Social Media

    From scrolling down your twitter feed to a stroll through the mall, it’s easy to see that this year’s Pride is in full swing. The month-long LGBT+ celebration is a beautiful conglomeration of activism, history, parties, and even marketing? Brands promoting gay pride publicly was unheard 50 years ago (Which is when the historic Stonewall Riots occurred, leading the way for the modern gay pride movement.) However, now in our more socially-minded society, consumers care a lot more how a large brand impacts the world and it’s culture.  With an increase in brands riding the inclusivity wave, it calls into question, does featuring and celebrating LGBT+ Pride positively or negatively impact consumer demand?

    Inclusivity Marketing is creating content that truly reflects the diverse communities that your company serves.  We have seen this in various movements from the #bodypositivity movement to #aeriereal campaign. Which shows models of all shapes and sizes flourishing in underwear ads. Brands are realizing marketing to every kind of person may be the way to attract new customers. Creating campaigns that showcase real people not just photoshopped models. Which allows more marginalized groups a chance to really connect with that brand, creating brand loyalty. An even simpler reason, is  targeting a wider range of people equates to plainly, more eyes on your products. This more inclusive marketing trend combined with the Pride celebration’s continued growth. Means the month of June is the perfect showcase for large-scale inclusivity marketing. A mix of companies using their platform for good and some wanting to make money off of marginalized groups leaves a mixed-bag of interesting campaigns that are worth analyzing. 

2019 Pride Content Examples

1. Adidas – Released a Pride collection entitled “Pride pack”.  Though not tied to product sales, Adidas will be supporting The Trevor Project, the world’s largest suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization for the youth of the community.

2. Absolut Vodka  – Using a myriad of LGBT+ influencers, Absolut Vodka  is kicking off a campaign with multiple channels, including commercials, branded events during Pride weekend, and in addition to bringing back its iconic rainbow bottle, Absolut has launched a multi-year partnership supporting GLAAD’s work accelerating acceptance for the LGBT community.

3. Victoria Secret- Their brand Pink, tweeted their support for Pride month where they state that they will donate 100K to a LGBTQ+ Organization, the brand is still facing scrutiny over anti-trans comments made earlier this year.
4. Gap –  Launched its “Love all ways” campaign highlighting what family means today and will donate 15% of proceeds to the U.N. Free and Equal Foundation.

5. American Express – Is celebrating Pride with a performance by Singer Lizzo. All proceeds will go to the Stonewall Community Foundation, an organization that bears part of its historic name to honor the 1969 uprising that started in New York and the spirit of freedom, resilience, and resolve that abides today. American Express is also displaying an array of Pride-themed ads over New York with messages of Pride and acceptance. 

These are just some of the examples of what companies do during the month of June. What Makes them successful or scrutinized all depends on context. 

How These Campaigns Were Received

    Campaigns run by Absolut Vodka, Gap, and American Express have three things in common, that made their Pride campaigns successful. First, their brands support the LGBT+ Community throughout the year, not just in June. They do this with continued donations (American Express) and inclusive marketing (Gap and Absolut Vodka). Two, they specifically call out where they are donating their money, instead of just vaguely stating they are supporting the community. This makes the campaign seem more genuine. Lastly the pride/rainbow items they are selling are completely or in-part not for profit. The transparency demonstrated by these brands isn’t just a new fad. 

    Regan Clarke, Brand Director of Absolut Vodka, USA knows exactly where his brand belongs in all of this and is proud of it. Stating “Supporting the LGBTQ community back in 1981 was a risky decision for mainstream brands, when taking a stand for equality meant going against conventional culture.” Absolut’s 30+ year commitment to Pride is a great example of how inclusive marketing, can work and has worked. Demonstrating how powerful, socially aware marketing really can be when trying to further your brands position and satisfy younger consumers. These brands are creating an image for themselves as a positive presence in the world. Brand directors  like Regan Clarke, show how putting time and effort into a pride campaign can really yield positive returns. 

