Octopus Takes Interactive Ads Into Lyft, Uber http://bit.ly/2G9j0c6 Play Octopus on Tuesday announced that it has made its Octopus platform for interactive screens available to ride-share drivers and advertisers. The content entertains passengers with games such as trivia with cash prizes, and then delivers location-based video ads to an engaged and captive audience. Disney, Sprint, Red Bull, and National Geographic are among the advertisers using the platform in cities such as Washington, D.C, Philadelphia, Boston and New York City. Jim DeCicco, CEO of KITU Super Coffee -- one of the first brands that worked with Octopus -- began testing the platform around June 2018 targeting the brand’s core markets, which match Octopus’ markets. DeCicco, along with brothers Jordan and Jake, appeared on Shark Tank in 2018. And while they didn’t get a deal, the brothers use a section of the clip from the show as part of the advertising strategy on the Octopus media player. The videos only plays when there is a captive rider. It seems to work. “During the past six months we can see about 4 million verified riders through the passenger detection technology in the screen,” DeCicco said, referring to an app that lets him track views. “I just logged into the app, and right now we have 357,000 viewers seeing our ad.” Retailers, such as grocery stores, makes up 80% of Super Coffee's business. The remainder is direct to consumers from the brand's website and Amazon. The advertisement, which drive foot traffic into grocery stores, runs daily on Octopus’ digital-out-of-home screens. it allows the brand to collect consumer phone numbers or email address. Consumers will enter the data for a free six-pack of coffee, the promotion in the ad. That data gives Super Coffee, made from healthy fats like Coconut oil, a way to communicate with consumers after their ride ends. “Right now we’re receiving a 400% return on investments,” DeCicco said, adding that the company recently increased the amount spent with Octopus by 300%. DeCicco said the company gets a much higher return on this DOOH platform, compared to more "traditional" paid search and other paid-media platforms, but the company does plan to revisit the combination of search and DOOH. Today, Octopus contracts with more than 5,000 ride-share drivers and adds approximately 1,000 new ones monthly. The company has already begun its national expansion with campaigns in Austin and Houston pre-committed by major brands, and Octopus will soon spread throughout the West Coast, including the Los Angeles and San Francisco markets. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 29, 2019 at 12:43PM
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Glamour.com Redesigns, Improves Mobile Experience http://bit.ly/2SbtIp4
Glamour
has redesigned its website to prioritize mobile users, led by editor-in-chief Samantha Barry. This follows publisher Condé Nast’s announcement in November that it would no longer regularly publish a print edition. The changes are part of Barry’s focus on a digital-first strategy for Glamour, especially to improve the site's mobile experience. Mobile audiences drive 85% of web traffic to Glamour, according to Condé Nast. The design makes it easier to swipe and slide through content on a mobile device. Barry is a digital journalist who replaced longtime editor Cindi Leive last year. In an email to Glamour’s editorial team in November, Barry wrote: “We’re doubling down on digital — investing in the storytelling, service and fantastic photo shoots we’ve always been known for, bringing it to the platforms our readers frequent most. We’ll be expanding video and social storytelling, with new and ambitious series and projects.” advertisement advertisement The flexible and updated homepage allows for more stories to be visible above the fold, including multimedia content like videos, podcasts and product recommendations. The new site delivers a native ad experience with in-context branded units. Glamour is also introducing vertical galleries. Users can swipe up or scroll through, rather than click page by page through images. In initial audience testing, engagement on the new galleries grew 10%, according to Condé Nast. Glamour.com now features a trending stories module and a built-in audio platform so mobile users can directly listen to podcasts like Glamour’s true-crime series “Broken Harts.” Timed to the relaunch of the website, Glamour unveiled its first digital cover of 2019, featuring singer-songwriter Halsey. The redesigned site showcases her feature story with an animated cover, photo spread and video. In a year under Barry, Glamour says monthly unique viewers grew to 6.3 million, up 12% at the end of 2018. Its YouTube channel subscribers increased to 1.6 million, up more than 110%. Condé Nast also shut down the print publication of Teen Voguea little over a year ago in an effort to cut costs. The publisher recently announcedit will put all of its titles behind paywalls in some capacity by the end of this year. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 29, 2019 at 12:21PM Forecast 2024 - Brave New Media World? http://bit.ly/2HDg0Hl
