Marketing for Mom's Day

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A mother's love may be priceless, but there is definitely a price tag on Mother's Day. 

While Mother's Day does not have the status of a federal holiday like Easter, in fact, it occasions significantly more spending. The National Retail Foundation (NRF) forecasts that this year's Mother's Day spending will reach $23.1 billion.  For comparison, this year’s Easter spending was estimated to be $18.2 billion.  

Obviously, marketers have to seize the day for their brands, particularly if their brands feature jewelry. That's the top choice of gift for the day. According to the NRF's survey, 34% of shoppers intend to buy something in that category, bringing that total spend to an impressive $4.6 billion.

While many jewelry brands are, no doubt, sticking to the standard sentimental messages, some are breaking out of the box in their depictions of different types of mothers with strengths that go beyond the stereotyped image of a woman in an apron. Crimson Hexagon's data on what people are talking about the most and what garnered the most positive conversations. It uncovered some fresh takes in mother images in some jewelry campaigns, as well as some surprises.

Read more in Mother's Day Marketing

See some of the ads featured below:

Alex and Ani's “Symbolize Your Love” campaign includes the outtakes of commercials filmed with real people (which fits very well with increasing demands for authenticity in marketing)

Getting Women to Stay On in Tech

As more and more business and manufacturing processes revolve around technology, the demand for people with the necessary skills is growing. To assure the supply of qualified people filling those positions, we have to stop thinking in terms in terms of stereotypes and clear the way for women to get on board.

Image courtesy: Pixabay

The problem is not that women aren’t trained in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. “Women have earned 57% of all bachelor's degrees and about half of all science and engineering (S&E) bachelor's degrees since the late 1990s,” according to the latest figures from the National Science Foundation. The problem is that those percentages don’t translate into the same level of representation at work.

In fact, women are still far outnumbered at engineering positions at tech companies. You can see the numbers of engineers in actual companies updated regularly on a spreadsheet in Tracy Chou's Women in Tech list.  Though the numbers vary, the average representation for women engineers at the companies listed appears to be near 20% to 25%.

The gap between the sexes grows higher up the hierarchy. The Gender Divide in Tech-Intensive Industries put out in 2014 demonstrated that women with MBAs with tech qualifications were still far less likely to work in the industry than their male counterparts. Perhaps part of the reason is that women ae far more likely to be placed in entry level jobs, at the rate of 55% in contrast to the 39% for men.  Women MBAs also were more likely to leave the tech industry than their male counterparts at the rate of 53% to 31%.

Read more in 

Retaining Women in Tech Takes More Than Training

Gold Standard Tracking with Blockchain

Conflict minerals making their way into the electronic supply chain presents a challenge to companies

that want to act both legally and ethically. Tracing such minerals to their source is not straightforward or simple. Blockchain technology can solve that problem.

The Responsible Gold supply chain  is designed to track “responsibly sourced gold from mine, to refinery, to vault.” It’s put out by Emergent Technology, and has first been applied to gold mined by Yamana.

Read more in 

Blockchain & the Gold Standard for a Conflict-Free Supply Chain

AI Applied to Healthcare Marketing

DeepIntent's CEO and co-founder Chris Paquette came in with a background in healthcare, having worked as a data scientist for Memorial Sloan Kettering, using AI to find patterns predictive of patient outcomes. Prior to that he worked at a search company. DeepIntent's approach, is built on a combination of the two fields, as he explained in an interview.
Read more in 
Finding the Audiences for Healthcare Marketing

Time's Up for Mad Men

“Mad Men” portrayed the male-dominated world of advertising in the 1960s.  Although we're nearly twenty years into the next century now, some of the industry's sexist norms persist. It's time to do something about it.  

In the wake of the #MeToo Movement's call to give voice to the victims of sexual harassment, industries have been forced to face up the problem and work on solutions. Among the organizations devoted to progress in this area is TIME'S UP,™ which was formed by women in the entertainment industry this past January. In March, the organization partnered with women in the advertising industry to launch the industry-specific TIME'S UP™/ADVERTISING.

Read more in An Attitude Adjustment for Advertising

To certify or not to the certify: the building blocks of a blockchain career

It’s clear that tech pros in a variety of industries are examining the implications of blockchain. After all, the technology can be leveraged not only for cryptocurrency (i.e., Bitcoin), but everything from “smart” contracts to secure, distributed ledgers. Can developers prove that they have the skills to work with this technology?
Read more in Can You Obtain Certifications for a Blockchain Career?

Tech Takes Your Through Child's War Experience

Even before the invention of photography, artists sought to recreate the horrors of war in pictures. Now technology makes it possible to take that rendering a step further, immersing the viewer directly in the experience with the use of AR. 

Read more in AR for Empathy: The Devastation of War

Diversity in the Pipeline and Blockchain

Blockchain is expected to add over $3.1 billion in business value, according to research firm Gartner. But the value proposition could involve more than money: blockchain might lead to a more diverse pipeline of qualified employees.

That’s the mission of STEAMRole, which uses blockchain and its own cryptocurrency (called RoleCoin) for two purposes: providing STEAM-expert role models and a Diverse Talent Pipeline Platform (DTPP) for companies to use in tracking and hiring diverse talent.

Based in Palo Alto, California, STEAMRole connects role models with aspirants (called Steamers) particularly from groups that are underrepresented in STEM and the Arts (the “A” in the acronym). Both Steamers and role models are awarded RoleCoins for their activities, which not only incentivizes participation and achievement, but also records it on the system’s blockchain, a feature that could be applied to tracking the effectiveness of STEAM program funding.

Read more in 

Can Blockchain Improve Tech’s Workplace Diversity?

Blocking the Blocker for Ads

Please disable your ad blocker.” 

