Adults have long had websites aplenty to find out more information about Louisiana’s Capital city. Now kids have one of their own. It’s called www.kidslovebatonrouge.com.

The site was created by the sixth to eighth grade students at Baton Rouge’s Southeast Middle School. The homepage declares that its student creators have a mission: “To convince the rest of the world that Baton Rouge is a great place to live, with a rich and unique culture. Explore their site and see Baton Rouge from a new perspective.”

Click on the page labeled “Fun,” and it’s evident that kids are behind this effort. A bowling alley, laser tag arena, an arcade, a haunted house and a water park all get short writeups.

In writing about the arcade known as Quarters, writer Zakiya — no last names are used — lets readers know that it has more than 50 video games, including Crossy Roads, Piano Keys and MotoGP Arcade Motorcycle Simulator.”

Quarters also offers its own laser tag area, which is filled with LED lights, easy to maneuver around and is “a great place to get your energy flowing, » Zakiya said.

The public school, which is located at 15000 S. Harrells Ferry Road, unveiled the new marketing effort Wednesday night at a special “project night” held at the school. About 150 students showed off the work they did to fill out the website.

Most of the displays resembled a social studies fair. The library and hallway were filled with posters showing the research the students did as they tried to figure out how to market Baton Rouge.

Nina Donald and Haven Stewart, both 13, showed off their research into Louisiana’s French heritage, with headings such as “Crawfish,” “Bayous,” and “Alligators.”

“Mostly I learned about the food,” admitted Nina.

Their poster featured a recipe for crawfish étouffée, a dish which was a discovery for Nina, who recently moved to Louisiana from Miami, but not for Haven whose family harks from Opelousas.

“What I like about Baton Rouge is it’s like a city, but it’s still the country,” Nina said.

Students in Southeast Middle’s magnet program, known as DATA, short for Digital Arts Technology Academy, led the way in filling out the website and preparing the exhibits on display Wednesday. It was the first of four schoolwide projects they do each year.

John Hayman, coordinator of the magnet program, said he wanted the website to look like it had been professionally done as opposed to a project for middle school students.

Hayman said the marketing campaign grew out of discussions he had with fellow teachers where they talked about the flooding and other news events that have left Baton Rouge residents with little pride in their city. They wondered whether students could help change that. Hayman said the lack of pride in Baton Rouge is far different than residents who live in other places have for their hometowns or states. He cited as an example the level of pride residents of Texas have. 

“I’m from Texas and we pledge allegiance every day to the flag of Texas,” he said.

Teachers, though, avoided talking much the issue with students.

“We don’t want this to be negative and be a self-defeating thing,” Hayman said.

The nine-week project began with a trip to downtown Baton Rouge, organized like a scavenger hunt.

“Every time they reached a destination, the teacher would read a riddle and they would have to predict where the next place was,” Hayman said.

Along the way, the middle schoolers took pictures and gathered material, much of which later ended up on the website. The majority of the students had either never been downtown, or had, but the visit barely registered with them, Hayman said.

That recent day downtown clearly stuck with the students.

Destiny Sonnier, Gabrielle Edwards and India Magee on Wednesday showed off what they’d learned about when they visited the old and the new state Capitols.

“(Huey Long) did not like the look of the old state Capitol,” Gabrielle said. “It was too Gothic for him.”

“He didn’t like it because of his impeachment,” India said, noting the 1929 attempt to remove then-Gov. Long from office occurred in that building.

Southeast Middle was filled Wednesday with parents and family members of the students, touring exhibits.

Patricia and Howard Scott came because their granddaughter, Aja, attends the school. Recently relocated to Baton Rouge from Ohio – “We’re loving it,” said Howard Scott. They are still learning about their new home.

“I didn’t know what that is, the snowball?” said Patricia Scott, pointing at a picture of the shaved ice and syrupy concoction.

Wednesday night’s event featured more than just posters. There were specially made T-shirts, which quickly sold out. Miracle Sanderson, 13, walked around with a picture frame that she had passers-by step into and get their pictures taken. A Cajun band played in the gym.

Nathan Powell, who teaches music engineering at the Middle School, manned a bank of headphones where visitors could listen to student-made jingles promoting Baton Rouge.

“I urged them to come up with words that would grab people’s attention,” Powell said.

Hayman said he’s still the jingles, as well as videos and other student writings to the website. Students also have been added local restaurant reviews. Hayman said representatives from Visit BR, the city’s official travel website, have urged him to continue, as well as have students contribute to their website.