Joe: Five years ago a bot was already starting to feed humans ideas. Israel: nature of those ideas will be more sophisticated. Opp to ID anomalies in the data, the more the need for industry by industry data sets become clear. Challenge is finding ways to pay for it, help clients see advantage. Joe: What role will AI play? Louisa: AI and strategies are effectively creatind personality. We’re not there yet. I think we already have an extension of AI living with us, in our pockets. How do we train humans to extract insights? We’ve already seen human capability and technology. All the opps of different sources. I;’m interested in small data. Joe: Take a search campaign that would take 10 people 7 days and turn it around in minutes because they had found the models that worked best. You don’t think machine will be more strategic? Ilana: first step is content vs true activation. Don’t hav e tech infrastructure to track all the data across the journey in the way we want to. Joe: What opportunity has emerged over the last five years vs where you were in 2019? Israel: The rest of trusted authorities as the go-between between brands and purchases. Rise of voice, lack of friction. Why I would or wouldn’t buy something of high value via voice. It has become a way for me to shrink down potential options to a small set. Doable via voice. I might want comfort from reading a review, in future when I recognize that I’m going to behave that way anyway, we’re going to be comfortable trusting what the best product, value is. Will limit brands that are succeeding in any category. Ilana: look at Gen Z and what my daughter is consuming, Dolan Twins. A change in the content that’s being produced and how it’s being distributed and consumed. Bonnie: Take filters from Snapchat, viral from Vine, give to young people. And it came from China. It’s going to be here. Louisa: The lack of adoption of technology by the sell side. Tech being layered, not seeing. Programmatic hasn’t grown signicantly enough. 77 cents of every dollar going to TV. AI, blockchain doesn’t matter. we can’t get fundamental basics right. Value exchange with the consumer, as brand, as agency. Hurtling toward building a people-based database. Joe: What has not changed in five years in 2024? Joe: What has changed? Israel: end of traditional TV will take longer than we expect. Incredible staying power esp. for older generations. Not sure I agree with Ilana on transparency. There are opps across dimensions to increase transparency in inventory. Limited set of publishers. Make sure we’re paying the right people for the impressions we’re buying. Greatest part of the value has more to do with business model, using tech to rethink the way payments work. Paying all participants in the chain to see where money is going. Potential to change fraud equation. Strangle some of the propaganda that we are responsible for. Joe: How pervasive is blockchain adoption? Bonnie: people in banking industry see value of how you can have transaction among various audiences. Louisa: BC is BS. Opportunity behind it, smart contracts, managing multiple stakeholders, interesting. Is that not the new internet? IN five years time, how does BC start to power the new internet? Opportunity is ID management. BC enables individuals to keep a data log on themselves and they can choose who to transact with. Currency for transaction becomes in 2024? Ilana: challenge is scale, allowing for decentralization and security. Israel: like someone invented a new computer at the chip level. To make it on par, the ecosystem has to build everything from OS to cloud services. Trying now to build an infrastructure On par with cloud services. going to take a little while. This is going to be one of the few industry where BC will be a success. Louisa: Goggle holds us back. In BC, would you still need that? Weaning people off crack cocaine. Unless they disrupt their single truth in Google ... Joe: BC deployed, smart contracts. The ID value exchange. Post Cambridge Analytica, in 2019 people got idea of value exchange. In 2024, there is a marketplace where consumers are arbitraging themselves? Joe: Regulation and self regulation. How much does Mad Ave. shift toward ethical models in data? Israel: we’re going to need advertisers to push us. Our KPIs are not, how ethically are you handling the data. Then we will have license to push as hard as we need to. Louisa: Everyone’s got a secret sauce as to how they make their chicken gumbo. Whatever you spit out on the backend, you must make sure you’re not breaking trust with the consumer. Joe: Locaction data being bought and sold. Have done so? Bonnie: If you use it in a way that is ethical, consumers want to give you the data. Want to get a dog food ad, not a cat food ad. Being able to use location data to help make relevant experiences is something consumers want. Israel: It’s terrifying. A fundamental misunderstanding, maybe willful, as to how data is being used by advertisers. If I’m not building a rules based engine for dealing with thousands of people at a time, I am wasting my client’s money. I don’t want access one on one. It’s not something we would enable our teams to use, to track one individual. needs to be a forceful response to stories in the press. Joe: I’m hopeful that industry swings toward more ethics in general. More accountable for where it places its bets on society? Industry was subsidizing platforms that weren’t the best actors. Not always the best managers of people’s ID and data. Does industry have a role in where it places its bets? Israel: we have that responsibility. Another place where I think we need the advertisers to take a stand. We can help them deliver against an ethical vision that they have. Bonnie: Some of it was unanticipated. Once it happened, ID’d, it was such a big challenge. Now it’s so ingrained in our society, we have to take a high road stand. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 29, 2019 at 10:42AM Forecast 2019 - Fighting the Attention Wars http://bit.ly/2FTajn7
Alex: Trends in consumer behavior? Adjust your bets?
