Businesses that operate globally use translation services to convey their internal and external messages into different languages and cultures. Literal translations cause messages to get lost and create confusion. Translating simple business communications is easy – Right? For example, if a company has a concern for fire safety, the evacuation procedures should not be difficult to convey. The concept that fire is bad, people should evacuate, and calling emergency services seems basic. However, the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words could not be truer than when looking for that familiar exit sign during an emergency.
However, what if this image is also foreign to the viewer? The literal translation for Kentucky Fried Chicken’s slogan “It’s finger lickin’ good” from English to Chinese is “Eat your fingers off.” The letters KFC and the iconic American image of Colonel Sanders mean nothing to others that have never seen them before – Both are literally, “lost in translation.” Nonetheless, images do help convey messages and play critical roles in marketing and branding – “Marketing is what you do and Branding is who you are” ~ The Tronvig Group
Images help with brand imaging, which is how customers recognize and identify brands. Essentially, brand imaging is how customers view a brand. If the image is great, that alone can create brand loyalty. For the most part, images are synonymous and help with understanding translations. Regardless of the spoken language, people across the world look up at the moon, point, and call it the moon in their native tongues. It does not matter if the moon is called luna, buwan, hilal, or tsuki because it remains unchanged. Nonetheless, when choosing images for marketing and branding, it is important to ensure the pictures are congruent with the culture and language. If you do not believe that to be true, look at the two images below and ponder how they are similar and different at the same time. �
While both pictures are of busy cities with a plethora of advertising, chances are that you might have felt a little lost and confused by the messages in one of the cities. The images help with identifying the meaning behind the advertising. The first picture advertises the movie “Tank Girl” but also has an advertisement for “Girls”, which would definitely cause confusion if the consumer only understands basic terms – In this case the pictures keep mistakes from happening.
Our topic tonight is what we are all in this program for, or
most of us I would think. MARKETING. Social media has sparked an importance in real
time marketing data. Individuals who can analyze and collect data to make a pre
suggested “successful” marketing campaign are priceless to some agencies. At least that is what the MCM program
material has taught me.
Things that come to mind when I think of marketing analytics:
SEO
Click through rates
Google Advertisements
Buttons
Hashtags
Real time Engagement data
SPSS ( I am sure every participant in this program can relate to the sad face)
The reality is that social media and marketing analytical data
is complex but the future is going to make it even more so. Do we have to
change as technology does? The simple answer is yes. If we do not have the up
to date or at least some current knowledge of how to collect data then we are
obsolete marketers. Right? You are
reading a post by someone who despises change but realizes it is necessary. Are you ready for the changes to come or will
you be stuck in the knowledge you learned in this program? Are we ever experts?
This is where the individual really matters. Some people
love SPSS. Some people love data. Personally, I enjoy the creative side of marketing
much more than the data side.
An article by Timothy Carter in Marketing Land Magazine
called How Next Generation Algorithms could impact your marketing strategy
states that future marketing data collection will eliminate the human element.
???? That means us, right?
Just because the algorithm can self-adapt does not mean that
the human element of marketing data will be eliminated in my opinion. I think this will be an amazing advancement
for a task that can waste several human hours in the day. Data is great for strategy but humans need to
develop and implement this strategy. Will
the self-adapting algorithms ruin the data though? That is my question. Only
the future can tell.
The article states that new algorithms will actually prevent
manipulation of data. This is something to consider since we are all looking
for data that supports our approach. TAG
marketing company is working with Nintendo to develop a fresh marketing
scheme. Our pitch to the CEO relies on
data. We looked for data that supported our big idea even though our observations
and surveys were un biased. Individuals picked the questions. We WANTED a particular
outcome. WE FIND RATIONAL FOR OUR BUDGET
in our pitch. That is a technique and strategy.
Is anti-manipulation data collecting better? Of course when it comes to
a straight answer but what if my multimillion dollar budget needs other data?
Maybe the answer we are looking for is the flexibility
option in the potential new algorithms.
They will be customizable. So with that said I will see you in the future
with my easier to get, less manipulated, and more flexible data. My company
will be using it and winning the pitches.
