Mediaboss Marketing

NEW YORK, June 25, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- KDDI America, a subsidiary of KDDI Corporation, a Fortune Global 500 company with three datacenters in the U.S., announced it has partnered with Infobip, a global cloud communications company that provides messaging solutions for advanced customer engagement, identity authentication and security. As the demands for digital customer experiences expand, KDDI Americas strategy is to enable digital transformation through cloud-based omnichannel communications solutions for enterprise-wide customers.

Omnichannel messaging is creating more mobile-centric engagement opportunities for businesses, and KDDI America/Infobip will serve as the hub of this experience. KDDI America now offers its enterprise business customers a leading SaaS API-based advanced messaging offering that can be fully customized to help businesses reach their customers with marketing through a litany of multimedia messaging channels.

According to Ovums Mobile Messaging Traffic and Revenue Forecast: 2017-221, global revenues from A2P will exceed revenues from person-to-person (P2P) SMS by 2022, totaling $43 billion. Furthermore, it is estimated there will be approximately 3.5 trillion A2P messages delivered by 2023, a 40% growth rate from 2.5 trillion delivered in 20192. The GSMA estimates the market for RCS will be worth $74 billion by the end of 20213.

KDDI America and Infobip are working together to define, develop and deliver experience-driven, media-centric messaging solutions that expedite digital transformation and increase overall customer engagement levels not seen before between brands and their customers, said Masatoshi Nobuhara, KDDI Americas CEO and President. KDDI has a legacy of collocation, cloud deployment, peer connectivity, system integration, IOT, and applications that will enable this customer-centric experience through Infobips platform.

KDDI Americahas evolved into a company that provides Networks, Data Centers, System Integration, IOT, Cloud, as well as managed service solutions across industries. KDDI Americas core differentiator in the industry is in this global rich IP network leveraging IoT, cloud and colocation datacenter technology that gives business customers an all-in-one messaging solution combined with Infobips global distribution and partnership with leading wireless carriers, messaging apps, banks, social networks, tech companies, and social media networks.

This partnership not only presents us with a tremendous opportunity to expand our client base in the U.S., it also represents two international brands coming together to help organizations overcome the complexity of consumer communications, grow their business,and enhance customer experience and engagement, said Yuri Fiaschi, VP of Global Sales at Infobip. We are thrilled to be working with KDDI America as our first channel partner here in the U.S. to help companies deliver the right message at the right time across the right channel, wherever that customer may be.

KDDI Americas suite of product offerings will transform the way businesses communicate with customers. These products will be centered around Conversations, a digital contact center platform that allows businesses to manage all customer interactions and data from critical areas such as marketing, loyalty and CRM, all through a single-point dashboard. Business customers will also be able to leverage a cloud-based customer engagement platform to create personalized communications to deliver messages in the right moment and over the right channel. Additional channel offerings will include SMS and number lookups, chat apps, live chat, mobile app messaging, email, and voice solutions.

For more information please visit http://www.KDDIAmessaging.com.

About KDDI AmericaKDDI America, headquartered in New York, is the North American division of KDDI Group, a Fortune Global 500 company and leading provider of international IT and communications services with locations throughout the world. KDDI America is a one-stop solutions provider, from the supply of a single cable to comprehensive office, data centers, and factory configurations. KDDI has offices throughout the North and South Americas.

About Infobip

Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected customer experiences across all stages of the customer journey at scale, with easy and contextualized interactions over customers preferred channels. Accessed through a single platform, Infobips omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication, security, and contact center solutions help clients and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications, grow their business, and increase loyalty all in a fast, secure and reliable way. With over a decade of industry experience, Infobip has expanded to include 65+ offices on six continents offering natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and 'things' in 190+ countries connected to over 800 telecom networks. The company serves and partners with leading mobile operators, messaging apps, banks, social networks, tech companies, and aggregators.

