Month / March 2019

by ianmmeredith

‘Avengers: Endgame’ and the Marvel Fishhook

After eleven years of universe building, Marvel already has our attention and doesn’t need to do much more in the way of teasing

Since 2008, Marvel has had comic book nerds and action movie lovers alike raving over their ever-expanding cinematic universe. With every post-credit scene and every teaser trailer, the Disney-owned company charges up potential energy to slingshot the next installment under their name into the list of highest grossing movies of all time. Avengers Infinity War, released in late April 2018, sits comfortably at number 4 on the list; Captain Marvel, the franchise’s latest release, blew past the $500 million mark in just a week.

Brie Larson as Captain Marvel

But Marvel barely needs to lift a finger anymore to get fans foaming at the mouth for their next film, and their recent trailer for Avengers: Endgame shows that they know it. The trailer, which mostly consists of shots from past Marvel movies, seems to act simply as a recap for fans to know what is at stake in the movies: the fate of the entire cinematic universe. Fans have speculated on who we might lose in the next film, but no one knows for sure.

“It [seems] impossible to not disappoint fans who [have] built impossibly high expectations about the conclusion of the Infinity War storyline…We’re two (three) trailers in, and Endgame has been appropriately teased without saying almost anything at all about the movie itself, therefore upsetting no one.”

            Graeme McMillan, writing for the Hollywood Reporter, hits the nail on the head when he explains why Marvel no longer needs to provide spoilers in their trailers. Spoilers ruin excitement and upset fanbases. All Marvel needs for their well-established universe (eleven years in the making) is a few urgent tones and ultimatums like those heard in the trailer, repeating “Whatever it takes” all the way through.

Scarlet Johansson, Karen Gillan, and Robert Downey Jr. in the trailer forAvengers: Endgame (set to release April 2019)

            For more information on Avengers: Endgame, check out Graeme McMillan’s “Avengers: Endgame and the Art of the Spoiler-Free Trailer,” The Hollywood Reporter, (Mar 14, 2019).

-Ian

by Oriana

Marie Kondo Floods Thrift Stores with Unwanted Items

Photo courtesy of the herald-dispatch

The reality TV show on Netflix “Tidying Up with Marie Kondo” has taken the world by storm since it first aired in January 2019. This minimalist home improvement show has revolutionized the tidying up game, and all of a sudden everyone has begun cleaning out their homes of anything unwanted. In the show, Kondo stresses only keeping items that “spark joy”, which entails for a lot of stuff to be thrown out or donated.  Although this sounds great for the person cleaning out their home, it’s not so great from thrift store employees, who are suddenly being hit by a colossal wave of donations.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “Goodwill Industries International Inc., which operates used-goods stores across the U.S. and Canada, said January donations rose by more than 32% in Washington, 22% in Houston, 20% in Roanoke, Va., and 16% in Grand Rapids, Mich,” which is right around the time the show first aired. Donations are obviously a huge part of a thrift stores business, but recently the surplus of donations has been too much for the workers to handle. It is their job to sort through all of the donations that the store receives and they are also finding that a lot of the donations contain items that are inappropriate or unsellable. Some stores have even asked people to hold off on donations so that they can get through the backlog.  

If we don’t want them, and thrift stores don’t always want them, then what are we supposed to do with our unwanted items? Kondo is now proposing a new step to the decluttering method which, according to her, “encourages reflection on waste and action when it comes to reducing, reusing, recycling and respecting.” Instead of asking if something sparks joy when you are getting rid of it, you must ask if it will spark joy when you are purchasing it. Many times, people just buy things that they don’t really want or need, which is the reason they end up with so much junk in their homes in the first place.