When I was growing up in the 90s, my dream job as a young child was to be a professional athlete. I grew up watching all kinds of sports, and it was available to me in my free time. Personally, I would assume that striving to become a professional athlete is the dream job for many children, especially in my era. Fast forward to today’s media landscape, where professional gaming and YouTube creators are viable careers….. Becoming a professional YouTuber is now the number one dream job for Children in the UK and the United States!
In a survey of over 3,000 children between the ages of 8-12 in the USA and UK, over 1/3 participants chose YouTuber as their top dream job. The next choice was teacher, then pro athlete, musician, and finally astronaut, chosen by 11% of participants.
There is no question that becoming a professional YouTuber can turn into a lucrative career, as we have we live in an era where some of the top content creators are making massive amounts of income and hold millions of loyal fans and followers. This study displays the monumental impact the YouTube platform has made on the world, and social media overall.
There are also many questions to be raised from these astonishing results. Is it time for universities to amp up their curriculum and educate students on viable career paths that can come from Social Media and YouTube? How realistic is it to make a living solely of YouTube content? We have been enlightened by the many popular YouTubers who have massive followings, but what about the struggling content creators that aren’t as relevant?
It will be interesting to see what the career aspirations are like for children in the year 2030, as social media and digital media evolve even more.
While privacy policies can be long and sound like another language with legal jargon, it’s important to take the steps upfront to protect ourselves. While it may seem logical, the more these companies know about you, the more they can tailor things to things you like, companies like PayPal, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook and others share your personal information with dozens of other companies.
These organizations follow our digital behaviors. They chalk
it up to enable better survey targeting and other market research activities
and even use our private recordings with Alexa and private Facebook photos for “research.”
Browser companies like Nacho Analytics already have hundreds
of thousands of tax returns, nest home videos, medical information and more.
All made public and available to third parties. While this seems outrageous many
companies like this say that they their privacy policies for the browser
extensions “do give fair warning that some sort of data collection will occur.”
What makes it worse? Let’s say that the user is fully aware
that its data is being shared. But they are using their browser for a third parties’
purpose, does that consent extend to third parties whose sensitive information
is viewed by the consenting user and subsequently published? Queue the lawyers.
Furthermore, it completely legal for you to be using a
browser for one reason, they then change their terms of service at any time. While
you may think an extension is fine at first, there’s nothing stopping it from
being turned into spyware in an update, or from being bought by a spyware
“vendor” and then turned into spyware.
As times are changing, U.S. lawmakers are trying to stay up with
the times. Newly proposed legislation would actually allow for users to see the
true value of their data to these third parties. The DASHBOARD act would “provide
each user with an assessment of the financial value of their data“ and “give
users the right to delete their data from companies’ databases” (Lengen, 2010).
“As marketers use data to create segments and personas, it’s their job to regulate just how much information is collected and be transparent about the ways it’s used” (Steimer, 2018).
Who here would like to live a life of being debt free? Have no more bills to pay, and finally enjoy the debt free life? If you answered yes to these questions, then this blog post is for you!
Kumiko Ehrmantraut, or the Budget Mom as everyone knows her, has created a community where she inspires people to learn how to budget and start them on the road to a debt free world. Now, I know it is called the The Budget Mom, but this system is for everyone. You don’t have to be a mom or a female to join, you just have to want to be debt free!
Ehrmantraut started with a debt of $77,000 and was able to reduce that and start her own business by sharing her experience. It all started with simple YouTube videos and Instagram posts where she explained her budgeting plan and talked about her journey. She quickly became famous between women, more specifically single moms who were able to relate to her story and wanted to embark on this journey as well, hence the start of TBM.
The TBM community began to grow once they saw that people were getting real results from this budgeting method. Not only people were becoming debt free, but they were starting a journey where they would not fall into the debt trap again. Now what are these methods you may ask? Well, to get the whole scoop you will have to check out the The Budget Mom website since some of the content is very specific, but to summarize in a nutshell, it consists of a using cash instead of cards, cutting down on unnecessary expenses, manage your spending and using that extra savings to begin snowballing debt.
