Mediaboss Marketing

Fathers Day is as lucrative for marketers, as its maternal counterpart. The day is growing both in terms of spend and the influence is estimated to reap almost $15.5 billion in spending this year. Moreover, a major share of this spending will be directed towards events or experiences, predicts the National Retail Federations annual survey. Now, that is a great prospect for businesses and brands of all sizes!

Getting your brand involved in the Fathers Day marketing bandwagon requires a prudent game-plan. And, if youre still stuck with run-of-the-mill marketing concepts, then its time for an upgrade. Taking your marketing initiatives to a personal level is perhaps the smartest thing that youll be doing to engage with your customers emotionally. While youve probably thought about offering typical discounts on your products to attract more people, this way you can make your marketing way more personalized.

Successful implementation of this personalized marketing approach depends mostly on storytelling, leveraging big data and zeroing in on consumer demographics. The rest though, is all about selecting the right marketing channel. And, since it all boils down to engaging customers on a personal level-nothing serves better than leveraging social media for the purpose.

The following are some of the most viable social media marketing strategies that you can incorporate this Fathers Day to benefit your brand to the fullest.

Hit the right customer sentiments with some genuine storytelling

Emotional storytelling is undeniably the best example of how marketing works today, especially, if its an event focused campaign. Fathers Day is an event that celebrates one of the most special relationships that people share. Thus, brands shouldnt look to make quick gains, but instead implement a much more sustainable content strategy to develop brand identity and awareness.

Your content doesnt have to break all barriers of innovation in order to achieve this. Be it a small Facebook post, a simple Tweet with a hashtag or an interactive video, the content has to emphasize friends and family, stirring the gamut of real emotion. The My Bold Dad campaign initiated by Toyota during Super Bowl 2015, is a perfect example of a brand promoting a customer-oriented vision of a simple yet profound part a brand plays in an individuals life. The campaign ran with a #OneBoldChoice hashtag, and the compelling video captions encouraged people to put in their efforts, appreciating the Fathers Day.

Its evident that brands like Toyota have consistently focused on uplifting brand identity. This has helped them to continuously nurture winning moments of consumer choice. So, try and tie up your brand to peoples emotions. That way, you will be able to garner genuine and long lasting consumer engagement.

Count on big data and analytics for targeted marketing

With time, more and more brands are leveraging big data to mitigate several business gaps. If you are in the same league, then dont hesitate to use it for your Fathers Day social media campaign. Big data can help you streamline your marketing campaign by offering you crucial targeted insights on your existing customers.

Your customer data repository may have many fathers. Try and tap into each of these prospects to identify some common traits that you may target in your campaign. Remember, the demographics and preferences often tend to vary. So, leverage some analytics or take help of a high-end ORM (Online Reputation Management) platform to assess their sentiments and find out what they actually want. This will help you craft a targeted message that will appeal to them both emotionally and intellectually.

Implement a themed social media ad campaign

Social media serves as an ultimate platform for brands to mold and humanize the real persona surrounding their identity. And thus, with time, thematic social media ad campaigns have transformed from being just trends to established norms. To give a distinct face-lift to your brand image, focus on spicing up the festive fervor surrounding Fathers Day with a creative social ad campaign. That way, you will be able to stay in line with the audience emotions. Try and figure out an ad framework that perfectly balances sentiments, innovation and virality to create a distinct social ad campaign with substance. Remember, going against the clichd dogmas of defining parental roles will help your ad to strike a chord with the innermost inhibitions of your customers.

Few years ago, Dockers took an entirely new approach about Fathers Day ad campaign. It came up with a video showing the employees of the brand recall memories associated with their father and share advices passed down by them. This emotional ad campaign was a part of the brands #AllAboutDad social stint. No wonder, the campaign went on to be a big hit!

This Fathers Day help your brand make a statement, even if it is not an acclaimed thought provoker when it comes to fathers. Dig in deep; search for something meaningful that can well be your brands pitch for the event, even if it requires a creative twist. After all, fathers are special too, and they also deserve their share of beaming monochromatic tributes and innocent throwbacks.