    On the opposite spectrum is Victoria Secret. Earlier this year they had a major scandal involving their CMO Ed Razek. When he claimed transgender people don’t belong in the “coveted” Victoria Secret fashion show, because they don’t represent fantasy. “Dear Victoria’s Secret, you said trans women can’t sell the “fantasy” so here I am as a TRANS WOMAN selling the FANTASY! ماهي لعبة الروليت ” wrote trans makeup mogul, Nikita Dragun on her Twitter account in the weeks following the 2018 fashion show disaster. Fans were quick to bring Dragun’s tweet up again when Victoria’s Secret attempted to voice support for the LGBTQ+ community during pride month (The Tweet above). Showing how consumers are quick to call out inconsistency and injustice within a brand. The brand has not fully recovered from Ed Razek’s comments. كيف تلعب القمار This tweet sent out for Pride makes the company look even more out of touch. Only helping in bringing up past scandals and driving even more consumers away.

    Adidas similarly has a bad reputation when it comes to supporting the LGBT+ community year round. The company is a huge sponsor for the Olympics, which took place in Russia in 2014. قواعد لعب البوكر Russia’s anti-gay policies are well documented and many LGBT+ Individuals from all over the world run the risk of these harsh policies by traveling to and participating in the games. Many consumers called them out, saying the company is not truly LGBT+ supportive when they are helping fund the Olympics in such a dangerous place for the community. Many calling their  “Pride Pack” a cash grab because of LGBT+ consumers’ desire for rainbow everything during Pride. The “Pride Pack” seems disingenuous because the money made from, those shoes specifically, all goes into Adidas’ pocket.

    The donations they are giving to the Trevor foundation are appreciated and valid, but many consumers seem to be unhappy with the broad claims of supporting the Trevor Project because isn’t being transparent about the actual amount or percentage of product sales that they are donating. Vox writer Alex Abad-Santos summarizes what Adidas is doing perfectly stating that “Brands promoting gay pride and the LGBTQ community may not always be consistent in actually supporting the LGBTQ community, but they still capitalize on the help that people want to give that community.” With their continued support of an event that isn’t LGBT+ friendly like the 2020 Olympics consumers are smart enough to realize that this brand doesn’t really have the LGBT+ communities best interest at heart year-round, only when it might seem convenient. 

Is Marketing During Pride Worth The Risk?

    A good Pride campaign can break boundaries, start meaningful conversations and position your brand favorably with a growing audience. On the flip-side, brands whose campaigns seem like lazy cash grabs will dig their company into a very big hole both on social media and with the general public mindset. Consumers are savvier than they have ever been and can tell when a brand is being genuine in their marketing.  Companies like Gap and American Express clearly state where the money raised from their Pride campaigns is going and it is that transparency that draws in the modern consumer. In today’s age consumers vote with their dollars, many choose not to support brands that don’t align with their views. It’s up to brands to decide where they will fall politically and socially because it might affect their bottom line. 

Technology doesn’t surprise us anymore. Instagram updates every day, new emojis are a dime a dozen, and Facebook shows us ads for that pizza we’ve all been craving. All this combined presents a new frontier for commerce. For the first time what we spend money on, how long we stay on a sight, and potentially even our future behavior is all data. ويليام هيل Everyone’s behavior is traceable and predictable. This is a huge benefit for business. In a perfect world, it gets consumers what they want before they even know they want it. العاب على الهاتف المحمول However, our world is not perfect and sometimes the succinctness of these ads gets a big brother vibe from consumers.  

People are inherently private so they don’t like the idea that everything about them is online. It’s this odd love of convenience but fear of a loss of privacy. The biggest example of this paradox coming to a head is the Facebook Cambridge Analytic scandal. People felt a significant loss of privacy by the hands of Facebook. As a company, they are still feeling the effects of this breach in trust today.  With the Facebook scandal, this reality of consumer data got pushed front and center. Facebook is funded through advertisements, so what solution could they come to that wouldn’t stop businesses from advertising and won’t make their users feel unsafe?