It all sounds easy enough to follow, but you never know how much you are addicted to eating out or buying unnecessary stuff until you take it all away. But that is ok. Because as you will find in this community, everyone supports each other with suggestions, appraisals and motivational stories. It will take trial and error to finally get it right, but if you commit and decided to embark on this journey; the debt free life will be waiting on the other side.
Jerry Seinfeld once commented as part of his routine that the number one fear is public speaking, with the second fear being death. As Seinfeld observes, “if you have to be at a funeral, you’d rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
All modern technology has not completely eliminated this fear from Humanity, it has provided solutions to help mitigate this terror.The most popular of these public speaking crutches comes in the form of a software package produced by Microsoft called PowerPoint. Now people can fill these slides with graphics, data points, and Interesting transitions. No longer do we have to feel the intimidating gaze of a room full of people staring at our every move. instead we can diverting attention to the glowing screen above.
As we’ve become more and more accustomed to this digital crutch, we become more dependent on the technology to really drive a presentation skills then relying on the age-old traditions of storytelling.
Storytelling? BUT…
Sure, a rendition of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” might not be appropriate for the budget review meeting. There are ways to keep your audience from glossing over and entering that state of consciousness where the eye’s remain open and fixated but it is obvious that Elvis has left the mental building. Before I go any further, let’s address one common misconception.
“I’m not a storyteller.”
Um… have you ever been at a dinner and shared an experience or funny event that happened to you? Have you ever told a joke, any joke (no judgement here)? Then you my friend, are a storyteller. Of course the situations where you find yourself sitting around the table swapping tales of life’s mishaps and adventures is a lot less formal than being on the spot in the middle of a conference room with only the sound of your voice to break the awkward aura.
Build Your Presentation on the Basics
If you are familiar with the concept of “the Hero’s Journey,” a reoccuring theme that has been identified in all popular stories, both modern and ancient (and the underlying plot for just about every movie in Hollywood), then you might start to wonder how all this can connect to your budget presentation. We’re not going to go so deep into the constructing of the story. We’ll take it even back to the most basic story construct.
Hero – Villain – Conflict – Resolution
That’s it. Look at what you need to present, identify who the hero is, who the villain is, where the conflict appears and what the resolution is. Bada boom, bada bing. And thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this…
“But what about the budget presentation? I don’t see a villain, hero, etc. It doesn’t work in this situation. You’re so full of sh…”
It does work!
So you have a budget presentation… have you been hitting your budget numbers? No? There’s your villain! Your conflict, the company needs to get the numbers back up. The hero could be anywhere. It could be an idea that you have, the marketing department’s new campaign, engineering’s new widget, etc. The resolution, to unleash the hero to save the day!
But maybe the budget numbers are great, record sales and everyone loves the company! Well the hero has been identified, but there may be a villain lurking within the profit and loss statement waiting to pounce. Competitors gaining market share, economic downturn, or any number of challenges could be the culprit. The conflict then becomes the ability to prepare for the unknown.
You don’t have to blatantly and publicly identify who the heroes and villains are in your “story.” If you know who they are and are thinking in terms of “what story does this tell?” any and every presentation you give will have improved tremendously and your audience will be grateful for it… even if they don’t know exactly what they are grateful for.
Streaming services and social media have changed how music is being tracked and how people are listening to it. It wasn’t that long ago that songs would be tracked by sales and radio play. Now with the popularity of streaming services the Hot 100 now updated their formula to incorporate streaming and YouTube views as 20-30% of the formula. The reason why I chose these articles and this song is how and why it became number 1.
Billboard decided to remove this song from their Country songs chart earlier this year. This became a controversy of how artists are put in certain or specific genres due to their race. They felt this song wasn’t a country song due to the singer, Lil Nas X, is black and felt the song was part of the Trap genre, so they removed it from the country charts.
Lil Nas X knew that Billboard counts all the different versions as one song, so Lil Nas X decided to create multiple versions of the song with different artists including one with Billy Ray Cyrus. The Cyrus remix set a record with the most downloads in streaming in April with the release of this remix. Two weeks ago Lil Nas X tweeted “EVERBODY STREAM ALL 79 VERSIONS OF OLD TOWN ROAD!! LETS BREAK THE RECORD!!”