Read more:
Envisioning an Effective Father's Day Social Media Strategy - MarTech Advisor

EDINBURGH Teams of journalists have been hard at work sifting through a massive bank of emails linked to the involvement of the Gupta family in South African government and business. As investigative reporters with amaBhungane and the Daily Mavericks Scorpio piece together correspondence to build the case that President Jacob Zuma is deeply corrupt, other editorial teams are analysing the findings. #GuptaLeaks is undoubtedly the most important release of confidential information in years because the state capture campaign by Zuma and his friends in particular the Gupta family is undermining the economy and unravelling South Africas fragile democratic system. Sadly, senior ANC figures are still not finding the courage within themselves to take a stand against the rot. With the law enforcement agencies corrupt and captured, too, it looks like it is going to take a court challenge from a civil society organisation to get the wheels of justice turning. Here is a snapshot of the latest findings to emerge from #GuptaLeaks Jackie Cameron

Staff Writer

The Gupta family has ambitious plans to seize control of the media sector, but has failed in its attempts to buy into Primedia. This emerged as journalists with amaBhungane released more details contained in a treasure trove of confidential #GuptaLeaks emails.

Owning their own newspaper and TV station was only the beginning of the Guptas plans. Leaked emails show that they hoped to build up a South African media empire and to do so, considered at one stage or another buying the Mail & Guardian, a portion of Independent Media, and Primedia, says amaBhungane.

Oakbays Vim Rajbansi elaborated on the plan: We merge with Primedia and list together [on the stock exchange] in 3 years.

AmaBhungane journalists ask whether Rajbansi exaggerating the level of interest in the proposal to impress his Gupta boss because Primedia denies engaging with the Gupta organisation in connection with a deal.

The board of Primedia never considered a transaction with the Guptas, Primedia CEO Roger Jardine said on Tuesday. I am not aware of any discussions between a director or shareholder of Primedia with the Guptas or their representatives, reports amaBhungane.

A partner at London-listed Bell Pottinger, Victoria Geoghegan has made it her business to undo the work of Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and other freedom struggle stalwarts to build up the Rainbow Nation following decades of conflict and hardship in the apartheid era.She has worked closely with Duduzane Zuma, one of President Jacob Zumas sons, as she has developed a race-baiting strategy to grab the attention of the grassroots population who must identify with it, connect with it and feel united by it. Victoria Geoghegan is also behind smear campaigns to get South Africans to hate independent journalists who have shone the spotlight on corruption in order to help shore up support for Zuma. Bell Pottinger has been paid handsomely for this work by a Gupta entity.Read here for more.

Its probably no surprise that ANC leaders continue to turn a blind eye to the vast body of evidence that President Jacob Zuma is in politics for himself and an army of sycophantic friends. Still, it was disappointing to learn this week that questions about the recently leaked emails purportedly showing ties between government, President Jacob Zuma and the Gupta family, were shut down by ANC NEC member Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakulaat an important meeting. She said the matter really has nothing to do with our work as the peace and stability committee.Mapisa-Nqakula has nailed her colours to the mast at a time when it is abundantly clear that you are either with #Zupta or against #Zupta. Read here for more.

Now heres something we bet you didnt know about Iqbal Surv,the controversial boss of the Independent group. As it turns out he was deep within the bosom of #Zupta for quite some time. In fact, the Surv and Gupta families were so tight that Iqbal Surv was a guest at THAT lavish wedding linked to the airforce landing scandal. Whats more, Surv threw his weight around and did a bit of Gupta name-dropping to work his way into a more luxurious suite.Read here for moreon how Surv and the Gupta brothers were as thick as thieves.

Read more here:
Exposed! Gupta plans to control Primedia, build media empire ... - BizNews

Sanya Gragg, a University of Memphis grad, has penned a book titled, "Momma, Did You Hear the News?" which shows black children what to do in police encounters.(Photo: Photo of book cover provided by Sanya Gragg)

Its been a minute since Sanya Whittaker Gragg was in Memphis.

A Nashville native, Gragg graduated with a marketing degree from the University of Memphis in 1992, during a time when she was pretty much insulated from the crack cocaine epidemic that raged around her and propelled Memphis murder rate to highs that are now being repeated.

