Mediaboss Marketing

Email and mobile are still viewed as separate digital marketing channels, but email marketers need to increasingly begin thinking about mobile, as the majority of Americans now engage with their inbox via smartphones.

Email messages opened on a mobile device have nearly doubled over the past five years, according to a report released this week by data and email solutions provider Return Path. Return Path analyzed more than 27 billion email opens between May 2016 and April 2017 using the companys email tracking solution, Email Client Monitor, and geolocation tool, Geo Email Monitor.

Fifty-five percent of emails analyzed during the study period were opened on a mobile device -- an increase from 29% identified in a similar study in 2012. Almost 80% of mobile email opens occur on iOS, quadruple the number of mobile opens on Android devices.

advertisement

advertisement

Emails opened on an internet browser, on the other hand, have dropped 26% over the past five years. Whereas webmail accounted for 37% of email opens in 2012, only 28% of emails are now opened on an internet browser. Almost six out of every ten webmail opens occur on Gmail, a significant increase from 6% in 2012. Gmails growth has come at the expense of Yahoo, according to Return Path, as Yahoo webmail opens have declined from 37% in 2012 to just 5% during the study period.

Desktop email opens have likewise declined as mobile engagement has increased, dropping from 34% in 2012 to 16% today. Interestingly, both desktop and webmail email opens increase slightly during the workweek. Similarly, mobile opens rise to 60% of all email opens during the weekend.

Mobile technology has transformed the way consumers engage with their email accounts, so it is imperative that email marketers consider this when developing their email strategy. Mobile optimization is critical to ensure messages display correctly on any screen theyre opened on, as is A/B testing.

Email marketers may also want to consider tightening up their email content so that it is shorter, more precise, and easier to read on a handheld device.

See the original post:
Majority Of Emails Read On Mobile Devices - MediaPost Communications

Flintstone gummies have been a staple of every childhood. The candy that is supposedly good for you is a small nostalgic highlight. But the attitude towards supplements they develop far deviates from the health benefits they purport.

Unregulated by the Food and Drug Administration, vitamins among other supplements such as herbal extracts and weight loss supplements are easily available over the counter at grocery stores and pharmacies nationwide. And for most consumers, there is no hesitation in purchasing these supplements; after all, they might not look like Fred and Barney, but theyre pretty much the same thing right?

What they have in common is that they are all completely useless. A study from the International Journal of Preventive Medicine showed that multivitamin supplements (MVM)are completely unnecessary for ones health and stated that ...although in the long run MVMs may slightly increase the risk of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, in the short run they produce little harm or no harm, and thus negative consequences will not be discernible by individuals taking them.

However, since the publication, one claim has drastically changed. Negative consequences in the short run have become discernible. More than 20,000 emergency room visits a year can be traced back to dietary supplements. Many of these visits include children taking adult supplements, likely due to confusing adult pills for their own pills. But these pills shouldnt be in peoples homes in the first place.

Pseudoscience and irresponsible advertising keep unwitting customers hooked. For example, at the first sign of a sniffle and a sneeze, many people reach for their nearest Vitamin C supplement, sold by companies with snappy names like Emergen-C. But Vitamin C has never been proven to have curative effects on the common cold. In fact, far from preventing a cold, overdoses of Vitamin C can cause diarrhea and nausea. But the damage of their initial marketing had already been done, and Vitamin C has become a staple ineffective home remedy for the cold.

And these dangers only encompass some of the most common types of supplements. The irresponsible marketing and lack of regulation propagate more nefarious supplements such as SARMs, Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators. The name itself is scary. The supplement is a muscle building, fat burning compound touted to be a legal alternative to steroids. But the health concerns of SARMs rival those of steroids. While the FDA has officially banned SARM compounds such as Oscarine from supplements, the volume of companies that evade the FDA by producing such supplements coupled with internet sales and grassroots marketing make them difficult to pindown.

Ultimately, the culture around supplements needs to change. America is one of the greatest users of unnecessary dietary supplements. Instead of eating a balanced diet, the convenience of a pill is appealing. But this convenience can come at a very real and grave cost. Supplement companies need to be more responsible about the manufacturing and marketing of their products. And while the FDA doesnt do much for the former, they can start to enforce stricter marketing standards. Hopefully, this will incite more personal caution in taking such supplements and avoid significant costs and risks to human life.

Batlanki is a neuroscience sophomore from Flower Mound. Follow him on Twitter @RohanBatlanki.