“What I’d like to do is have the kids keep it up through the year and go onto other projects,” he said.

website, urged him to continue with the project as well as have students contribute to their website.

“What I would like to do is have the kids keep it up through the year and go onto to other projects,” he said.

Video game mascots may seem a little archaic now but they are certainly integral in the introduction to gaming for people my age, that’d be a vague mid to late 20s.

That’s not to say we all have a die-hard attachment to the likes of Crash Bandicoot or Spyro; but that initial interest and connection, no matter how amoebaean, sparked that passion for video games, be it playing, creating or writing about them.

Mascots are a bit of a dying breed, and for years now have been seen as remnants of a gaming landscape that no longer exists. They’re only really talked about retroactively. Younger gamers look at these characters with no connection to them and ask “Wait, why was that cool?” and older gamers will most likely answer nostalgically “You weren’t there, they just were”. It’s not easy trying to explain who Croc or Banjo-Kazzoie were, let alone why we have any connection to them.

Gaming was predominantly marketed towards children. In the age of mature video games and competitive gaming the traditional mascot just doesn’t really fit anymore. But I’m getting a little ahead of myself.

The history of video game mascots has been written about and recounted ad nauseam so I’ll keep it brief. Pong is generally considered the first true video game and its legacy is the uptick in interest in coding in the 1970s and that’s what video games were, software with a little entertainment value. Arcades were what bought gaming to the masses and in 1980 Pac-Man arrived. Pac-Man is the first original gaming mascot, instantly recognisable and is Bandai Namco’s mascot to this day. That is what a mascot should be, gamers will know who they are looking at and what to expect from a mere silhouette of a character.

Mascot fever really started to take hold once Mario became a household name. Nintendo hit the jackpot with Mario, he is the embodiment of the carefree harmless that Nintendo are known for. Before you argue that I’ve forgotten that before he was Mario he was Jumpman from Donkey Kong don’t worry I’ve not, but Jumpman is Mario, only, he’s Mario before he was a household name with his red overalls and heroic disposition. With the success of the Mario games similar characters started to follow suite, like Capcom’s Mega-Man and Nintendo’s Kirby. Getting from point A to point B and getting the high score isn’t all gamers want, we want to root for the hero too.

There was still something these early mascots were missing and iconic though they are, they have a distinct lack of personality or character. Perhaps that’s the curse of 8-bit games, there is only so much you can do to with an 8-bit sprite to bring it to life. Sega really kicked off the 16-bit home console generation with the Sega Mega Drive (or Genesis if you’re from the states) and in a bid to compete with Nintendo and Mario set about creating a mascot character of their own, Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic was the mascot with attitude and is the blueprint for 90s mascots. Mascots with ‘tude all shared a few traits, they probably wore sneakers, usually loved words like “Radical” or “Bogus”, they were snarky but a little bit wholesome and they were undeniably the cool one out their misfit friends Just look at characters such as Gex, Spyro and Crash Bandcoot and you’ll see what I mean.

This is where I come into the story, Mario was already well established by the time I arrived on the scene. Sonic on the other hand had only been around for a few years. Before I ever played a video game I was introduced to Sonic through “The adventures od Sonic the Hedgehog” on Sunday morning television when I was maybe four or five years old. I remember taping, or getting my dad who knew how to use the VHS to tape episodes for me. I had sonic pencil cases, t-shirts and the like. Eventually my dad bought a Sega Mega Drive for us that came with Sonic the Hedgehog bundled in with the box and when my dad came home from work we would sit in front of the TV and play Sonic together. This was my first console but it wasn’t the first video game I’d played, my cousin had a Nintendo console and I’d played Mario but Sonic was different, he looked cooler, he moved cooler, he acted cooler, basically to five year old me he just was cool. Here I was playing the game based on my favourite cartoon; well technically I was watching the cartoon based of the game, but at five years old semantics weren’t really on my mind.

Mascots are equal parts protagonist and marketing tool. In fact Sega actually created Sonic with the intention of having a mascot character who could compete with Mario, replacing their previous mascot Alex Kid and is Sega’s Mascot to this day. Sonic raised the bar Mario had set and as video games became ever more popular mascots began testing the waters outside of their games, something Sega in particular really pushed. Action figures, clothing, forays into other mediums such as the aforementioned Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Even Mario had a crack at a TV show and live action adaptation, neither of which are particularly fondly remembered. There was a small friendly rivalry emerging were you on Team Mario or Team Sonic? Way before they appeared at the Olympic games together that is. It was this devotion to characters that made them mainstays and soon mascot characters were creeping up every chance they had, some were more poplar than others, raise your hand if you remember Bubsy.