But it was a text from her son in 2012 that made Gragg realize that the collateral damage from that epidemic the presumption by some law enforcement officers and vigilantes that all black men were prone to criminality and dangerousness could also get him killed.

When George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin, my son Avery sent me a text saying, OK, mom, now Im scared,' said Gragg, referring to 2012 when Zimmerman, a self-appointed watchman, stalked Martin as he walked home from a convenience store in Sanford, Fla., and wound up fatally shooting him after Martin confronted him about following him.

What happened to Trayvon made it real for him.

It made it real for Gragg, as well.

As did the fatal shootings of other unarmed African-American men one of the most recent being in Tulsa, where she lives with her husband, Tulsa University athletic director Derrick Gragg, Avery, who is now 20, Phillip-Raymond, 16, and her 3-year-old daughter, Saniyah.

Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby fatally shot unarmed Terence Crutcher last September during a traffic stop after he didnt respond to commands to stop.

Shelby said she feared for her life. A jury didnt quite buy that, but acquitted her of manslaughter anyway.

Thats why Gragg, torn between her instincts as a mother to protect her sons and her anger at the injustice of them dying at the hands of police or others who might interpret their appearance or actions as threatening, decided to write a book to help black boys live to fight another day.

Her book, titled Momma, Did You Hear the News? explains how to do that.

Through the voice of 10-year-old Avery, named after her oldest son, Gragg shows the anxieties of black boys after they hear of police shootings, and explains, in an easy way, what they can do to avoid becoming a casualty of police overreaction and stereotype.

One boy was eating SkittlesDad, I like to eat them too! Another played his music loud. Just like I sometimes do, reads part of the book.

To reduce that anxiety, Gragg introduced a mantra that she calls, Memorize The 5. The five being:

A-Always Use Your Manners

L-Listen and Comply

I-In Control of Your Emotions

V-Visible Hands Always

E-Explain Everything

Graggs book, which was released in April, was number one in Amazons hot new childrens book releases for a while. It now ranks 32 among Amazons 100 best sellers for childrens books that deal with violence.

Im surprised that its having that kind of success, Gragg said. But thats why I did it from the perspective of a 10-year-old

Ive been talking to my boys about this forevermy fear is that someone is going to see them, and have this preconceived notion of who they are, and they are going to wind up dead.

Graggs fear is justified. And her advice is wise and practical and along the lines of laying down safety rules for children.

But while its great that the University of Memphis can boast of a graduate who wrote a book that will help children deal with one of the most pressing issues of today, it still belies a disturbing reality.

The reality is that Gragg should be writing childrens books about the birds and the bees, or the joys of cooking or reading or exploring a museum.

But because of crimes connected to the drug trade and the stereotypes of black men that have been spawned by it in the 1990s the problem was racial profiling and police stopping black men in luxury cars she had to write a book instructing youths like her sons on how to protect themselves against those who are supposed to be protecting them.

Thats unfair.

But she had to do it because following these rules can make the difference between boys like Avery and Phillip-Raymond coming home to their loved ones in a car or their loved ones coming to see them in a coffin.

I see it as the same as them wearing a seatbelt, Gragg said. It may be uncomfortable, and even somewhat humiliating, but at the end of the day, it will save your life.

All I want is for them to come home alive.

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University of Memphis grad pens book to show black youths how not to get killed by police - The Commercial Appeal

UrbanArias pulls off a seemingly impossible task with Independence Eveby Sidney Marquez Boquiren and Daniel Neer, a chamber opera ofthree scenes with two singers, which deals with race relations in the US from the recent past to the near future all within 70 minutes.

The three micro-operas span a century, the common denominator is baseball, two singers play all six characters, and sing this relatively atonal piece almost non-stop. And yet! Its magicalfrom the balanced, versatile five-piece orchestra to the simple, evocative set, to the accomplished actor-singers, the piece is thoughtful, tender and infinitely musical.

Daniel Neer, the librettist, concentrates on the relationships, not the politics, per se, and Marquez Boquirens score supports those emotional twists and turns. It is not a polemic as much as a tribute to the journey we are on together comparing our American passion for baseball and quest for social/racial justice. The music is very challenging and yet Jorell Williams and Brandon Snook, two talented artists, sing with such articulation, fluidity and expressiveness that one can comprehend every word which is vital when the score is more set-speech then set-arias.