Geoffrey: Getting harder to find folks in true mass media. It will get complimented with a more surgical approach. David: with brand building of mass awareness and using data to ID who’s getting ready to buy a Casper mattress today. But someone still needs to know that brand when they go to make that decision. Premium high quality video does that well. Role for that long term complimented by the precision of data targeting and advance TV. Colleen: abilities with data wail enable us to follow consumers through entire journey. How to connect that? use data to get smarter there. Mobile will be critical. Albert: We’re going the way of the Millennial. Our behaviors like a shift toward what they do. Keeping pace with their personal evolution. Challenge is at what point will they engage and you can capture them? About surgical measurabiulity. Define when you can get them downstream. At what point are they going to lean in and buy what we’re selling? What is the one that is in context to bring them into a lower funnel opportunity. Alex: Measurement is still fragmented, imperfect, but so key to entire ecosystem. What changes to the world of measurement could happen this year? Geoffrey: Hopeful that cross platform identity solutions will prove profitable. Albert: will come down to individual model. When you look at the notion of data science. A culmination of measurement techniques. Data management, social monitoring, social data, plus what the client has in terms of market research to tell a story. The sum of the parts will mean something, not just a singular answer. Media landscape is too vast. Appropriate resources for your cocktail in terms of measurement. Data science that has a modular approach to input. Alex: It’ll have to be more bespoke. What will have to change to get brands to understand one size fits all doesnot apply? Geoffrey: as advertisers work to make their businesses more unique, just plugging things into a black box isn’t going to be good enough. Alex: GDPR last year, talk of some sort of privacy regulation coming to north America. How To protect balance between data mining and privacy? Colleen: as GDPR like initiatives come here, important to be . As consumers start to question trust, will be a critical piece of equation. Also how brands speak to their consumers about this. Geoffrey: What value is the consumer getting in exchange? Not enough discussion about the value of using that data. Albert: disclosing level of transparency and value proposition. How are they going to get personalized products, exclusive ops. Problem is chasing transparency from the back end. The consumers aren’t stupid. They know there is no privacy. Companies can get ahead of this, make it part of our vision, mission, readership rhetoric, you’d disarm consumer mindset about what it means to give ups the information. We have a backwards philosophy about it. Not the right moral approach to take. David: Do people care enough About giving up privacy, having phones tracked. I don’t know that they care enough. If they don‘t care, lawmakers aren’t going to push to make those laws. fairly loose rules about it. People too comfortable with conveniences it providesa? Alex: Seems like a positive way to engage with consumers, to say here’s what we’ll give you in return. What can brands do to get in front of that? Alex: When you look at landscape, is brand safety a problem this year? Albert: should be foundational. You add brand safety as part of the cost structure. You just do it, don’t talk about it. It will be the client expectation. David: there’s content you don’t want to be anywhere near but there’s a middle ground of not objectionable but not high quality content, doesn’t have the same resonance that you have when TV brings. Grey area advertisers need to work their value exchanges. that area is the middle area, the idea that you don’t know what you’re getting will have aggregators on a buy, what am I getting? There isn’t a good answer for it. Different than TV, where value needs to be analyzed deeper. Oleg: like antivirus on computers. One step behind someone who is developing a virus. We need to have it available to be as sure as possible we are preventing exposure. Be realistic about cost of doing bsuiness. Coleen: becoming table stakes. We hold our partners to. On us to make sure partners are keeping up with the times. Geoffrey: wherd in the funnel we’re engaging the consumer. Higher in the funnel we might have different tolerance,. Alex: Ad fraud. DOJ put down first indictments a few months ago. FTC has signaled interest. What needs to happen to minimize risks? Geoffrey: when you’re focused on non business metrics, there is much more concenr, where it needs to be cleaned up. Alberty: when you look at impressions and clicks, those need to be the elements that justify the insertion order. Move beyond that as pertains to actionable behaviors that shows intent. Clicks not enough intent. Impression is not intent. Behavioral intent. They mean a lot less when client is getting ROI. If selling high level metrics, going to struggle because clients know how much internet is being churned by people who can’t afford it vs. older with time. Have to move into a space that’s beyond impossible for a bot to accomplish. Store visits, for example. Then the bot convo is not much of one for the client. Oleg: bots are trained so well. Cost of doing this is slow. Cost of entry is low for bots. Alex: push toward private marketplaces. How do you see balance between private and open? Which is better for media? Alex: Voice. Amazon doesn’t allow on Alexa but Google, Apple, are investing in voice assistants. How are you thinking about voice? Geoffrey: depends on the brand. Unclear what problem voice is the solution to? if it’s not addressing a consumer challenge ... used to be five years of mobile, we’re way past that now. Maybe that is the first year for voice. Albert: UX will be the thing. People struggle With trying to map out what they can’t see. Do lay out entire journey on voice, understand where voice is more convenient. Easier to talk to phone for directions than tapping on an app. Consumers who use voice will