For more on this, check out Rachel Pannett and Rhiannon Hoyle’s article “Marie Kondo Isn’t Sparking Joy for Thrift Stores”, Wall Street Journal (Mark 6, 2019). https://www.wsj.com/articles/marie-kondo-persuaded-you-to-jettison-your-junk-thrift-stores-sayenough-11551889124?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2

by mnaim1

Interactive Museums Become Hot Spots for Millennials

In the modern age it seems most people are not shy to post their daily outings on social media platforms? As an effort to connect with social media engrossed individuals in society, interactive museums serve as a new way to involve guests by featuring the perfect set-ups for your next instagram post.

“The average millennial checks their phone 43 times and spends five hours on social media per day.”

In order to produce successful marketing in the modern age, strategies must reflect knowing “where the millenials are” and what they are interested in.

Refinery29’s 29Rooms pop-up featured 29 different interactive, artistic displays inviting guests to become one with the art. The Museum of Ice Cream in Miami features a set of fun, brightly colored rooms which feature a banana swing, sprinkles play pool and whipped cream cloud exhibit.

(Image Courtesy of Refinery29)

These displays not only are fun for visitors, but serve as a successful marketing strategy. Once photos are posted online through Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, others become interested in visiting these centers as well. Capturing the interest of more potential visitors and dispersing unpaid advertising presents a win-win for these “selfie factories.”

Other potential successful strategies may include scavenger hunts which connect with a brand. This may include “digital touchpoints” or app-related experiences exclusive to those with access. For example, by buying VIP tickets to a concert, a customer may receive a personalized message from the head singer.

Interactive experiences present a seemingly fun and easy activity which captures an audience and presents effective advertising as well. From selfie factories to interactive programming, creative strategies provide sufficient revenue and pull in the interest of modern day consumers.

For more on this, check out,  Daniel Ramirez’s “Creating Experiential That Stands Out in a Crowded Industry”, Voice, Adweek (Mar 12, 2019).

https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/creating-experiential-that-stands-out-in-a-crowded-industry/

by nico102698

The new Avengers: Endgame trailer shows almost nothing, and that’s great

Avengers: Endgame is one of the most secretive blockbusters ever, with little to no information about the project known. Marvel is trying to be very careful about any details of the project being leaked, even though the movie is just about one month from release. 

  • Image Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

The film has had one of the most interesting marketing campaigns of a movie in recent memory; while superhero movie trailers have been criticized for showing too much of their movie, Avengers: Endgame has shown almost nothing. At first, we only found out about the title of the movie 3 months ago with the first trailer, and most of the footage shown has been shown in other trailers. We have also only had 2 posters, the first showing nothing but the Avengers logo and the new one showing all the avengers looking heroic with Thanos in the background. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo have cited that they will only use the first 15 minutes of the movie as material to use for marketing. 

  • Image Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

The movie has had two trailers and a super bowl spot which is incredibly sparse for a high budget movie of this caliber. The newest trailer, which was released on March 14th, starts with a recap of the previous marvel movies for about a minute and then shows a minute of new footage including the Avengers in new white suits and Captain Marvel interacting with the Avengers. 

This movie is the culmination of 21 movies over the span of 11 years. The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU, has been wildly successful, being the highest grossing franchise of all time with over 18 billion dollars grossed at the box office. 

  • Image Courtesy of Walt Disney Studios

The previous movie, Avengers: Infinity War was about the mad titan Thanos trying to accumulate all the infinity stones, which are 6 gems with unique powers, in his gauntlet. The film shockingly concluded with the villain defeating the Avengers and wiping out half the population of all living creatures in the universe.

Avengers: Endgameopens on April 26 

by Julia

The College Admissions Scandal Proves Online Image is Everything

How quickly influencers can lose their advertising

Photo Credit: USA Today

Nothing has shown the dangers of influencers and false advertising quite like influencer Olivia Jade Giannulli. The news of numerous rich celebrities has come out about parents paying for their children to attend prestigious universities without the required academic qualifications. Many of the parents have already been charged for this blatant fraud including actress Lori Loughlin, mother of Olivia Jade, becoming a wake-up call for influencers everywhere just how important the content they present is.