As technology advanced and with the release of the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation consoles began to make the leap from the 2nd to the 3rd dimension so to did the mascots. Making the move from 2d sprite to 3d character was a risky move for Nintendo and Sega. When it comes to mascots being taken out of the environment everybody was introduced to them in, it can go horribly wrong. Stray too far and they could become unrecognisable, not just in appearance but appeal also. As it happens Super Mario 64 is the prime example of this transition done right. Fleshing Mario out giving him a voice and more of a personality helped define him, taking him from being a character to having character. If you look at Mario games, now no matter how far they have come graphically, there is always something instantly recognisable or familiar about Mario. Sonic unfortunately has been suffering a bit of an identity crisis lately, changing his appearance and personality from game to game.

It wasn’t until the original PlayStation was released that I owned my very own console and my genre of choice was definitely 3d platformers. Crash Bandicoot was my undeniably my favourite, but more on him later. PlayStation and Nintendo 64 are the consoles that a lot of gamers my age get nostalgic about at the moment. Remembering what it was like to go around friends houses and playing through one level per person, Spyro, Croc, Banjo-Kazooie and so many other games. My bedroom wall, and indeed my friends bedroom walls, were covered in crudely drawn versions of our favourite characters it was almost hero worship in a way. In much the same way that my mum would sit down with friends and family to watch Star Trek and root for Captain Kirk, we would sit to watch and play Crash Bandicoot. Crash appeared on most of Sony’s marketing for PlayStation especially when the sequels started coming out. Naughty Dog perfected him over the course of a trilogy and kart racing game, book ending the PlayStation’s life cycle.

Playstation 2, GameCube and Xbox arrived with the 2000s and this marked the beginning of the end for mainstream mascot success. With technology advancing and games able to become more interactive, coupled with the fact that the main audience were growing into teenagers by this point; games simply had to offer a little bit more than fun characters in a cartoony world. This meant that a lot of franchises were inevitably left behind and forgotten about as more mature games started to take centre stage. Nintendo had Super Mario Sunshine but it was more mature games like Metroid Prime and RPGs that took the GameCube’s focus.

Naughty Dog adapted to the ever-maturing audience perhaps best of all. Jak and Daxter was their first game on the new hardware and it very much channelled the spirit of Crash Bandicoot albeit a more refined experience that satiated the need for more complicated game play to keep it entertaining. Jak and Daxter was maybe the last major cartoony 3d platformer and as the series went on Jak became a more rounded character as Jak 2 and 3 took a darker more mature approach. I mentioned earlier about a time where mascots went from being characters to having character, well, Jak 2 marked the point where he started having a personality. One liner quipping mascots were suddenly starting to look a little childish. Even though Jak and Daxter had changed quite drastically in tone Naughty Dog still managed to keep the spirit of what attracted fans to them in the first place. Moving forward still to Nathan Drake, who I don’t really class as a mascot maybe more of an icon, at his core he still has the qualities that endeared us to Crash and Jak just through a more adult package. Joel and Ellie show that progression further still.

So now we’ve come to gaming in the present day. Its not that brand mascots have been whipped from the face of the earth, but they have evolved with the audience and industry. Mature rated games, competitive gaming and E-Sports have really changed the culture. Gamers gather in halls and not friend’s bedrooms. They don headsets and scream bloody murder at one another while they play for titles, medals and even money.

Gaming is now an industry for adults more than it is for children and Crash, Mario and co all feel a little out of place when stood next to Master Chief and Kratos, mascots in their own right. All the ingredients that make up a mascot fill the boots of a protagonist minus the in your face marketing aspect. Parallels can still be drawn between mascots, Mario has his blue and red uniform and Master Chief his green power armour. Crash has the way he spins into enemies and Marcus Fenix has the way he chainsaws through a Locust with a visceral shower of gore. Only time will tell of course, but perhaps these mascots have lost their timelessness, will we look back on Marcus Fenix as fondly as we do Sonic? But that’s not really an issue because whereas mascots in the 90s were faces of franchises and consoles that’s not the driving force behind games now it’s less about the branding and more about the games. Games are much faster paced now, and not just the way we play them but the way we consume and then move on to the next. So developers are too busy making the next installment or the next big hit.