be ahead, voice apps will start to replace the apps we know. Until there is expertise honed around the UX I don’t know how far voice will go in the near term. Alex: Digital OOH. Merging old and new worlds? AlbeRT: lack of investment. Add that, tech can come, robust dashboards, advanced measurements in tracking. Foot traffic attribution can be tied an dtethered to something else. That’s the key. Gives it new meaning and value. Resurgence around the power of what it can do. Formats will proliferate. Will be a great thing. Figure out how it fits in the story line. Oleg: Fewer players to begin with. Environments tend to be safe. meas Colleen: We’ll see OTT increase and grow over other mixes. Oleg: Adoption is growing faster tha predicted. We need to measure it now so we don’t trip up. People didn’t use mobile web, they went to apps. OTT is great opp to get it right, how to measure that environment realistically. Geoffrey: challenge is that there are so many ways to get infront of the same person. Tremendous cost to testing all those, dollars and time. I wonder if we’ll see consolidation? Does the world need 35 separate pipes to get to the same screen for one person? Albert: Almost like two last miles for OTT. It’s ability to keep pace with mobile. OTT is tracking to have same ability at the back end. Partners have mobile but targetability is the same, make it hard to deny for that last mile, people who protect the linear institution. Going to be cricket sin the room, why are we spending money on linear when we can do OTT? Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 29, 2019 at 09:24AM GDPR Did Not Hold Back The Digital Marketing Tide http://bit.ly/2CPVvld A lot was said about GDPR before it became law. Amid all the calls of catastrophe or "business as usual" from commentators, there was almost an unspoken agreement that the law on processing personal information would be great for above-the-line channels. However, it's interesting to see that with the latest figures from AA/Warc for third-quarter 2018 -- the first full quarter of GDPR applying -- the prediction seems way off the mark, other than in radio and outdoor. As ever, the big winner is online advertising, which grew 12% compared to the third quarter of the year before. Mobile in particular and yet again is the big star, leaping 23%. Print is, once again, a loser. Clearly, GDPR did not send advertisers competing for above-the-line pages in the national media, which dropped 7% between third-quarter 2017 and third-quarter 2018. Local media was also down, by 5.3%. Perhaps one of the biggest surprises was direct mail. It dropped a massive 14% in third-quarter 2018. The first full quarter that GDPR applied, advertisers decided to spend less on letters. I'm assuming that door drops, aka "junk mail," is included in this figure? It's a fair assumption because Royal Mail had predicted that door drops would soar after GDPR because they do not feature an address and, if they do feature part of an address, they are typically marked for 'the occupier' or "the bill payer." Today's Royal Mail figures show letter volumes were down 8% and revenue from letters fell 6% in the nine months up to December 2018. They are expecting the decline to continue, and Sky News reveals GDPR is being blamed alongside uncertainty around Brexit. So there is a question mark around the decline occurring in addressed or non-addressed mail, but for a brand that was bold in predicting the benefits of the doormat over the inbox before May, it's quite a reversal of fortune. What actually happened was that internet marketing increased 12% in the same first quarter when GDPR applied fully. Perhaps the most alarming figure is that not even GDPR could help television to avoid flatlining. It was down just 0.1% in third-quarter 2018. This was one of the channels tipped to be a massive winner from companies that were concerned about email lists getting smaller and question marks hanging over how digital display is traded under new privacy rules. The same goes for cinema. It was supposed to thrive under tighter privacy rules, but it actually declined 8% in the third quarter of last year. Elsewhere, it was good news for radio -- up 5% -- and outdoor, which was up 7%. These channels are enjoying a digital renaissance which appears to have played well with anyone seeking to go above the line while the dust from GDPR settled. With these two channels that were riding a digital wave aside, the above-the-line boost that many predicted after GDPR just didn't happen. TV was still flatlining in the first quarter of GDPR fully applied; print was down, as usual; and direct mail plummeted alongside -- rather surprisingly -- cinema. It is possible that digital advertising, where the big budget growth is still occurring, may have some bad GDPR news, should it turn out that programmatic trading is a little too murky for regulators or the duopoly is taken to task over the post GDPR positions, as has happened with CNIL's 50m Euro Google fine. However, right here and now we can say that GDPR raised serious question marks about whether money would continue to flow at faster rates into digital display. The outcome was that it did. There were suggestions that tv, cinema and direct mail would prosper, but they did not. The predictions were not true. GDPR has not held back the digital marketing tide. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 29, 2019 at 09:03AM