Go here to see the original:
If the FDA refuses to regulate supplement production, at least regulate their marketing - UT The Daily Texan

The Herald

Winthrop athletics announces communications/marketing personnel moves The Herald Lane comes from the University of South Carolina where she led the athletic department's digital and social media efforts and held key roles in strategic communication, content planning and marketing. During her seven-year tenure, she led the Gamecocks ... and more »

Originally posted here:
Winthrop athletics announces communications/marketing personnel moves - The Herald

Missy Krasner. (Photo via Twitter)

Amazon has hired health technology executive Missy Krasner, the VP and managing director of healthcare and life sciences at cloud content management company Box, according to a report Thursday by CNBC.

The report cited anonymous sources close to the hiring, which hasnt yet been announced. GeekWire has reached out to Amazon for comment and will update this story when we hear back.

Krasners addition is yet another example of Amazon edging towards the health technology market. Amazon Web Services is beefing up its HIPAA compliant offerings for use by health tech companies that must take extra safety precautions because they work with sensitive patient data.

Just last month, AWS hired Nicole Bell, founder of Seattle health care startup hub Cambia Grove, as a liaison to the healthcare industry.

Although Krasners new role at Amazon isnt clear, she has an expertise in a wide array of health technologies and specifically cloud technology. Before Box, she advised Silicon Valley venture group Canvas Ventures on health technology investments and formerly spent five years at Google, two of which she spent designing and launching Googlesonline medical records and wellness platform.

At Box, Krasner led the healthcare and live sciences industry teem, overseeing sales, marketing, product and business development in that area. Box is the largest HIPAA compliant file-sharing solution in the world.

B2B marketing analytics platform Bizible announced a dream come true for its founder and CEO, Aaron Bird: The company has added entrepreneurBrewster Stanislawto its leadership team as VP of product and strategy.

Ive been trying to work with Brewster for about 7 years now, Bizible Founder and CEOAaron Bird explained to GeekWire in an email. Back in 2010, before I left Microsoft to start Bizible, I came very close to joining Brewster as their founding CTO in what eventually become Inside Social.

Stanislaw founded Inside Social in 2012 along withJoey Kotkins andAlan Balasundaram. The company provided social media data for marketing teams, helping prove return on investment for social marketing campaigns.

The company was acquired by Simply Measured in 2015 and Stanislaw served as Simply Measureds Head of Product until he joined Bizible in March. But Bird said that, in a different world, things might not have worked out that way.

[W]e came pretty close to acquiring Inside Social (but Simply Measured bought them instead). Apparently, the third times a charm and Brewster and I are now working together, he said.

In his new role at Bizible, Stanislaw will head product direction and strategic technology partnerships.

Seattle-based Ranku, an ed tech startup that helps online degree programs reach more students, made headlines when it was acquired by publishing giant Wiley in September. Now the companys founder and CEO, Kim Taylor, is leaving Wiley to return to her native San Francisco, where she first started Ranku.

Wiley told GeekWire in an email that she is making the move to be closer to family and friends. Shes also going to take a break from working for a while.

After spending 10 years in the online degree space Im going to be taking some time off to travel and get married, she said. Im also advising and investing in education companies before starting a new project.

Taylor moved Ranku to Seattle in 2014 after taking the company through theTechStars education accelerator in New York City.

Social media analytics company Simply Measured announced the addition of former Expedia finance leader Cecilia Cayetano as the companys new VP of Finance and Operations.

Cayetano joins Simply Measured from legal tech startup Avvo, where she served as the companys corporate controller. She previously held senior finance positions at travel giant Expedia and also spent seven years as the senior manager of risk advisory services for global business consultant Ernst and Young.

I am inspired by Simply Measureds leadership in data-driven social marketing, passionate customer base, and talented (fun!) people, Cayetano said in a press release. I look forward to working with the Simply Measured team to support our companys continued success.

Workflow and content automation company Nintex announced the promotion of VPJosh Waldo to be the companys first Chief Customer Officer.

Waldo first joined Nintex in 2014 and served as the companys VP of channels and strategy until taking on the CCO role. He formerly spent eight years at Microsoft, most recently working as the senior director of cloud partner strategy for the companys Azure cloud computing platform. He also held roles at Oracle and Seibel Systems.

As CCO, Waldo will lead the companysglobal customer support organization and also take charge of external partnerships.

During his three years at Nintex, Josh has developed a best-in-class partner program and channels organization and a product marketing team that is driving our market success and technology advances, Nintex CEOJohn Burton said in a press release. Joshs experience and skills enabling the ongoing success of our 7,400-plus customers and partners worldwide provide an excellent background to assume this new role and to bring Nintex to the next level of providing a superior customer journey and heightened success.

Link:
Tech Moves: Amazon reportedly hires Box health tech exec; Bizible adds Inside Social founder as VP; and more - GeekWire

Kate Mara in "Megan Leavey."

Two days before the June release of Kate Maras latest film Megan Leavey, the House of Cards actress was promoting the movie at an event in Washington.