Appendix:

1: https://www.omdia.com/resources/product-content/ovum-forecasts-of-sms 2: https://www.juniperresearch.com/document-library/white-papers/rcs-business-messaging-will-disrupt-messaging 3: https://www.gsma.com/futurenetworks/digest/2019-will-see-rcs-transform-digital-marketing/

Media Contacts:John SternalMerit Mile for KDDI America954-592-1201jsternal@meritmile.com

Janine SavaresePeppercomm for Infobipjsavarese@peppercomm.com

Originally posted here:
KDDI America Has Selected Infobip As Its Cloud Communications Platform for The Delivery of Advanced Business Messaging Services - GlobeNewswire

If youre supposed to make hay when the sun is shining, what do you do when skies unexpectedly darken?

Thats largely the question facing Visit Durango, the destination marketing organization for Durango and La Plata County.

Rachel Brown, Visit Durango executive director, said the agency has suspended paid advertisements seeking to attract tourists to the region, but that doesnt mean it has completely ceded efforts to boost visitors when restrictions that discourage nonessential travel are lifted in Colorado and across the country.

Obviously, when things closed down and safer-at-home went into place, we did stop advertising and promoting people to visit. But were still engaging with our consumer audiences on social media and building kind of like a pent-up demand around Durango, she said.

Destination marketing management organizations like Visit Durango are caught between a rock and a hard place dedicated to promoting tourism, they now must balance public health into the advertising plan and judge when it is safe to resume efforts to bring in visitors.

And at some point, visitors will be necessary to heal the tourism-dependent economy in Southwest Colorado.

Brown said 48% of customers at Durangos restaurants in an average year are visitors and 62% of retail shop patrons are out-of-towners. Tourism accounts for 30% of La Plata Countys economy.

Social media focusVisit Durango is currently in what it calls a triage phase of its recovery marketing plan. Paid advertising has ceased in order to preserve the groups $140,000 advertising budget for later in the year, when COVID-19 restrictions are expected to ease.

Not all recreation is in hibernation. Vallecito Reservoir saw plenty of action May 29. But Visit Durango paid advertisements to boost tourism arent planned to resume until later in summer.

Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Not all recreation is in hibernation. Vallecito Reservoir saw plenty of action May 29. But Visit Durango paid advertisements to boost tourism arent planned to resume until later in summer.

Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

While paid spending, predominantly pay per click advertisements on social media, has ceased, other forms of free marketing efforts are underway.

On social media, Visit Durango is pushing a #DurangoDreaming campaign encouraging locals to tout the benefits and attractions of the area until the situation with COVID-19 allows greater travel.

The campaign is designed to inspire people to come visit Durango in the future. Its kind of building that pent-up demand for when it is safe to travel again, well be in the forefront of peoples minds, Brown said.

The campaign is geared toward engagement with visitors who will be the most likely to return early on when traveling resumes young people looking for outdoor adventures.

Were asking people to submit their photos and videos of wide-open vistas, mountain views. Last week, we were promoting photos that had no people in them. And this past week we started including people in the shots. So its a gradual shift in what were doing, she said in mid-May.

Beyond the #DurangoDreaming campaign, Visit Durango is working to maintain contacts with tour operators, state tourism officials and other industry entities to ensure when travel becomes more widespread, logistics for group tours and other tourist sector functions are immediately ready to resume.

Landon Kennedy, left, and Mike Canterbury, both with the Pine River Irrigation District, put up a large banner May 29 at the Vallecito Reservoir marina reminding people to wear masks.

Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Landon Kennedy, left, and Mike Canterbury, both with the Pine River Irrigation District, put up a large banner May 29 at the Vallecito Reservoir marina reminding people to wear masks.

Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Visit Durango is launching a safety-focused campaign, #CareForDurango. This campaign will highlight extra precautions businesses are taking to keep their properties clean and customers and residents safe. It will highlight all public health order recommendations including: wearing a mask in public, not traveling if you feel sick, discouraging travel for at-risk populations and maintaining a social distance of 6 feet from others.

The group also is compiling a list of businesses that are open, and it is providing best practices to businesses to ensure they are following the latest health guidelines recommended by San Juan Basin Public Health and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

The group is also working with families and small groups to postpone and rebook events, such as weddings, family reunions and other gatherings.

Three-phase planLater this month, Visit Durango plans to begin a three-phased approach to gradually return to normal tourism marketing.