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5 Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing to Inspire You in 2019 http://bit.ly/2HEAGi3 B2B brands don't have it easy when trying to attract, engage and persuade today's increasingly distracted and distrustful buyers. Many are experimenting with influencer marketing but results without an informed plan can be a mixed bag. Trust me, I know. We've been experimenting heavily with B2B influencer marketing for over 6 years, partnering with hundreds of B2B influencers and B2B brands of all sizes while also learning a lesson or two. Fast forward to today and we understand that for successful influencer marketing in the B2B world. relationships are key, right along with shared values and some robust validation when it comes to topical relevance, ability to create and engage on-topic with an interested community. Beyond simply collaborating with expert voices that have an audience in the hopes that the influencer will promote brand messages, successful B2B marketers are seeing value across the entire customer lifecycle. Influencer engagement creates mutual value for both brand and influencer as well as for customers. From building brand trust to helping to humanize a brand, the value of influencer relationships is much broader than most B2B marketers realize. We've learned many lessons about working with B2B brands on influencer content programs ranging from Dell to SAP and more than anything, we've realized the value of learning through examples. That's why I've put together this collection of 5 B2B influencer marketing program examples that TopRank Marketing is working with to help you visualize ways to make your influencer marketing efforts more impactful and meaningful. Dell Luminaries - Led by Dr. Konnie Alex, Head of B2B Influencer Relations at Dell, Dell Technologies has launched an influencer hosted business podcast called Luminaries that features conversations with technology visionaries and the very human face of innovation. Influencer hosts Mark Schaefer & Doug Karr are "phenomenal digital storytellers and bring the outside-in view into every episode, every conversation with every guest with a deep commitment to and appreciation of our combined audiences." Beyond the podcast, Dell works with influencers like Tamara McCleary, Daniel Newman and Sally Eaves to author blog posts, do interviews on podcasts, attend Dell events and engage in briefings with Dell subject matter experts. What's inspiring about this program is that Dell has successfully been able to simultaneously develop solid relationships with a core group of influencers for a variety of content collaboration opportunities on an ongoing basis as well as partner with two key industry influencers to highlight internal Dell subject matter experts (internal influencers) from across the different companies that make up Dell Technologies. Dell is effectively benefitting from influencers and creating influencers at the same time - all while creating value for their customers. SAP App Center - The SAP App Center is a hub for 3rd party applications that integrate with SAP solutions. While functional, SAP realized there was an opportunity to better attract and engage an audience looking for applications as solutions more robust, credible content that would be easy to find through search. To make SAP App Center topics of focus become "the best answer", for customer, robust Power Pages including The SAP Guide to Employee Well-Being, The SAP Guide to Employee Experience, and The SAP Guide to Talent Acquisition were created incorporating SEO keyword research, SAP domain expertise and topically relevant influencer contributions. Attraction objectives were reached through improved search visibility on topics that aligned with influencer expertise, social promotion by brand and influencers and link optimization. Engagement objectives were achieved with more robust, "best answer" content optimized for credibility with influencer experts and optimized link placement from the Power Pages to solutions content. What's inspiring about this program is the effort to understand demand from the buying audience through keyword research helped inform both relevant content creation and influencer engagement. Influencers added credibility and amplification as well as SEO relevance to content intended to deliver answers for customers that were actively looking - thereby attracting and engaging an audience that is further along in the sales journey. 3M Science Champions - With the objective of making science accessible to the every day person, 3M launched the State of Science Index research report in connection with the Science Champions podcast hosted by 3M Chief Science Advocate, Jayshree Seth. As 3M's first ever podcast, the first season featured 21 science experts/influencers discussing a variety of science related topics ranging from introduction to science to science in everyday life to careers in science. The number of listens/downloads per episode far exceeded expectations and the podcast will return with season 2 in 2019. What's inspiring about this program is that 3M was able to take a data rich research report and humanize topics by connecting them to real people with expertise in the field. By featuring an internal influencer as the host, 3M was able to facilitate natural discussions around the topic of science in a way that achieves the objective of making science accessible to non-scientists while also honoring 3M brand expertise. Publishing through a conversation in podcast format also effectively supported distribution and engagement goals. Prophix: AI & the Next Evolution of Finance - As a provider of Corporate Performance Management software, Prophix wanted to empower their customer audience, finance leaders, with insights on future technologies like Artificial intelligence affecting their industry. Prophix went beyond engaging with influencers to co-create useful content on the desired topic. An interactive microsite was created using a common application of AI, a simulated voice assistant. In the spirit of Siri and Alexa, this voice assistant named Penny served as host to expertise from a group of influencers in AI and machine learning as well as the office of finance. Experts including Oliver Christie and Christoper Penn provided insight on how to plan for industry changes and embrace AI with an opportunity to further explore the topic with a worksheet download: The CFOs guide to AI and Machine Learning in Finance. The combination of interactive experience, voice and text content, relevant finance and AI influencers plus brand thought leadership resulted in record setting engagement. What's inspiring about this program is that Prophix was willing to create a relevant and credible interactive content experience that was not only new to their marketing mix, but new