But Mara wasnt attending a premiere or a promotional junket for the biopic about marine Megan Leavey and the bond she formed with Rex, her military dog, while serving in Iraq. Instead, she was speaking at a rally calling for the restoration of online animal welfare records held outside the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The rally was broadcast live on Mail Online, and an accompanying Care2 petition calling for the release of animal welfare records attracted 160,000 signatures. Megan Leavey, meanwhile, ended up a modest indie hit, grossing nearly $13 million.

That a rally held outside a government building may have been among the films most effective promotions highlights the increasing coordination between movie marketing and political and social advocacy. The boundaries between films and social causes are blurring in todays on-demand, streaming-centered cultural landscape.

Movie studios are now aligning with good causes to support the release of films in ways that they never used to, says Cynthia Parsons McDaniel, a former Head of Marketing and PR at three different film studios, who says Twentieth Century Fox FOXA, +0.18% which partnered with the Teenage Cancer Trust with 2014 teen romantic drama The Fault in Our Stars.

Whether its by doing a film or working with charities or doing certain docuseries, what Im trying to do is spread positive messages, actress Cara Delevingne, star of the new film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, recently told WWD.

Hollywood has always been purpose-oriented, both on the screen and off with prominent actor-activists ranging from Ronald Reagan to Angelina Jolie. But now causes are gaining in prominence and priority.

Take Sonys The Emoji Movie, to be released July 28. While the movie is on one hand typical family oriented summer fare, a key component of its marketing is an antibullying campaign.

Sony and the I Am a Witness campaign, run by nonprofit organization The Ad Council, released a trailer showcasing footage from the movie that relates to confronting oppression.

Emoji! I thought the conversation just got dumber, exclaims a green troll in the trailer. Internet trolls just ignore them! replies Hi-5, the hand emoji, voiced by James Corden.

The campaign aims to give the movie a layer of social worthiness the comedy might otherwise have lacked. You wouldnt have seen something like The Emoji Movies antibullying trailer accompanying the release of a family movie a decade ago, said Parsons McDaniel.

The biggest blockbusters now associate themselves with the worthiest missions. The Star Wars: Force for Change program, a charity launched by Lucasfilm and Disney in 2014, harnesses the power of Star Wars to empower and improve the lives of children around the world, according to its website.

The Force for Change program might not exactly be in danger of eclipsing Han Solo in minds of Star Wars fans, but it is by no means an insubstantial part of the galaxy.

A recent fundraising campaign, held to coincide with Star Wars 40th anniversary, raised $3.4 million with proceeds benefiting Unicef and Starlight Childrens Foundation. (Rival sci-fi franchise Star Trek also runs a number of charities overseen by its distributor Paramount.)

Investing in good deeds amounts to loose change for a Disney DIS, -0.25% or VIA, +0.74% franchise. For some films, however, an association with a cause can carry significant risk.

The Promise, a drama starring Christian Bale and Oscar Isaac set against the backdrop of the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks that began in 1915, was released in 2016. The films budget, reportedly just under $100 million, was funded by late Armenian-American businessman Kirk Kerkorian.

Despite wide distribution and a release coinciding with a movement for Congress to promote a bill requesting that the U.S. government highlight the killings, The Promise attracted mediocre reviews and grossed just $8.2 million in the U.S. Its mission was further derailed by a vociferous social media campaign in which Turkish websites flooded popular film database IMBD with one-star reviews.

The renewed emphasis on philanthropy is changing how filmmakers view their creative projects. Yet some movie industry creatives think the emphasis on messaging can go too far.

Causes are at the forefront of movies more than ever and the activism among actors, suppressed for a long time by the studios, is now considered a positive, says Emmy-winning screenwriter Jake Jacobson. But its getting to be product placement for ideology. I dont see what benefit it is for a film to do that other than preach to the choir.

Twenty years ago, you could have just told a story and people would have read into it what they wanted, said Ernest Thompson, who won an Oscar for writing 1981 tear-jerker On Golden Pond and directed 1969, a 1988 Vietnam War drama. Now audiences are hungry for guidance and inspiration to step outside of the norm.

Thompson is now developing a movie entitled Allegiance Farm about child abuse. My intention is for the girl I cast to become a spokesperson for other children to have the courage to speak out, he said, using her stardom and social media to boost advocacy on the issue something he says wasnt possible three decades ago.

Now the girl who gets cast [in Allegiance Farm] can get peoples attention and tell other [abused] children where they can get help and give them ideas, Thompson said. The implications for this are limitless.

Yet Thompson still believes subtlety is key for entertaining, rather than just educating, an audience. If a movie is advertised as a message, youve got a problem, he said. If you can make an audience laugh and think, youre accomplishing your goals more effectively.

Excerpt from:
Hollywood is using social causes to sell movie tickets - MarketWatch