They create the “clear history” function

Creating the “option” for Facebook users to delete their history and become a ghost online. This is a solution for the private Facebook user. While being a problem for digital marketers and Zuckerberg knows this; he already warned advertisers this will change their strategies for Facebook ads. Even though this option may impact Facebook’s ad business. Zuckerberg clearly sees this tool as necessary to win back user trust. “After going through our systems, this is an example of the kind of control we think you should have,” he wrote in his announcement post on Clear History. “It’s something privacy advocates have been asking for — and we will work with them to make sure we get it right.”

The stance of Facebook is strong; is privacy going to kill specified ads on Facebook?

The clear history button if used will affect specifications of ads, but a big part of that is if it’s used. There is a reason Facebook is giving this as an option, not a mandate. Also, an upside is its release has been delayed. They have released statement after statement promising this feature will arrive even though it is a couple of months late already. With a release like this, it seems like it is purposefully going under the radar. Facebook knows they have one of the most effective platforms for specified ad targeting due to the information Facebook users tell about themselves. From their relationship status, to what pages they visit. The upside of the clear history function is that it gives users the confidence that they aren’t being watched, so for some, the ad they eventually see could sit better with them. Another big plus for businesses is that it is optional; so most people, who are not privacy advocates who stay up on Facebook news might not know about this new option.

So even though it seems like a death sentence for digital advertising that’s a far cry from the truth. لعبة بوكر تكساس If anything users who find a problem with personalized ads won’t have that problem anymore. Now ads will seem more genuine and trustworthy. So yes data is being erased. But Facebook knows this won’t really matter other than the initial dent in loss of data. Facebook will still be an extremely effective marketing tool for all users.

Links for sources:

•  https://slate.com/technology/2019/02/facebook-clear-history-button-real-wow.html
•  http://fortune.com/2019/05/14/facebook-clear-history-may-hurt-targeting/
• https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/26/18241985/facebook-clear-history-launch-2019-ad-targeting-privacy-tool

Help For Our Heroes

Darren Seys with Commander Ryan Ley

Darren Seys, founder, and CEO of Peak Seven was quoted in the Miami Herald’s article There’s still lots of time to help others for Thanksgiving, this week. As a board member of Entrepreneurs’ Organization South Florida (EO), Darren indicated that troops in their early 20s needed guidance on “starting a business, joining a company or just integrating back into the civilian community,” and that EO was going to give these troops any mentoring they needed to get readjusted to civilian life.

“One of EO’s core values is to ‘Make a Mark’ like serving our community,” Seys said. “It’s extra special to do this for these young South Florida men and women who bravely serve our country in the air and on the ground. بينجو اون لاين ”

Thank you to the Miami Herald for writing such an uplifting and thoughtful article. We hope Darren’s words helped to inspire some more good acts in our community this holiday season. كيف تفوز في روليت You can find their interview with Darren in the second section of the article. رهان الخيل

To read the full Miami Herald article, click here.

To learn more about EO, click here.

Robots in Media

Robots have been a part of human culture for a long time now. In fact, the first time someone said “robot” was in 1921! Robots are still a huge part of our lives today in all media especially in  movies like Star Wars: The Last Jedi and now we even find robots in our homes thanks to smart speakers such as Google Home and assistants like Siri. Today, let’s talk about some bots we can’t see directly, but that probably effect us more than any bots we actually recognize. Let’s discuss a certain kind of internet bot: the algorithm.

A.I. on the Web

Remember during The Social Network (2010) when Mark Zuckerburg got drunk and started writing math problems on his college dorm window? What he was doing in that scene was coming up with the foundation for the algebra he would later use in his algorithm for finding friends on Facebook. اربح An algorithm is “a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer.” We encounter algorithms everyday  when surfing the web and we may not even realize it. On YouTube, a bot is in-charge of deciding which videos hit the Trending page or even how likely an ad will play on that video. Google’s algorithm decides which ads are displayed on it’s homepage per search. All of these are examples of Artificial Intelligence or A.I., for short.