Younger audiences are of course still being catered to its not all blood and gore. Angry Birds is a huge franchise that started out as a mobile game and struck a cord so much with its audience, it had sequels, cross overs, spinoffs and even an animated movie. Minecraft has taken off in a huge way too, Minecraft Steve has become a bit of an icon you can buy action figures, Lego sets based around Minecraft, and more importantly costume. We used to connect with mascots out of the desire to meet them. Gamers connect with icons today out of the desire to be them. You might not want to buy a Nathan Drake toy, but you might want to go to a convention dressed as him. While mascots and icons connect a player to a game, it’s how gamers show their fandom for them that differentiates them.

Timing is everything and trends of course roll around and right now studios are attempting to tap into our nostalgia. This started with the PlayStation 4 launch title Knack. Knack was an action platformer that definitely wasn’t a commercial or critical success, but it did pique interests in those style of games again. Last year Ratchet and Clank saw a completely reimagined and modernised version of their first outing come to PlaStation 4, to positive reviews from critics and fans alike. You just have to look to Yooka-Laylee from Platonic Games to see how much gamers want these games. Yooka-Laylee was funded through Kickstarter and became the fastest Kickstarter project to reach a million dollars at the time. Knack might just have been a little too original, gamers didn’t have something familiar to grasp onto. Yooka-Laylee is being touted as a spiritual sequel to Banjo-Kazooie, with many of the classic 3D platforming gameplay mechanics being implemented in a nod to the games that inspired it. Spyro had a similar resurgence with the Skylanders games. Peoples familiarity with Spyro helped get the game off the ground. Skylanders was popular enough in its own right to then continue without needing to use Spyro’s name.

Part of Sony’s PlayStaion 20th anniversary celebrations was the announcement that the original Crash Bandicoot trilogy would get remasters/remakes, which was released in July 2017. With the promise that if they do well we might just see original sequels down the line. There is also the promise that perhaps other franchises will also get the same treatment, the rumours of a Spyro comeback are doing the rounds right now. Crash has a different age range for its audience this time around, it might not be as instantly appealing to a younger audience for sure but it’s certainly appealing to the older audience, the audience who grew up with the originals. I’m certainly enjoying Crash Bandicoot now at 27 years old as I was 7 years old.

Being anti-Nazi has typically been a pretty safe bet.

For movies and video games, sweeping an entire demographic of people into archetypal villain roles is fraught with politically incorrect peril. Ask any Native American who rolls his eyes at the portrayal of shirtless, murderous Indians in westerns or an Arab American who balks at Middle-eastern terrorists on the silver screen.

But since the fall of Adolf Hitler’s regime, Nazis have been universally regarded as, well, evil. They’ve been fair game as wicked antagonists.

Until, apparently, now.

Donald Trump’s campaign slogan — « Make America Great Again. »

For the uninitiated, « Wolfenstein » is a series of video games set during and after World War II. The plots and objectives change from game to game, but mostly center on shooting, stabbing, blowing up and otherwise obliterating Nazis and things made by Nazis.

FT. LAUDERDALE, FL–(Marketwired – October 06, 2017) – Avoya Travel®, one of the travel industry’s most innovative brands, has won five Travel Weekly magazine Magellan Awards. The awards recognize Avoya’s innovation and leadership in the travel industry with marketing and best-in-class initiatives that create a unique and better vacation planning and booking experience for customers and travel professionals.

Avoya’s innovation in travel and advancements in marketing were widely recognized with Magellan Awards for ‘Promotional Video’ and ‘Advertising/Marketing Campaign’ and two awards in the ‘Web Marketing/Advertising’ category. Avoya’s Live Leads™ program, which is powered by the company’s marketing and patented Lead Processing Engine™ to generate new customer leads for Independent Agencies in the Avoya Network™, won ‘Travel Agent Innovation.’ The awards validate Avoya’s commitment to connecting customers with travel professionals for the best planning and booking experience and to helping more Independent Agencies than ever before build successful businesses with new clients. The Magellan Award highlights include:

