem to be there, which would be an indication that Marissa Mayer is pleased with the team shes got. It doesnt make the job any easier, finding more advertising dollars, whether it is through the display ad business, or in the search business. We know they are partners with microsoft, but the latest numbers would suggest they are struggling against the likes of google. That is a big reason for this announcement today. Does Marissa Mayer have a different strategy than the one described by Henrique De Castro . Is there a different focus . I think that there is obviously, a lot of things are happening at yahoo , bringing in fresh talent, interesting acquisitions, small ones to get talented people on board, and other ones to get other strengths, like the purchase of tumblr, all in the name of trying to build this business, make yahoo relevant, and find new advertising dollars. As i said, the platform that is yahoo , despite having hundreds of millions of daily users, is trying to find its place in this new world of searching on our phones, social media, not really a big presence for yahoo overall. I think that is the name of the game, figuring that out, and maybe it wasnt getting figured out enough fast enough. The chief operating officer, Henrique De Castro, leaving yahoo thank you, jon erlichman, our senior west coast correspondent. Have you ever wanted to hit your head against the wall trying to get through to customer service, a live human being . We will talk with executives from a Company Called gethuman. They are aiming to make the process a whole lot easier. The frustration when you cannot talk to another human being at customer service. The journey to get a humane representative can be maddening, but our next guests are trying to change this. Gethuman is a free Website Service aiming to help you get direct contact with humans. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Lets start off with talking about the service. Where do you get these numbers . A magic trick. The truth is, today, itd didnt start out this way, but today, most of the numbers come from other users, people who found our youths our website. Daily, we get hundreds of submissions from different people. Sometimes it is people working within the country the company themselves. Of course, we dont want to put anything up there. We have to curate those, filter them, nature they are the quality that they will actually help people. The biguration process, adam i believe there were different names for you in your company. Youre supposed to check that things are really going what is your nickname . I am a man of many hats in the company. I spend most of my time checking the numbers are given to us. Do you call those 800 numbers . I do. My cell phone bill is exceptionally high each month. Are you over three figures . Not that high, but we use a lot. What are some of the best examples of how you got around the big issue to get to an actual human being . Sure. Anytime they ask for a phone number, Social Security number, or zip code, just put in 0. Their system is looking for a number to try to find your final. A lot of times, 0 will get you to the point where you can hit a button to get a person. That one took a while to figure out. It is a trial and error process. 0 will usually get you through if you if it is asking for a zip code. What are some companies that have the best customer service, that make it easy to get in touch with the human . Some of them are obvious amazon, zappos usually at the top. Allied bank is one we like to mention. This is a company not in the Retail Industry that has recently made a big push to get better at customer service. I think they have seen a lot of gains from it. Their customers are loving it. We also have the way to get to a human being at the u. S. Government . We do. Thank you very much, Kristen Allen christian allen. Gethuman, try it. This is taking stock on bloomberg