Prior to the scandal being exposed, Olivia Jade would present her “brand” on her YouTube channel as a fun college girl and even admits to only wanting to experience USC for the games and parties over the actual school work in her video below titled “basically all the tea you need to know about me (boys, college, youtubers).” It’s a wonder how the world didn’t put the pieces together based on how she branded herself online. Now, the appropriate reactions have come forth and according to Ad Age author Angela Doland, “ In the comments of a sponsored Instagram post about Giannulli getting her college dorm supplies from an Amazon service for students, someone wrote, ‘Hoping your sponsors dump you ASAP.” Since then the advertising backlash has taken off, her biggest partner, Sephora, dropped her “Olivia Jade x Sephora” makeup collection most recently, which will be a big dent in her current and future relationships with brands.

This just goes to show how fragile the common job of an influencer nowadays truly is. Branding yourself online is opening companies and audiences into your life and when your credibility becomes lost, so does all your income that relies on it.

-Julia

For more info go to Angela Doland’s article, “An Influencer Gets Caught Up in the College Admissions Scandal: Wednesday Wake-Up Call,” Ad Age, (March 13th, 2019).

Link: https://adage.com/article/news/news/316960/

by agosser

Will Travel Agencies Become Popular Again?

Adventure travel is a type of tourism where travelers engage in outdoor recreation with the help of adventure tour operators. This form of travel involves any kind of recreation that takes place outside, according to an adventure travel activity database, Go Adventure Outdoors. Jeri Clausing, of Travel Weekly, gives insight about the adventure travel booking process in her article “Study Shows Potential for Agents to Sell More Adventure Travel.”

pexels-photo-372098

A survey of adventure tour operators was taken through the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) in 2018. With the help of the Travel Leaders Companion Survey Digest, results indicated that while travel agencies have a business relationship with 87% of operators, the agencies only book fewer than 30% of adventure travel for clients.

While 30% is not promising, the future for travel agencies could get brighter. According to ATTA’s regional director for North America, Russell Walters, “There is clearly a demand from adventure tour operators to work with specialist travel advisors. The findings in the report demonstrate areas where operators and travel agents can work together…”

For this to happen, though, the system cannot operate as it currently is. Firstly, travel agents need to learn the ins and outs of the adventure travel industry. Clausing writes that travel agents currently lack specialization within this field. A greater understanding of adventure travel would incentivize adventure tour operators to further their business with agencies.

Even more, survey participants indicated that travel agencies’ commission rates should be lowered if agents do not have experience with adventure travel. Clausing writes, “…operators also suggested that the traditional commission model is unfair when an advisor simply makes a referral and the tour operator does everything else.”

In other words, the biggest takeaway of this article is that hope for travel agencies is not lost. They have the potential to form successful partnerships with adventure tour operators, but this can only happen if agencies are more open to learning from the operators. If travel agents don’t consider lowering their costs and collaborating more with the operators, their usage could remain at its current rate of 30% of bookings.

To read the whole article, check out Jeri Clausing’s “Study Shows Potential for Agents to Sell More Adventure Travel” Travel Weekly, (Mar 14, 2019). https://www.travelweekly.com/Travel-News/Tour-Operators/Study-shows-potential-for-agents-to-sell-more-adventure-travel

To learn more about the adventure travel industry, visit https://www.goadventureoutdoors.com/blog/what-is-an-adventure-tour-guide-75

by Kea

It’s the Content, Fool, the Content

We are heading into the last quarter of the semester. While it went by really fast, there is still more work to be done. In fact, it seems that most of the work has been saved to the end.

At least that is what one of my students said. I assured him that we do not plan things this way; It’s just that we are at the more advanced work. I don’t think he believed me.

In any case, we are steamrolling towards one of the final projects of the course: content marketing campaigns. For this assignment, students have to pick a local business here in Gainesville and develop a content marketing strategy for that business. This business should be a local outfit, and it can be a for-profit or non-profit business.