to their industry. The microsite featuring top industry influencers and Penny, the simulated voice assistant, continues to attract and engage customers plus the Prophix Sales team is using the microsite as a tool for engaging with prospective customers. Oracle Dyn - Known for world class managed DNS services, Oracle Dyn wanted to create awareness and authority for their Web Application Security solutions focused on bot management and mitigation services. To create awareness and credibility for this new cyber security capability, internal subject matter experts and relevant industry influencers including Eric Vanderburg and Kevin L. Jackson with authority in the cyber security space were engaged to collaborate on The Cybersecurity Intelligence Report: Bot Management and Mitigation. In addition to adding credibility to the campaign content and Oracle Dyn brand, influencer shares were combined with a comprehensive promotional strategy to help Oracle Dyn's bot management and mitigation services expertise reach the desired audiences. In the first 60 days, program goals were exceeded substantially. What's inspiring about this program is that Oracle Dyn was able to reach credibility and reach objectives on a topic they were not known for, bot management and mitigation services, by combining their internal subject matter experts with relevant industry influencers. The relevance of this connection was so great that 100% of engaged influencers helped promote the report. Whether you're a CMO thinking about how to grow brand trust and authority in the marketplace, a marketing director seeking a way to break free of boring B2B with an interactive microsite featuring influencers like Prophix or a VP of PR wanting to implement a thought leadership podcast like 3M and Dell have done, it's clear that an influencer content program can be a powerful force in your B2B marketing mix. The post 5 Examples of B2B Influencer Marketing to Inspire You in 2019 appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®. Mobile Marketing via Hubspot http://bit.ly/2V5eKQ7 January 29, 2019 at 08:07AM U.S. Charges Huawei With Fraud, Stealing Trade Secrets, Obstruction http://bit.ly/2Ga8OzV The U.S. Justice Dept. yesterday filed a pair of sweeping indictments against China’s Huawei Technologies, charging it with violating U.S. sanctions on Iran as well as fraud, obstruction of justice and stealing trade secrets. A 13-count indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., charges Huawei, two of its affiliates and CFO Meng Wanzhou with bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and violating the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Huawei USA and its parent company are also charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice. advertisement advertisement “Top U.S. law enforcement officials, including acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, held a news conference in Washington to announce the charges,” Ellen Nakashima and Devlin Barrett write for the Washington Post. “The criminal activity in this indictment goes back 10 years and goes all the way to the top of the company,” Whitaker said, they report. “Wray said firms like Huawei ‘pose a dual threat to both our economic and national security, and the magnitude of these charges makes clear just how seriously the FBI takes this threat.’” (At the end of the press conference, sweating under the lights, Whitaker said he thought the Mueller investigation was “close to being completed,” touching off a twitter-stream of ridicule and opprobrium from critics for commenting on an active case.) Last night, the CBC reports, the U.S. formally requested Huawei CFO Meng’s extradition from Vancouver, Canada, where she was arrested in early December and is currently free on bail. China, in turn, called on Washington to “stop the unreasonable crackdown.” Meanwhile, a 10-count indictment unsealed in U.S. District Court in Seattle “alleges Huawei stole trade secrets from T-Mobile beginning in 2012. Huawei also allegedly offered bonuses to employees who stole confidential information from other companies, notably U.S. carrier T-Mobile,” reports CNET’s Abrar Al-Heeti. Huawei “began stealing information about a phone-testing robot from T-Mobile called Tappy. Huawei engineers allegedly violated confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements by taking pictures of Tappy, taking measurements of parts of the robot and stealing a piece of it. When T-Mobile found out and threatened to sue, Huawei falsely said the theft was done by rogue actors within the company, according to the indictment,” Al-Heeti continues. “Despite Huawei's insistence that the action was a one-off affair, the Justice Department says emails obtained during the investigation found that the theft of secrets from T-Mobile was a company-wide effort,’” he adds. In 2017, T-Mobile won a $4.8 million lawsuit against Huawei in the Tappy case. Yesterday’s criminal charges “are the latest to accuse the Chinese government or Chinese companies of stealing intellectual property from U.S. firms through a combination of cyberattacks, traditional espionage and other means. U.S. officials have warned that China’s corporate raiding of secrets, which some government estimates value into the hundreds of billions of dollars in damages annually, represents a pre-eminent national- and economic-security threat,” Kate O’Keeffe, Aruna Viswanatha and Dustin Volz write for the Wall Street Journal. “The indictments also come as U.S. trade negotiators prepare to sit down with Chinese counterparts in Washington this week to seek a solution to a prolonged trade dispute that has the two sides exchanging tit-for-tat tariffs on goods flowing between the two economic superpowers,” they add. “The Trump administration is reportedly considering an order that would ban wireless carriers from purchasing Huawei or ZTE equipment, and another report said the U.S. was pushing allies to also drop Huawei hardware. In a Senate appearance this week, American intelligence chiefs will likely cite Chinese companies’ 5G work as a key threat to U.S. interests,” Colin Lecher writes for The