• Avoya’s Dynamic Remarketing creates relevant online experiences for consumers with tailored marketing. The initiative is increasing consumers’ likelihood to book with an Independent Agency in the Avoya Network, and ultimately generates thousands of new Live Leads for the Avoya Network.
• Avoya’s Online Sweepstakes, Win a Cruise Vacation Tailored To You From Avoya Travel, leveraged a targeted marketing campaign to generate unprecedented consumer engagement and interest in connecting with Independent Agencies in the Avoya Network.
• Avoya’s Beyond the Web® Brand Video Series dramatically expanded awareness of the Avoya brand as a unique, better type of travel company. Consumers can see the value of booking with an Independent Agency in the Avoya Network as Avoya places travel professionals at the center of the modern vacation planning process in the series of three videos.
• Elevating Travel Agents is Avoya’s integrated trade marketing campaign that redefined the role of the modern-day travel agent in the vacation planning process. By highlighting the importance of travel professionals, Avoya is creating more awareness for travel as a business opportunity and consequently is experiencing the fastest network growth seen in years.
• Patented Live Leads is the only complete solution to one of travel agents’ biggest challenges – finding and keeping new customers. Available 24/7/365 at no additional cost, Live Leads enable Independent Agencies in the Avoya Network to be more successful because they can focus on relationships, selling, and generating some of the highest incomes in the travel industry.

« We are thrilled to receive top industry recognition for Avoya Travel’s dedication to supporting the Independent Agencies in the Avoya Network and delivering exceptional vacation experiences to customers, » said Brad Anderson, President of Avoya Travel. « We continue to innovate for the future of travel and drive advancements in how customers and travel professionals can better connect, plan, and book cruises and vacations. »

The annual Travel Weekly Magellan Awards distinguish the best in travel across the entire spectrum of industry segments and salute outstanding travel professionals. Winners are selected by Travel Weekly editors and industry experts such as Peter Greenberg, Travel Editor for CBS News’ The Early Show; John Lampl, Senior Airline Executive with British Airways; Patricia Schultz, Author of 1,000 Places to See Before You Die; and many more.

About Avoya Travel:
Avoya Travel is a family-owned company with a longstanding reputation for being one of the world’s most innovative marketing and travel technology companies. As an American Express Travel Representative for more than 30 years, and one of their largest sellers of cruises and tours, Avoya is deeply committed to Integrity and Professionalism™, service, and value in every aspect of planning cruises and vacations. Through an elite network of independently owned and operated travel agencies, Avoya provides exclusive discounts, amenities, and first-class customer service to travelers worldwide. Cruise lines and travel partners recognize this, as Avoya has received numerous accolades, including being repeatedly named Travel Partner of the Year by Norwegian Cruise Line, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Carnival Cruises, American Express, Oceania Cruises, and more. Today, Avoya is headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, with support offices throughout the United States.

Travel agency owners, travel professionals, and others interested in owning and operating their own travel business should contact Avoya Travel at 800-521-2597 or visit www.JoinAvoya.com. Travelers interested in booking their next vacation with Avoya Travel, should call 800-753-1463 or visit www.AvoyaTravel.com.

Nazis. They’re bad, right? Obviously. They’ve been the bad guys in countless forms of entertainment. Movies, comic books, video games, especially ones like Wolfenstein.

Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a game about an alternate reality where Nazis won World War 2 and occupied America and still do in the present day. If it’s anything like the previous game, Wolfenstein: The New Order, and the trailers are to believed, the game will set you on the opposite side of many, many Nazis in the quasi-21st century. This is a rather uncomfortable parallel to today’s real-world political landscape. Oddly enough, MachineGames has somehow avoided major controversy with their game, seeming to not address the glaring comparison. Until today’s Wolfenstein ad that is.

Make America Nazi-Free Again. #NoMoreNazis #Wolf2 pic.twitter.com/52OESypw4P

— Wolfenstein (@wolfenstein) October 5, 2017

Now, they didn’t outright say, « Hey look, this game is eerily relatable in today’s society. » No, that would be too easy. Instead, they took a route that forces viewers to make their own connections. Stormtroopers marching down an American street with the thunderous words « Not My America » slamming down on the screen? The tagline on the tweet saying « Make America Nazi-Free Again »? 