Seventh Inning Stretch starts with a black hotel porter eating his lunch(Jorell Williams)listening to a baseball game on his transistor radio and a cop on his beat (Brandon Snook) striking up a conversation about baseball. It is July 3, 1963, a month after President Kennedy introduces his Civil Rights Act legislation. Louis, the porter, is friendly, respectful and deferential to the white cop who remains standing and guarded. Louis is the first to open up with his lovely aria which starts with I was just a little boy about when he first played baseball and revealing his first brush with harsh racial discrimination. The music grows more dissonant after Louis reveals to the cop, without knowing it, that their lives intersect at a very uncomfortable place. Snook evokes the confusion, anger and restraint through his lovely, full and expressive tenor. Williams strong baritone opens to the warmth of his life story.

Full Count is set in 2013 the summer the #BlackLivesMatter movement began after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. Two lifelong friends, Sean and Joe, with very parallel lives in class, education, careers, family and love of baseball, are meeting in a nearby park after work. But Sean wants to talk about an encounter with the police that has left him shaken. Joe wants to go to a baseball game. The score seesaws back and forth between the lyrical recitative about their shared youth and agitated, contrapuntal underscoring when they argue about the police encounter. Jorell Williams is convincing as an articulate man of integrity in distress and sings with passion, clarity and emotional expressiveness. And, he can blast out a F-bomb on pitch! Snook does a wonderful job of exploring his warm and uplifting voice through the twist s and turns of the music. That is until the end .

Shaun Patrick Tubbs, the director, has created a tense, compelling final duet: two friends sitting on the ends of the bench, each turned slightly away from each other, both pouring out their hurt and accusing each other of not getting it, and the orchestra expressing their longing to be loved.

Benched is set in 2063, also the eve of another July 3 baseball game. The characters are 10-year-old boys trying to make friends. This time the white boy is disadvantaged and the black kid is privileged and thriving. They sing about their worries about the national exams that determine their future and the chip they get embedded in their skin for national ID purposes, but their race doesnt come up. Its as if the struggle with race is over, but inequality remains. Philip, the Anglo-Caucasian boy, sings a beautiful aria about When I was a baby about how when he was just a baby, his deaf mother would lie him on her chest to hear his breathing and smell his skin. Snooks voice was at its most expressive and lyrical in this scene. Jorell and Snook share a stirring duet which starts When you are 10 everything changes.

The production is elegant and the staging is excellent. For instance, the actors stand opposite each other in their own spotlight at the beginning and end of each scene punctuating their emotional journey. Tubbs has helped his singers embody simple physicalizations that evoke the age, class and disposition of each character. The cop strolls and cranes his neck; the porter is stiff with standing and hauling all morning long. The investment bankers stride about: Joe has a natural relaxed vigor that suggests fun-loving and careless. Sean is more constrained in his movements from his inner turmoil. Loose-limbed, floppiness captures the 10 year old boys.

One of my favorite moments was walking into the theater to discover a floating display-box set surfaced with turf and clay of a baseball park and a bench slightly off center with an old, gnarled half-dead tree with some new green growth upstage left. Off each end of the platform is a place for the quick costume changes visible to all. The orchestra stretches across most of the upstage area framing the scene for the audience. A brilliant touch was the video projections of baseball game being played on the surface of the platform stage drawing our attention away from the singers changing costumes on stage right and left.

Since the costume changes are onstage, Kristina Martin, the costume designer, has kept it simple and effective by switching jackets, hats and props to let us know who these men are in each scene. The futuristic back packs are especially adorable.

Robert Wood conducted his orchestra with vigor and authority. His enthusiasm, fluid movements and expressive baton added to the entire mis en scene. He created a very balanced sound design. The music surrounded the audience and never sparred with the singers.

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Independence Eve A World Premiere Chamber Opera in Three Scenes.Music by Sidney Marquez Boquiren.Libretto by Daniel Neer .Directed by Shaun Patrick Tubbs. Featuring: Jorell Williams Brandon D. Snook. Conductor: Robert Wood. Costume design: Kristina Martin. Lighting design: Alberto Segarra. Scenic and Projection Design: Steven C. Kemp. Stage manager: Kristy Matero Produced by UrbanArias. Reviewed by Gillian Drake.