Old Town Road is now the longest-running No.1 song on Billboard, thanks to social media and streaming, beating out Despacito and One Sweet Day. As social media and streaming become a bigger part of everyday life and the advancement of technology, it will be interesting to see how Billboard will incorporate these changes and how artists will use this to influence the outcome.
Below is the video and a couple of articles about Billboard and Black Cowboy Culture in our society.
It seems like kids are using technology younger and younger these days. With these rapid cultural changes, it’s hard to understand the short and long-term impacts this screen time gives our youth.
More organizations have begun conducting studies to determine just how this impacts their daily lives–particularly amongst teenagers who are usually consuming the most media and technology.
An interesting new study on screen time and mental health on teenagers has been conducted by the University of Montreal. They found, that overindulging in social media and television was directly linked to significant increases in depressive symptoms. While this might not come as a total surprise, what is shocking is that there was no data showing a link between video game or computer use in association with negative mental health. As the article eloquently words it, “Video games, OK. Social media, bad.”
This study was conducted over the course of four years as the research team tracked their use and studied for symptoms of depressions, loneliness, sadness and hopelessness. The results of this study shed light on a very serious problem in the digital landscape and that is the negative effects social media can play in our lives–particularly our youth.
“Social media and television are forms of media that frequently expose adolescents to images of others operating in more prosperous situations, such as other adolescents with perfect bodies and a more exciting or rich lifestyle,” lead author Elroy Boers, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Montreal’s Department of Psychiatry, said in a statement.
“Furthermore, based on reinforcing spirals theory, people seek out and select information congruent with their current state-of-mind. The algorithmic features of television viewing and in particular, social media, create and maintain a feedback loop by suggesting similar content to users based on their previous search and selection behavior. Thus, the more one’s depressive state influences their viewing choices, the more similar content is being suggested and provided, and the more likely one will be continuously exposed to such content, therewith maintaining and enhancing depression.”
As wonderfully said by Elroy Boers, everything about the foundation of social media sets kids up to feel this way. By the content it repetitively feeds them to the ease of access to information about others lives it provides them.
To all the parents out there, maybe those extra 10 minutes of gaming aren’t so bad after all.
Taking this integrated communication strategies course has been a wonderful experience and extremely relevant to my career in advertising at iHeartMedia.
Working at iHeart for almost four years has allowed me to plan and execute multi-platform advertising campaigns for top clients and advertising agencies in the country. First hired as a National Sales Assistant in Multi-Market Radio Sales and then promoted to a Media Planner, my focus lies on the traditional advertising sector, broadcast radio.
I know what you may think.. radio? Isn’t this advertising platform
archaic? Outdated? Especially with the rise of digital advertising?
Working for the leading media company in the United States has taught me valuable lessons about the media industry and broadcast radio. Here are my top 3:
1)Working for an owned and operated, multi-platform media company is fast paced, client centric, and rewarding. iHeart has effective reach due to their powerful advertising assets.
iHeartMedia owns 850+ broadcast radio stations across 160+ markets all across the country, with the capability to reach 275 million listeners.
We have over 20,000 local and national tentpole events including Wango Tango, iHeartRadio Music Awards, iHeartRadio Music Festival. ( I had the opportunity to work these events and help wherever is needed, whether escorting and entertaining clients and sponsors, providing backstage tours, helping in the village at activations or doing whatever is necessary to make sure the event is flawless and clients are happy).
139 Million registered iHeartRadio App users. Did you know you can listen to all radio stations on this app, even non iHeartRadio stations? (i.e. If you want to listen to Urban station Power 106, you can tune in on the iHeart app)
We recently acquired Stuff Media, making us the #1 podcaster in the US. (i.e. The Ron Burgundy podcast, How Stuff Works, The Zodiac Killer)
250+ platforms and connected devices (i.e. in car, on smart TV’s, in smart speakers, etc) and 146M social media followers
#1 syndicator of Radio Programming with Premiere syndicated talent (i.e. Ryan Seacrest, Rush Limbaugh, Dan Patrick ).