The main things students are going to learn during this project is how to shape content that tells the story of a company and sells the product the company produces.

Content marketing is changing to accommodate the times, and if it feels like we are in some strange public relations time warp all the time, that’s because we are. One thing that social media has made very clear is that narratives are important and not just product narratives. Brand narratives matter and consumers are demanding more and more that these narratives be shaped by some ideology.

The Nike and Colin Kaepernick campaign is a perfect example:

Today, we live in what I like to call a “narrative economy,” one where who a company is or how a company identifies matters just as much as the products they sell. Maybe it is a sign of the times, but companies are increasingly being asked to publicize their values. Companies are no longer allowed to paint themselves as neutral actors. People are demanding that companies have some social relevance, some social good, in order to be accepted.

I am not sure how long this trend will last or whether it is even right to make these demands on companies (that would make an interesting debate). I am sure that content marketing, specifically the kind that involves careful storytelling, is critical to company success right now.

We will talk more about content marketing in the coming days, and I will certainly post more on it. For this week, though, get ready for some trade journal posts from the students.

I have to say: I am very proud of them. These trade journals/press releases are getting better and better every time. Here are some great reads you should check out this weekend:

Vegan Beauty is All the Buzz: A look into the vegan cosmetic industry. Is it a fad, or is it here to stay?
Social Media and Eating Habits: An interesting and slightly terrifying look at the ways social media influences eating habits.
Economic, Racial, and Gender Inequality: A series of press releases that touch on the college admissions scandal involving the wealthy, the corporate diversity rates, and the sexual harassment of female lawyers by their clients.

Good stuff. They have chosen some great content here because, as the title says, it’s all about the content.

-KRW

by cassidymizell1

“Influencing” our diets: how social media personalities are impacting children’s eating habits

Via Foodtalk

There may be a new reason (amongst hundreds of others) to keep your children off social media.

Doctoral student Anna Coates conducted research at the University of Liverpool and discovered that social media influencers can ‘influence’ children’s eating habits.

The experiment involved showing children images from YouTube videos. There were three groups: one group was shown images with YouTubers holding non-food objects, another group was shown YouTubers eating healthy snacks, and the last shown YouTubers eating unhealthy snacks. The children could then pick between healthy and unhealthy snacks for themselves.

When allowed to pick, there was no difference in what foods the “healthy snack” group picked versus the control group, but the “unhealthy snack” group consumed over 30% more calories compared to the other two groups, or 90 calories.

According to Dr. Natalie Muth, “”It only takes an extra 70 calories a day for a child of normal weight to become overweight,” so these numbers add up quickly.

So, while influencers may not be able to sell you weight loss teas and hair vitamins, they can influence your children to make unhealthy eating choices.

Via Food & Wine Magazine

You can check out Patti Neighmond’s article for more on this phenomenon.

For more in food news, check The Salt by NPR.

by gabrielaharmon

Economic, Racial & Gender Inequality

How to Get in to College: Rich People Edition

Photo: Gordon Caplan leaves Federal Court in Manhattan. NY Daily News.

Co-chairman of AM Law 50 law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher, Gordon Caplan, was just released on a $500,000 bond. Along with approximately 50 defendants, Caplan was arrested for participating in a conspiracy that allowed cheating on college entrance exams. The conspiracy was led by William Singer, who founded a college preparatory business called the Edge College & Career Network. Recorded during a wiretap, Singer explained to Caplan that his business helps the wealthiest families in the U.S. get their kids into school by having the proctor of the standardized test answer the questions for the students. Cornell alum, Gordon Caplan wired $75,000 in two separate amounts to Key Worldwide. The elaborate FBI sting recorded detailed conversations during wiretaps describing the scheme run by Singer involving Caplan, other executives and businessmen, actresses and sports coaches. 