In Phase 1, which will begin when nonessential travel is no longer discouraged, Brown said, Visit Durango plans to spend 10% of its tourism advertising budget to target other Coloradans and people within Southwest Colorados traditional regional drive markets to come visit.

Phase 1 will emphasize what local businesses are doing to combat the spread of COVID-19, and marketing will emphasize measures in place to protect everyone visitors and locals from the novel coronavirus.

Im not very happy about all the people showing up here and not wearing masks, said Troy McGovern a 23-year resident of the Vallecito Reservoir community. Recently, Pine River Irrigation District employees put up a large banner at the marina reminding people to wear masks and sanitize frequently.

Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Im not very happy about all the people showing up here and not wearing masks, said Troy McGovern a 23-year resident of the Vallecito Reservoir community. Recently, Pine River Irrigation District employees put up a large banner at the marina reminding people to wear masks and sanitize frequently.

Jerry McBride/Durango Herald

Heavy emphasis in Phase 1 will be placed on the regions hiking, biking, kayaking, camping and other outdoor pursuits viewed as safer activities. Marketing for outdoor recreation will come under a new advertising campaign called Find Your Escape.

Regional marketingIn Phase 2, tentatively set to begin in July, advertising campaigns will extend beyond Southwest Colorados regional drive markets with an emphasis on markets with direct flights to Durango. Brown said she plans to spend 50% of her advertising budget during this period, which should extend through August.

So we will be promoting the fact that were remote and were rural because people will be avoiding urban environments and then well be promoting the safety messaging. Well be pushing some sustainability initiatives like Leave No Trace, she said.

As Purgatory Resort, Mesa Verde National Park and the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad come back online, their openings will be integrated into advertising.

A survey conducted in April of 1,400 people examining a trip to Southwest Colorado by Visit Durango, found 1,352 people had trips to the region altered by COVID-19.

Six hundred and seventy-one people said their trips were canceled all together. However, most people said they would feel safe traveling to the area within six months after health restrictions are lifted.

Brown said the survey also found the vast majority of people would feel more safe driving to a destination rather than flying, and that is something that plays to Southwest Colorados favor as it is principally a drive-to destination.

Find Your EscapePhase 3 of the recovery marketing plan, which Brown plans to begin in September, would return paid advertising to the international market. During this phase of the campaign, Visit Durango plans to spend about 29% of its advertising budget. Phase 3 will feature a campaign designed around the theme Find Your Escape.

A lot of international travelers will fly to Denver and then drive to Durango in fall, and well be promoting the fall colors. Well be targeting millennials, adventure-seekers and high-value travelers. We do predict that the first groups of people that will be traveling will be a younger, more adventurous segment, Brown said. Well be promoting wellness, sustainability and just kind of the general small-town pace of Durango, which we think will be appealing to people at that point.

parmijo@durangoherald.com

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COVID-19 throws tourist marketers a curveball - The Durango Herald

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

Albert Einstein

In these uncertain times, there is one thing the vacation rental management (VRM) industry can count on: We are on the brink of the greatest talent shift in modern history. This presents an incredible opportunity for vacation rental companies to identify and hire the best talent using the right strategy and plan of action.

For industry professionals who are now on the hunt for a new employer, this shift provides an opportunity to work with a strong company that has made it through what may just be the biggest challenge to date.

A short time ago, the single biggest challenge our firm identified for this industry was an unprecedented talent shortage. In an industry that is completely reliant on people to provide exceptional service, this talent shortage was a significant problem for most VRMs. We constantly heard that applicant flow was anemic, with those applying for the many open positions lacking the experience and capabilities to properly fill the roles. With unemployment recently at a record low, managers were forced in many cases to hire individuals to be placed in the wrong seats. In most cases, there were no measures taken to validate that these candidates were a good fit for the roles.

What a difference a couple of months can make.

At the time of this writing, it is clear that an unemployment rate of 20 percent or more is in the cards in the COVID-19 era. While many expect this to be short-lived relative to previous recessions, the sheer scope of this increase in unemployment is without comparison.

consensus that as this crisis passes, vacation rentals will be one of, if not the most, attractive travel option. Before we had significant competition from cruise lines and large hotels. However, as the new normal unfolds, the privacy, security, and safety a vacation rental offers will be more desired than ever before. After being cooped up for what feels like forever, families will look to get away with these assurances in place. Consequently, the combination of the return of rental demand and the talent shift will open up a significant opportunity for both businesses and individuals.