Verge. “A crackdown on any major company inevitably has unintended consequences, and companies in the U.S. and abroad are already surveying the fallout. Colleges have reportedly been stepping away from using the company’s equipment, and lawmakers have started to fret over whether vulnerabilities could lurk in the company’s solar products,” Lecher continues. In a statement released in China today, Huawei “denies that it or its subsidiary or affiliate have committed any of the asserted violations,” adding that it “is not aware of any wrongdoing of Ms. Meng and believes the U.S. courts will ultimately reach the same conclusion,” Thomas Maresca reports for USA Today. “China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology spokesman Wen Ku called the legal action against Huawei ‘unfair,' according to state-run newspaper Global Times, saying that it was an attempt to smear the company without concrete evidence,” he adds. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 29, 2019 at 07:22AM
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How Understanding The Power Of Marketing Helped This Brand Strategist Deliver Success http://bit.ly/2COV8qY SVA's year-long Masters in Branding program helps strategists and creatives like Phillip Lauria hone their skills while building new understanding of the industry Before attending SVA’s year-long Masters in Branding program, Phillip Lauria was working with media and technology, using data to understand consumer sentiment and behavior. His continuing education experience at SVA added context and a philosophical understanding to his approach to advertising and marketing. Now employed as a strategist with creative agency RoAndCo, Phillip applies his skills and experience to deliver thoughtful, innovative work for clients across categories. In the third interview of a series in partnership with SVA, PSFK spoke to Phillip about how his experience in the Masters in Branding program informs his current work. SVA’s Masters in Branding program allows students to create frameworks to guide brand, design and business development, critically evaluate brand, business, marketing and design strategies and master the intellectual link between leadership and creativity. PSFK: Where did your interest in branding begin, and what led you to choose SVA’s Masters in Branding program? Phillip Lauria: My interest began at a young age. I grew up in a religious home which gave me an interesting perspective on the power of a story well told. The ability to create realities out of words and symbols were initially used by the church to build faith. Those sample methods were adapted to foster patriotism, and most recently adapted to generate loyalty for consumer brands. I am no longer religious; however, my background did lead me to explore how historically we’ve used stories to encourage human cooperation. The father of public relations, Edward Bernays, famously observed that the power of propaganda during wartime to build an army could be adapted in peacetime to sell products. My pursuit of branding was less about possessing the capacity to wield this power, and more a way to avoid being manipulated by it. What surprised you most while you completed the one-year graduate degree? I wouldn’t say surprised, but something that came into fuller view is the increasing rate of change in my lifetime. We are still in the early days of the digital revolution; only half the world has the internet so far. We are in for geopolitical and commercial changes in the next decade that will require complete systems redesign and solutions that can be rapidly tested and implemented at scale. This is completely antithetical to the way governments and large organizations function. The result of this will be large-scale disruption, and our field needs to be prepared for that outcome. You currently work as a strategist at RoAndCo Studio. What are some of the lessons from the branding program that helped prepare you for it? The course curriculum and readings around the power of inquiry left a big impression on me. Through the SVA Branding program, I was also introduced to brilliant mentors in my field whom I have learned a great deal from. One of the most powerful lessons for me was how we think about the time we spend on a problem. Most of us think of progress and time as having a direct linear relationship. The more time you spend on a problem, the more progress you’ll make. This isn’t necessarily true. A period of inquiry must happen before one can start designing solutions. This may not result in any output at first, but it’s necessary to make sure you’re asking the right questions to solve that problem. Returning to school also provided me a free space for inquiry and the time to think deeply about problems. I think this is important for anyone in their career. We tend to get wrapped up in our roles, forced to multitask so often we can lose our ability to work deeply, free from distraction and guilt. Allowing myself time to ask seemingly extraneous questions is an important function of my role as a strategist. Depending on the demands of the day, this can be as simple as closing my laptop and pulling out a sketchpad. What made you choose to pursue branding and how does your previous experience inform your work? My previous work was in media and technology. For a number of years, I helped grow a data and research startup based in London. We tracked consumer sentiment, predicted major political outcomes and much more. Working in that field gave me an interesting perspective on human behavior and in some ways our individual sense of agency. Behavioral research is an essential tool of any strategist, and the methods of extracting that data are getting increasingly sophisticated. Most people in branding shy away from this characterization, but the core of our work is predicting and changing behavior. We use research to understand behavior as it exists, uncover the human truths or drivers behind that behavior, and then use that knowledge to intercept consumers with words and symbols designed to change behavior. Could you tell us briefly about your process? What do you particularly