Picture-Perfect Diversity

Despite small increases in the past three years, representation of black associates is just below pre-recession level at 4.66%, the number of black partners has barely increased since the recession at 1.83% and minority women remain the most dramatically underrepresented group at partnership level. These figures were found by The National Association for Law Placement and published in their 2018 report on diversity. In many cases, firms are recruiting a small number of people from underrepresented groups to appear on firm brochures in order to create an illusion of diversity instead of creating an environment that supports and encourages equal treatment and opportunity.

Letting Sexual Harassment Slide

Photo: Shutterstock.

In addition to lack of representation, female lawyers are also facing sexual harassment from clients. In 2018, the International Bar Association found that nearly one in five instances of sexual harassment were committed by clients, and hardly any firms have policies in place to address this issue. With the automation of some legal work and an increase in alternative legal service providers, the competition for clients is higher than ever. Firms are, therefore, reluctant to put policies in place that may scare clients away. In addition, many female lawyers do not report clients for sexual harassment due to fear of being forced off cases and losing career-advancing opportunities.

Takeaways

Within the legal community, economic, racial and gender inequality remains a prevalent issue. In order to work toward change, there must be an open conversation about the issues currently faced and an effort toward finding solutions that works. In the case of corrupt, wealthy executives and clients who have been reported for sexual harassment, blame must be placed and justice must be found in appropriate punishment. In the case of racial inequality in the workplace, rather than placing blame on law schools for not accepting many black students, firms need to increase the demand for black lawyers.

“Change does not come easy. The struggle toward achieving the goal of diversity and inclusion in the legal community is a process, but one that we all must be invested in.”

–Henry E. Ibe, “Is Being Black a Problem at Law Firms?”

by graceubben

Vegan Beauty Is All the Buzz. But Is This Just A Fad?

Veganism has grown in popularity over the last several years as more and more people are choosing to give up meat, dairy, eggs, and other animal products. Some are making the change for health reasons, some for environmental reasons, and others for ethical reasons. This trend is not only happening in the food industry, but it has also begun to spark change in the beauty industry.

In the latest edition of The New York Times, fashion writer and editor, Andrea Cheng, writes about vegan beauty, what it means, and how this will affect the future of the beauty industry. There are several disturbing traces of animal found in everyday skincare and makeup products, including cow urine, cow and pig bones, sheep organs, and even whale vomit. Nobody thinks about the fact that they are smearing these animal parts onto their face when they put moisturizer on before bed, but many people just don’t realize that vegan options exist.


“This demand for all things vegan has made industries take notice, especially beauty.”

But what exactly does vegan beauty mean? According to Cheng, it means that a product is free of any animal ingredients. However, this is not to be confused being with “cruelty-free,” which just means that a product has not been tested on animals. As this becomes more popular, it will be crucial that brands do a better job of labeling to make it easier to differentiate vegan beauty products from non-vegan ones. We have seen this with vegan food products as the vegan diet has grown in popularity.

Cheng suggests that consumers start carefully reading labels and looking for natural ingredients. It’s helpful to do some research to see what brands and products are out there. She urges consumers to know how to assess the ingredients and question what they are buying. Plus, vegan beauty brands have exploded. There are many convenient and inexpensive options on the market. You can find vegan beauty products at the drugstore for a very affordable price, including the brands Pacifica and Derma E for skincare and Wet n Wild and e.l.f. for makeup.

According to Cheng, consumer demand has been the driving force behind this sudden growth in the vegan beauty industry. Consumers, specifically Millennial’s and Gen Z’s are fighting for big companies to make changes regarding the ethical and environmental impacts of their products. These consumers only want to support companies that align with their values. This has forced big companies to change their ways, empowering consumers to continue pushing for change.

For more on this, check out, Andrea Cheng’s “Taking Animals Out Of The Makeup Aisle,” The New York Time (Feb. 26, 2019): D4