Where before it was exceptionally challenging to identify and hire top talent, there are more qualified people in play than ever before. For talented and passionate professionals, this is an opportunity to find a position with an organization that has weathered the greatest storm of our lifetime and is ready to take advantage of a period of growth like we have never seen before.

To take advantage of this opportunity, organizations need a talent acquisition plan.

Most vacation rental companies have a multifaceted rental marketing plan. They have allocated a budget and have a well thought-out document compiled of tried-and-true marketing practices, along with new concepts used to attract new customers and retain existing ones.

What we find with most companies in our space is that their talent acquisition plans consist of online ads and postings of open positions on their websites. The selection process focuses on the resume, and the interviews are typically unstructured. In many cases, the person or persons responsible for hiring juggle this role along with many other competing responsibilities. This creates a lack of focus and allows for other distractions to deter them from allocating the right time to the process. Therefore, the hiring manager will hire who they think will be the right fit based on subjectivity and their own biases. In some cases, the hiring manager himself may be in the wrong seat.

Companies must move swiftly to create comprehensive talent acquisition plans, leverage people analytics, and assign a point person to ensure consistency and effectiveness. These three steps coupled with a structured interview process will ensure a strong fit for your team.

In rental marketing, we typically see a multifaceted strategy that includes a mix of search engine optimization, search engine marketing, social marketing, distribution, and more. People marketing should be done in a similar fashion.

One job posting is not enough. Put together a plan to distribute your job ads across multiple ad platforms such as LinkedIn, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, and CareerBuilder. Consider having a professional and polished looking career page on your website where all open positions are posted and include an email sign-up for job alerts.

Utilizing your team to get the word out is also an effective strategy. Incentivize this by paying a referral bonus to those who refer candidates that you successfully hire. Be sure to post any job openings on your social media outlets, paying special attention to LinkedIn, which according to Social Media Today, is the fastest growing social network. The ultimate goal of your people marketing plan should be to significantly boost applicant flow, so you have a strong candidate pool to select from.

With an effective marketing campaign and increased applicant flow, narrowing the candidate pool down to the best potential hires is key. As Predictive Index certified partners, our firm utilizes behavioral profiling in the hiring process, for example. Leveraging a highly accurate, but simple and quick-to-administer behavioral survey gives you the ability to understand the job applicants behavioral traits. Prior to collecting these surveys, a job target is set by internal stakeholders based on the role. For example, are you looking for a reservations agent? What traits lend themselves to success for the role, according to those who interact most with that position? From this quick analysis, a behavioral target is set. Then all candidates are filtered through the process with the intent of identifying the applicants who closest match the desired behavioral profile.

As a next step, we recommend a cognitive test. Cognitive tests have been shown to be a high predictor of job success and are simple to administer. A cognitive test tells you how quickly this person will get up to speed with new concepts and necessary training. In most cases, the new hire will need to learn software platforms and systems they are not familiar with. It is crucial that they have the ability to ramp up quickly. The more technical the role the higher the cognitive requirements become. In the vacation rental industry, we often find ourselves interviewing applicants with little or no industry experience. Applicants with a higher cognitive score have a shortened learning curve and become more productive faster.

The combination of having a candidate with the right behavioral drives and cognitive abilities has been shown to be a collective 51 percent predictor of job performance.

Another helpful predictor of job performance (26 percent) is a structured interview. A structured interview is a standardized way of interviewing candidates based on the specific needs of the role they are applying for. Candidates are asked the same questions in the same order and responses are compared on the same scale. The key is to take the job description and build a group of interview questions that can properly access whether a candidate has what it takes to execute the job functions. This enables you to rate each candidate objectively and can greatly reduce hiring misfires.