Robust Total Traffic and Weather Network including 200 markets and 203M listeners each month
iHeart works with the top advertisers, clients and top marketing agencies in the country (i.e. OMD, Group M, UM) utilizing our multi-platform assets to create strategic and unique media plans that are executed once sold. Together our local and national teams work to produce influential campaigns per flight week (i.e. Week of 7/29-8/2 is a flight week in advertising).
2) Broadcast Radio is not dead & Audio is booming
With a rise of technology and social media, broadcast radio has been considered outdated. You may be surprised to find out that broadcast radio is an effective advertising medium with 93% of Americans that listen to the radio daily.
Research indicates that the “the ear is faster than the eye.” People can process spoken words faster than written word. In addition, people remember messages 4-5x longer when heard over seen. Thus, Radio is more compelling than online and tv ads, and can influence consumer choice. Best of all, radio is live!
Power of personality- 73% of people have a deep connection with their favorite on air personality. Even before I worked at iHeart, I used to turn into 102.7 and listen to Ryan Seacrest and Ellen K during AMD (AM Drive- M-F 6:00am – 10:00AM), I looked forward to this show every morning and I felt connected to my favorite on air personalities. They were my companions entertaining me on the car ride to school and now work.
Did you know that 63% of people consider purchasing a product recommended by their favorite personality and 79% value their opinion?
Selena Gomez on On Air with Ryan Seacrest
Lastly, the power of sound is on the rise. Streaming, podcasts, music festival attendance and smart speakers have risen significantly every year.
iHeartRadio available podcasts
3) Smart Audio is the future of broadcast radio buying
In recent years, iHeartRadio purchased and released a new media planning technology called Smart Audio powered by a programmatic platform called Jelli.
SmartAudio combines the targeting and efficiency of digital media with the scale of broadcast radio. The platform is another way for planners and radio buyers to purchase and run more efficient broadcast radio campaigns using the user friendly system.
Smart Audio can not only plan on traditional radio demo-based buying (i.e. Persons 12+ or Adults 18-49), but the program can now plan on enhanced audiences (cohorts). These enhanced audiences targets efficient audiences and customer profiles that marketers want to reach.
Some enhanced audiences or cohorts include: Auto intenders, Grocery Shoppers, Parents with children 18 and under. Smart Audio helps us target these audiences by using our first part data from the iHeartRadio app (over 120 million users) and expanding their profiles with social and third party data partners.
As a Media Planner, I create multiple media plans, including Smart Audio on either demos or enhanced audiences. These plans are self-serve on the Jelli website and can be built and tracked in real time. I also collaborate and strategize with sales colleagues to achieve negotiated client goals by creating and executing customized multimillion-dollar network, programmatic, and multi-market media plans. I analyze ratings, demos, inventory, and pricing data to build efficient media plans while meeting client objectives.
It is fascinating to see our campaigns for entertainment accounts and fortune 100 accounts come to fruition. Our teams work together to make sure all aspects of the media plan are created and executed. I am not going to lie, I still get excited when I hear an advertisement that I planned on the radio.
Looking forward to the future of broadcast radio and to see how it evolves. Now when creating your marketing plans for your final projects, don’t forget to include broadcast radio for ultimate reach and frequency!
Digital marketing is the newest advertising frontier, and must be taken into account when designing well thought-out marketing strategies.
If that is so, then FACEBOOK needs to be understood. As the #1 social network, it counts with an impressive number of eyeballs, however, its demographic is aging (41% of users is over 65 years-old!). Younger generations (particularly those under 30 years-of-age) prefer INSTAGRAM. Instagram is easy to use from your phone and has more than a billion users. The next tools in digital marketing that must be considered are ChatBots and YouTube. No one seems to be able to learn anything by reading anymore – they need to see it – believe it!! Videos are a MUST! Live streaming is another medium to be explored, these are spontaneous and captivating if done the correct way. Above all things, the content must be solid, appealing, and relevant.
In terms of digital marketing, seems the tools have changed and evolved, however, the fundamentals remain. Content is still king, and you must segment your target audience well, and reach them where they are so that you can deliver your persuasive message effectively.
References:
O’Brian, C. (2019). Retrieved from: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-us/blog/8-digital-marketing-trends-to-watch-out-for-in-2019.