Gillian Drake is a director, producer and dramaturg. She has worked at many of the DVM theaters over her long career. Presently she is co-producing a mini-festival of readings: New Works in Action which will feature a roster of 6 fantastic local women directors for Spooky Action Theater,June 17 - June 23. In the fall, she is curating an audience-interactive performance event called The Privacy Challenge which will coordinate plays, films and games around the theme of the changing nature of privacy rights and our individual freedoms.

Continued here:
New chamber opera Independence Eve from UrbanArias (review) - DC Theatre Scene

The NAACP is lost, and radicals like Melissa Harris-Perry have some suggestions for a new direction. Unfortunately, theyll send the organization further down its current path toward irrelevance.

The famed civil-rights group, founded in 1909 and instrumental in challenging state-sponsored segregation and lobbying for the Voting Rights Act, has been in decline for some time, with infighting plaguing chapters like the one in Cincinnati.

James Clingman, who served in leadership roles there, wrote recently that national officials were intimidating members to get them to fall in line. In 2014, things at the Philadelphia chapter came to a head when three board members were exiled after the president accused them of misusing funds for personal purposes.

In a 2015 interview with the Boston University alumni magazine, Cornell William Brooks, at the time the president of the NAACP, bemoaned the fact that the press paid little attention to his organization except to ask its leaders when the group will regain relevance: It wasnt always the first question, but it was always one of the first three.

Apparently, whatever answer Brooks gave wasnt the right one, because last week the organization just ousted him after only three years. Derrick Johnson, the vice chairman of the organization, explained, We are in a transitional moment ... This is the opportune time to begin to look at all our functions as an association and see, are we the right fit for the current reality?

So whats the current reality? Well, its not what it was at the organizations founding or its apex 50 years ago. African-Americans have full legal rights. Hate crimes are anomalies. Black people are running corporations, universities and until recently the White House.

But some activists seem to think little has changed. The NAACP carries the weight of history and burden of bureaucracy, wrote Harris-Perry, a Wake Forest University professor, in The New York Times. But it does not seem willing to shed blood, literally or in terms of the uncomfortable work that characterizes effective activism.

What do these activists need to shed blood over? Police violence against young blacks, to start with. Harris-Perry, whose tendency to exaggerate was evident when she invoked the legacy of slavery after MSNBC canceled her TV show, wrote that the trauma of a not-guilty verdict for George Zimmerman laid bare the bloodiness of [young black] lives. She mentions Michael Brown and Eric Garner as well.

Harris-Perrys real goal is not just to send the NAACP back out into the streets for some possibly bloody protests.

She also wants to expand its mission to include the defense of illegal immigrants and LGBTQ people, among others: Is [the NAACP] ready to have as its president a young person just out of foster care who, because he is transgender and black, lived with vulnerabilities many cant imagine?

Probably not. But whether its because of some academic notion of intersectionality (where all prejudice is subsumed into one category) or some kind of political calculus, the left insists on blending all of its supposedly issues-based organizations into one blob which has in turn become a wing of the Democratic Party.

The NAACP voted last year to support teachers unions and oppose charter schools even though most black people support school choice. Members of the National Organization for Women are now supposed to support not just equal pay but partial-birth abortion, even though most women oppose it.

And heretics are purged. A recent obituary for feminist crusader Roxcy Bolton in the Times explained that she helped form the Florida chapter of the National Organization for Women in 1966 but later became persona non grata when she refused to go along with the organizations embrace of a lesbian caucus.

The new direction for the NAACP may be a bridge too far, though. At the separate black graduation ceremony that was held for students at Brown University last week, one observer noted that keynote speaker Lisa Gelobter 91 was met with stony silence when she spoke of her transgender nephews right to use the bathroom corresponding with his chosen gender identity.

If the new agenda for black activists has become too progressive for Ivy League grads, maybe its time instead for the NAACP to try something different. Naomi Schaefer Riley is a senior fellow at the Independent Womens Forum.

Originally posted here:
How liberals are killing the NAACP - New York Post