Hiring the right person and placing them in the right seat feels like quite an achievement at this point; however, do not overlook the foundation of defining roles for your entire team. Organizational charts should be deleted and replaced with accountability charts. This reporting structure is said to be an organizational chart on steroids because it takes problem-solving and production to a higher level of performance. When employees know exactly what is expected of them and there is transparency within an organization, the business plan is carried out in a much more effective way than simply showing employees a chart of titles and direct reports.

Once you do the hard work of identifying the best players for your team, it is critical to set new hires on the right track. Research by Glassdoor found that organizations with a strong onboarding process improve new hire retention by 82 percent and productivity by over 70 percent. On top of that, Gallup found that only 12 percent of employees strongly agree their organizations do a great job of onboarding new employees.

Most organizations stop the onboarding process after one week. But the best onboarding processes are no less than 90 days with some extending a full year, depending on the nature of the role. It is critical that the talent acquisition plan encompasses a structured process that ensures the new hire feels welcome, receives a proper introduction to the culture, and has access to the tools and knowledge they will need for long-term success at the company.

In the vacation rental industry, the best teams win. Its not the company with the best marketing person or housekeeping manager. Its the company that has a cohesive group of professionals all rowing in the same direction to lead the team and the company to success.

The Great Talent Shift is an opportunity like no other to identify, hire, and retain the very best team. You may be simply missing a few pieces or need to build an entire leadership team as we come out of this challenging time. I would encourage you to focus on the talent acquisition strategy of your company and take advantage of the greatest pool of available talent in our lifetimes.

Read more from the original source:
The Great Talent Shift - VRM Intel

This pandemic has taken its toll, and we will continue to still see the fallout in the months to come. One big hit inside the toy community is the layoffs at Funko. We have already seen reports that Funko will be cutting back shipments this year, as well as postponing and canceling a lot of their upcoming collectibles. During the ongoing pandemic, Funko did close all their corporate offices and their two big HQ stores in Everette and Hollywood. Newly added sanitation and safety precautions have been included, but that has not been enough.

The hits just keep on coming as Funko has announced more layoffs are here and will impact 250 jobs at their home Everett base. This will reportedly save the company $1 million, and even top management is taking 20% pay cuts to try and catch up. Most of these layoffs will start at the end of June, with the end coming hopefully in September. These layoffs have already begun to appear in the most shocking way as Funko makes major marketing team members hang up their coats.

This is a huge surprise for Funko as this team mainly consisted of the hit toy podcast Funko Funkast. These changes will impact the company in the future from the content we see online to the live-streams, gaming events, and even more possible future virtual cons. After the success of the Virtual Con for ECCC, I am quite surprised Funko would let go some of their most prominent and most valuable members go. The community will be reeling in for these crazy changes, and we will all be watching in on what Funko's next moves are.

The real question now is this the end of Funko, and could we see the decline of one of the biggest collectible companies out there? Only time will tell, but our hearts and collections are with all those Funko members who have had say goodbye. We appreciated everything you have done, and it has a pleasure and a wild journey we all have been on. Safe travels friends, and when one door closes, another opens.

He has been the Collectibles Editor since late 2019. Funko Funatic, Historian, Air Force Veteran, and dedicated collector of many things.

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Read more:
Funko Layoffs Will Now Include Funko Funkast And Social Staff - Bleeding Cool News

4th June, 2020 by Owen Bellwood

Last months most notable marketing campaigns included Hendricks Gins Pour it Forward initiative to help bartenders, Reykas run for charity and Smirnoffs celebrity-backed social media challenge.

Hendricks aims to help 100 bartenders in the US with its Pour it Forward campaign

As consumers stay at home and bars across the world remain shut due to the global coronavirus pandemic, spirits brands had to rethink their marketing strategies and turn their focus to the online channel.

A number of companies pledged its support to the on-trade amid the pandemic, including Hendricks Gin with its Pour it Forward campaign and mixer producer Fever-Tree, which offered a series of free online seminars.

Meanwhile, Tequila Cazadores celebrated Mexican festival Cinco de Mayo last month with a campaign that encouraged drinkers to make Tequilabased cocktails at home while celebrating with friends online.

Over the following pages, we name our pick of the top marketing initiatives launched in May 2020.

View post:
Top 10 spirits marketing moves in May 2020 - The Spirits Business