like about the work that you are doing now? I wouldn’t say I have a set process. I’ll paraphrase what Mark Kingsley, SVA lecturer, told me last year. Strategy is context. We analyze an object’s existing context—its function, cultural context and historical context—and then propose a new context. Interestingly, context is something traditional behavioral research often fails to consider, instead taking a more mechanistic approach to human behavior. I try and take a more philosophical approach. This is something I love about what Roanne, founder and chief creative director of RoAndCo, and Rebecca, managing director at RoAndCo, have built into the culture here. I think we’ve developed a really elegant way of observing the world and individual lived experience with empathy, and I believe you can see this come through in the work we do. What’s one thing you wish more people understood about branding? That the tables have turned. That if we start using our devices as tools rather than escape portals we’d realize we not only have the capacity to inspire change but the means to organize around new stories. We are more connected now than ever before in human history. It’s no longer necessary for an idea to have a large media budget, it just has to resonate. #BlackLivesMatter, #MeToo and #NeverAgain are all branding exercises consistent with this new order. They arose as the medium of communication evolved, with little funding, but because they resonated with so many people they made an impact that will endure. We are witnessing a manifestation of this new reality as consumers are increasingly spending with brands that share their values and punishing brands that do not. To learn more about the Masters in Branding program, email branding@sva.edu. This article is paid for and presented by the SVA Masters in Branding program Before attending SVA’s year-long Masters in Branding program, Phillip Lauria was working with media and technology, using data to understand consumer sentiment and behavior. His continuing education experience at SVA added context and a philosophical understanding to his approach to advertising and marketing. Now employed as a strategist with creative agency RoAndCo, Phillip applies his skills and experience to deliver thoughtful, innovative work for clients across categories. Mobile Marketing via PSFK http://www.psfk.com/ January 29, 2019 at 06:31AM Apple's iOS Update Hints At Apple News Magazines http://bit.ly/2Ba79Y1 Apple reports its quarterly sales results today. Investors are braced for any sign that iPhone sales will keep slowing in the year ahead. Publishers may get more insights into the company’s plans to sell magazine subscriptions through Apple News, which comes preinstalled on billions of devices. The tech giant this week provided a glimpse of a service called Apple News Magazines with the first test version of iOS 12.2, the mobile operating system that runs iPhones and iPads. The company typically provides test versions of iOS to app designers to help them prep for major updates. Apple News Magazines will be connected to the accounts of iTunes Store users, just like the company’s streaming service Apple Music, 9to5Mac reported after looking at the iOS update. advertisement advertisement Apple has many mentions of a “bundle subscription,” possibly indicating the tech giant is planning a service that combines music, magazines and TV shows. The company may introduce the service in March as it announces other products and services that are rumored to be in development, according to 9to5Mac. The website found a landing page for Apple News Magazines that indicates Vogue, Shape and Bon Appétit will be available in the digital newsstand, although pricing hasn’t been revealed. The website’s findings appear to confirm earlier reports that Apple seeks to create a “Netflix of magazines” that urges subscribers to pay a flat monthly fee for access to hundreds of digital publications. From there, publishers will determine what kind of value they’ll get from Apple’s global audience of more than 1.3 billion mobile devices. Apple News has about 90 million regular readers. Last year, it acquired Texture as part of a plan to create that digital newsstand. Texture had about 200,000 subscribers when Apple bought the company in March, according to Bloomberg News. Apple is looking for other areas of growth as the smartphone market matures and iPhone users hold on to their devices for longer periods instead of upgrading with each new rollout. Apple News is part of the company’s fast-growing services business that includes Apple Music, iCloud storage, Apple Pay and its Apple Care product warranty plan. The company may provide more details about these businesses today. Last year, it said it would stop disclosing iPhone sales, a decision that disappointed investors. Apple News Magazines may provide incremental revenue to publishers coping with declining sales and print circulation as ad dollars move into social media and search platforms provide greater scale for national advertisers. Publishers like Conde Nast, The New York Times, Dow Jones (publisher of The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch and Barron’s) and the Financial Times have either put up paywalls or plan to do so to boost revenue. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 29, 2019 at 06:28AM Two-Thirds Of Ad Blockers Installed Only On Desktop http://bit.ly/2HK6en0 The bad news is that two-thirds of consumers now use an ad blocker. The good news is they are installed mostly on desktop/laptop computers, indicating that the probability of being blocked on mobile devices is much less likely. That’s one of the top findings of the 2019 report on ad blockers released this week by Visual Objects. The report, which is based on a survey of 500 ad blocker users, found that 64% only use ad blockers on desktop/laptop computers. Twenty-eight percent use ad blockers only on their mobile devices, while 8% use them on both mobile and desktop devices. Mobile Marketing via MediaPost.com: mobile http://bit.ly/2oB2PsH January 28, 2019 at 04:11PM |
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