The backlash on social media that Twitter users MiraVylash and YungShaxx were kind enough to compile really smacks of irony as well.

imagine seeing the words « no more nazis » and reacting like this pic.twitter.com/5L9b8CPm3s

— Vylash #TeamKICK (@MiraVylash) October 6, 2017

The amount of people legitimately upset by the new Wolfenstein trailer is equal parts sad and hilarious pic.twitter.com/icrl0CfiyO

— 88 Fingers (@YungShaxx) October 6, 2017

The strange times we live in are strange for a number of reasons. One of which is that major companies tend to stay away from the Neo-Nazi/White Nationalist controversy happening in America, not commenting on it as to avoid being brought into the argument. But MachineGames is making a game about killing and liberating one’s self from Nazis. They had a golden opportunity to make a statement and apparently waited long enough for the hype to build for the game before striking. But Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is being published by Bethesda, a big, Triple-A developer who you’d expect to shy away from controversy. When they began developing The New Colossus, we wonder if Bethesda or the developer would have ever expected a game about killing Nazis would be « controversial ».

The real question is: Is this just a dig at today’s political landscape, or will the game make more uncomfortable but important statements in the game itself? We’ll have to see when it launches later this month.

We got some hands-on time with Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus a few months ago, with Tom Caswell calling it Game of the Year material.

Last month, Motherboard reported on a racist video game made in Canada called Dirty Chinese Restaurant, in which players manage a Chinese restaurant and either make it into a « prestigious Oriental establishment » or a « real filthy dive. » Today, developer Big-O-Tree games (pronounced like bigotry) announced that the game is not only canceled, but that it has started taking down marketing materials for the game. Bullshit averted.

In a Facebook post released Thursday, Big-O-Tree said it has « decided it was not in anyone’s best interest » to release the game, and apologized to the Chinese community.

« We would like to make a sincere and formal apology to the Chinese community and wish to assure them that this game was not created with an intentional interest of inflicting harm or malice against Chinese culture, » the post read. Its website, which previously displayed screenshots of the game displaying offensive stereotypes of the Chinese community and updates on the game, has also been taken down and replaced with the statement.

This announcement came a little more than a week after US congresswoman Grace Meng posted a takedown of the game on Twitter. « This game uses every negative and demeaning stereotype that I have ever come across as a Chinese American. How we portray people matters, » she wrote.

I’m all for people apologizing for misdeeds, especially horribly racist ones, but when a company whose name rhymes with bigotry says it didn’t mean to offend, it’s hard to be sympathetic.

Good riddance. Now let’s never speak of this again.

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• by Karlene Lukovitz
   @KLmarketdaily,

  9 hours ago

Timed for the
holidays, Laphroaig Single Malt Scotch Whisky is out with the latest extension of its award-winning #OpinionsWelcome campaign, from the White Label U.K. agency.

This time around, the
theme is “A First for Friends.” 

As with previous creative in the three-year-old campaign, the new 60-second video (below) captures viewers with its
novel premise  of doing just what its name says — presenting negative as well as positive reactions to the Scotch.  

This video shows the unscripted, often starkly
contrasting — and amusing — reactions of each person within five different pairs of real friends, as they simultaneously sample the unique, peaty whiskey for the first
time. 

Some of the not-so-complimentary comments include “I think I’d rather have my leg cut off,” “[Tastes like it’s] aged with a yoga
mat” and “It’s just like sucking on a sock.” 

The appreciative (even poetic) comments include “It’s beautiful — something of the
moon is in the glass,” “[It’s like an] experimental jazz tune” and “This is love on top of love.”

The campaign — originally launched in June 2014 — seeks both to recruit new Laphroaig
converts and to “reach our current fans in a creative and engaging way,” Kale Schnettler, senior brand manager, Scotch Japanese whisky for Beam Suntory, tells
Marketing Daily. “We celebrate the fact that our whisky is very polarizing and attracts a bevy of opinions, whether positive or disparaging.”

The video is being featured on Laphroaig’s YouTube and other social media channels, and supported with paid online video and social media advertising for the remainder of the year (the
key Scotch consumption season).

Since the campaign’s conception, a variety of content has been created, including videos tied to Father’s Day, Thanksgiving and the 2016 election. The
last was a 3.5-hour Filibuster film starring comedian Andy Daly. 

The brand
continues to collect and post opinions on its #OpinionsWelcome-themed site, including a currently running U.S.-specific
contest. 

Utah County had its first-ever Demand Utah conference Thursday — a one-day event focused on all things marketing.

With the teeming smorgasbord that is Silicon Slopes, Bradley Davis, organizer for the conference felt there was a need for one place local companies could gain marketing “tips, tricks, hacks, and best practices.”