How Bots are Made

A.I. is what makes the modern internet work and is how we as humans can communicate effortlessly all across the globe in milliseconds. So how do the bots actually even work? Well in the simplest terms it’s a bit of a mystery as each internet company builds their bots from scratch in an effort to do a task and none of the companies are going to give away their secrets anytime soon. What we do know is how a bot is built and what that means for how they operate online.

Bots are created instantly and infinitely, each with slight changes, and are tested to perform a simple task, like recognizing a certain word or an image. All A.I. in a set are given basic instructions in code and guidelines in the form of human knowledge, then they are tested on that information. Those bots that score the highest are copied and altered for the next round of testing and the failure bots are discarded. The process repeats itself until a single bot is chosen that can most accurately and almost perfectly do that task. All the companies who built the bots are left to do is trust the process until a better bot is created. This is the algorithm for making a bot that does what you need it to do.

Stay Tuned for More!

In a future blog we’ll discuss how these algorithms and A. روليت عربي I. robots can aid your business if you wanted to build your own and will take you step-by-step in that process. Stay tuned! In the meantime, check out this informative video by CGP Grey for more on bots and A.I.

Sources:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/19/tech/innovation/robots-pop-culture/index.html

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1285016/

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/algorithm

Video

Currently, there are five ad formats currently supported on Facebook: Photo, Video, Carousel, Slideshow, and Collection. Today we will determine which Ad Format is the default best of the bunch and what the strengths and weaknesses are of each.

Photo

Facebook loves its photos. Have you noticed how your Timeline has become more picture based over time? Facebook took cues from Instagram (which it owns) and evolved its Timeline to be more eye-catching. روليت Photo ads are fantastic at drawing consumers in with their fantastic visual display. Photo ads are also great at helping you raise awareness and take only a few minutes to set up and run. For the ad professional that wants to grow leads quickly and build off of impressions, the Photo format might work best for you.

Video

If a picture tells a thousand words, then perhaps a video is worth one million. Video ads on Facebook are designed to pull in the audience. People love video on Facebook as it is just second to YouTube for most watched content at over 100 million hours. Video ads help you grow awareness of a product, promote something awesome, and push sales. With Video ads, you can tell a more well-rounded story for your product than in a Photo ad. These are for the marketers with a story to tell and the passion to tell that story in the best way possible.

Carousel

If what you seek is high performance, Carousel ads boast the best stats. With the ability to showcase 10 images or videos at a time, Carousel ads have become a fan favorite and rank highly in conversions. Use carousel ads to tell a story in a shorter format than a single video or display more than a single product at a time. Carousel ads are interactive and scrollable which means they will leave the audience wanting more when that scrolling stops. Carousel ads are great for advertisers who want to really give the audience a great view of what they are selling.

Slideshow

Slideshow ads are quite a lightweight and cost-effective option open to advertisers. Tell a story using images that play one-after-the-other along with motion effects and sound. Video ads can be expensive to produce, slideshows are much less expensive and have a similar effect. They do not buffer like Video ads so they are playable at any connection speed anywhere. For the cost-savvy business-person, we recommend Slideshow ads.

Collection

Collection ads are probably the most interesting of the Facebook ad formats currently available. Collection ads are fantastic because they are undeniably effective, and great at telling a brand’s story. These immersive ads give the user a full-screen interactive experience that doesn’t require leaving Facebook. الرهان في سباق الخيل These ads are best used to drive awareness and bring in new customers that are curious about a product. العاب مقابل المال These are sales generating machines that when made with Canvas, allow the user to be fully enveloped in your ad.

Verdict: Facebook offers a variety of great advertising options and depending on the business you want to promote and your budget constraints, you can offer your audience some fantastic storytelling ads and in the end, that’s what you really want to do. With great storytelling, clicks and purchases will surely follow. 

Helpful Links:

https://www.facebook.com/business/products/ads