If you try to keep some of your internet experience free of ads, you likely see this appear on a number of sites. Those site often prevent you from seeing their content until you comply with their request. But other sites don't bother with requests; they just circumvent your ad blocker. An academic study, "Measuring and Disrupting Anti-Ad Blockers Using Differential Execution Analysis," found that in fact, anti-ad blockers are used 52 times more than previously indicated. I contacted one of the leaders of the study, Zhiyun Quian, Assistant Professor at University of California, Riverside, to learn about the persistence of hidden anti-ad blockers.

I first asked what drew his attention to this area of research. He said that as an ad blocker user himself, he noticed the increasing disruption of ads on sites he visited. “To save my personal experience, and everyone else who uses ad blockers, I decided to look into this as a research project.”

Read more in The Ad Blocker Arms Race

AI-Powered Shop Windows

The Shop Window Opens a Portal of Possibilities

Many of us are window shoppers but online purchasers. That may be one of the factors in the widely reported decline of retail stores. To flip the situation around, it may be time to transform the shop window from static tableaux into AI-powered interactive displays that extract value from data.

This is the proposition offered by Outernets, a New York-based platform which enables window displays to transforms storefronts into responsive, personalized ad experiences.  I spoke with CEO and founder Omer Golan about what store windows have been, and what they could be in the future.

Read more in The Shop Window Opens a Portal of Possibilities

Big Data, Analytics, AI, etc.

As All Analytics was removed from the internet, UBM moved most of the articles I had written for it in the past few years to IW at hhttps://www.informationweek.com/author-bio.asp?author_id=4902 But I also have PDFs of it posted on my Contently portfolio at https://ariellabrown.contently.com/

Those of a certain age need not apply

We have laws that are meant to prevent discrimination in hiring. But in practice, employers can find ways to avoid hiring people above a set age threshold with the help of social media and demographic data.

A story that ProPublica copublished with the New York Times declared the dark side of social media targeting for job applicants -- age discrimination. Facebook is designed to give direct access to a precisely targeted population, including those within a specified age bracket. That means ads for employment may be directed only to potential candidates below a "certain age," and that could be both ethically and legally problematic.

(Image: Pixabay)

Facebook has been used as a successful recruiting tool for companies who seek to reach recent grads. The same type of "microtargeting," as ProPublica refers to it, can be used to reach whatever parameter the advertiser specifies, and that often translates into job ads, particularly those in tech, being directed to eyeballs under 40.

Declaring that the age targeting has had a discriminatory effect on workers over age 40, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and three workers filed a class action lawsuit against T-Mobile, Amazon, and other companies that they say used the social media platform in that way.

That's not to say that Facebook has a monopoly on such practices. ProPublica tested out Google and LinkedIn and found that job ads designed to not be extended to people above 40 were allowed. It then contacted the companies and was told by Google that it had no problem with complying with the specified age range. LinkedIn told ProPublica that would make the necessary modification, as did a number of companies whose advertising strategy looked like an attempt to exclude older applicants.

Facebook defends itself against ProPublica's critique. Facebook's VP of Ads, Rob Goldman declared, "We have carefully reviewed their concerns -- and this time we disagree." Though he does not deny that job ads were intended for specified age groups, he argues that does not necessarily constitute age discrimination any more than advertising "in magazines and on TV shows targeted at younger or older people."

ProPublica doesn't buy that argument, though. It points out that the analogy fails because other forms of media may be aimed at particular age groups, but they do not restrict access to them. If a teen wants to look at AARP or if a middle-aged person picks up Seventeen, they will see the ads, too. "Online, however, people outside the targeted age groups can be excluded in ways they will never learn about," it points out.

Read more in 

Targeted Advertising Triggers Age Discrimination Law Suit

2018: the year RCS overtakes SMS for marketing

As carriers shift to the new Rich Communications Services (RCS) standard, new functionalities and ways to engage consumers will emerge, opening up a whole world of marketing opportunities.  

Even last year, RCS began to emerge as a significant advance for mobile marketing.  At that point, there were about 137 million RCS users, according to David O'Byrne, RCS lead at the GSMA. He was quoted in an MSN reportreferring to that baseline, saying he anticipates users to reach 350 million this year, topping a billion next year.

On the basis of those predictions, combined with the number of people already using SMS, RCS is poised to become a key component of communication in the very near future.  That's the view of Andy Shirey, Senior Product Marketing Manager at OpenMarket. 

Read more in 

RCS Set to Take Over SMS as Primary Marketing Tool in 2018

Marketing on wheels

Mobility Marketing: Toyota's e-Palette

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Advertising on cars is nothing new, but what we may be seeing in future is not limited to static car wraps but specially purposed vehicles that can change their function and their messages as needed.

At this year's CES, Toyota unveiled the e-Palette concept. The company anticipates first introducing it for use at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. But it is already working with partners like Amazon, DiDi, Mazda, Pizza Hut and Uber to develop the concept and its commercial applications. 

In a press release, Toyota describe e-Palette as exemplifying “Toyota's visions for Automated Mobility as a Service (Autono-MaaS) applications.” The vehicle itself is a “fully-automated, next generation battery electric vehicle (BEV) designed to be scalable and customizable for a range of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) businesses.”

Read more in Mobility Marketing: Toyota's e-Palette

Amazon May be Giving a Voice to Marketing

We've seen a rapid evolution in shopping interfaces, ranging from letting our fingers do the walking on our keyboards, to letting them swipe their way to what we seek on touchscreens. The next big thng, it seems, is a touchless interface made by possible by voice-activation.

As people are coming to expect the convenience of talking to their devices, companies like Google and Amazon are accommodating that form of navigation, and exploring new ways to monetize it. 

Read more in Alexa May Give Voice to Targeted Marketing