The event focused on all types of marketing in today’s world: lean marketing, social selling, content marketing, influencer marketing, video marketing, conversion optimization and engineering as marketing. Much of the workshops narrowed down into how-tos for these topics, pulling from local experts, and nationally known experts as well.

Keynote speakers Susan Petersen and Sujan Patel addressed one of the hot topics of the day — growth. Petersen talked about how her company, Freshly Picked became one of the fastest growing businesses in Utah Valley. Patel, a Texas-based growth marketing expert, shared tips on how companies can create a growth framework.

Sahil Lavingia, founder and CEO of Gumroad, addressed growth as well. Gumroad is Silicon Valley platform that enables creatives to sell and connect directly with their audiences, and Lavingia discussed how to grow without actively marketing in the regular channels.

“Growth is basically the only thing that matters. Growth solves every single problem. Call it innovation, the world is basically driven by growth,” Lavingia said in his presentation. “Growth is the oxygen. You can screw everything up, but if you’re growing really fast, you’re probably going to be fine.”

To grow successfully, Lavingia said your customer should be your only marketer. Companies that fail to empower their customers to market business, he sees that as a failure. With customers marketing your product for you, he said, you can focus your efforts on continuing to build a really good product. He saw this in his work in the early days of Pinterest, and his work in his own company. Growing this way means that businesses will grow sustainably.

The key to this is relationships, according to a midday panel that looked at content marketing and influencer marketing. Reaching a company’s target market can be done well, if marketers reach out and form meaningful relationships with them.

Skyler Meine, chief marketing officer for IdealShape in Lindon, and Noelle Bates, senior vice president of marketing at Stance in California, both emphasized that creating long-term relationships with customers and influencer partners are essential to business success.

Bates said just because famous celebrities might post about your brand — as happened with Stance socks recently — it doesn’t facilitate those relationships crucial to brand success.

“If you’re going to do something with an influencer, do it for long term,” Bates said.

Shaun McBride, a well-known influencer on the same panel wholeheartedly agreed, saying partnering with influencers should be with the idea to affect culture, not just get views.

“Views don’t equate brand loyalty, to sales, to growth,” he explained. “It’s not the amount of reach an influencer has, it’s the story that’s being told, and the connection.”

According to the panel, the long-term relationships approach helps customers “fall in love with brands,” and ultimately follow Lavingia’s admonition of empowering customers to be the true marketers for the product.

The event was held in the Bright Building on 400 South in Provo, one of the newer and more unique co-working startup venues in the town.

It’s a weird day-and-age we’re living in right now, where “Nazis are bad” has become an actual political stance, as opposed to a bit of basic, obvious wisdom. And yet, there’s something shockingly brazen about seeing it stated so bluntly, as in a Twitter ad released tonight for upcoming Nazi-killing video game Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.

We’ve written about The New Colossus—MachineGames’ follow-up to Wolfenstein: The New Order, and the latest incarnation of the Third Reich-slaughtering franchise—before, thanks to preview gameplay of B.J. Blazkowicz’s latest attempts to liberate America from a fascist occupying force. But the ad in question, which simply shows stormtroopers parading down an American street, as the phrase “Not My America” flashes on the screen, is the most direct the game’s marketing has been to date about its willingness to comment on our odd, frightening political times.

There are, of course, a small number of consumers actively pissed that the Nazi-killing video game included language about killing Nazis, claiming it’s unfair for the developers to take a swipe at the political faction they’re constantly claiming not to be. (The internet is having its usual fun at their expense.) What’s more interesting, though, is the ad’s existence at all, and its accompanying campaign; video games—and especially triple-A video games, published by big companies—are about as stridently apolitical a medium as you could hope to find, owing largely to the old “No reason to alienate half your audience” school of financial neutrality. The New Colossus ad is a bluntly political statement, and it’ll be fascinating to see how that willingness to embed the game in the modern political landscape will affect the game’s critical and commercial reception when it arrives later this month.

2018 Ford Super Duty Limited Video

Stuffed with just about every beefy piece of technology and luxury feature available, the all-new 2018 Ford Super Duty Limited debuted at the 2017 State Fair of Texas. Available for the F-250, F-350 and F-450, the Limited trim level is now the most expensive consumer pickup truck you can buy at just less than $100,000 with all the option boxes checked. But that doesn’t mean it’s not packed with value.

We take a closer look in this video and share what we think.

Cars.com photos by Christian Lantry