Archives par mot-clé : marketing

Senate Republicans go ‘nuclear,’ pave the way for Gorsuch confirmation to Supreme Court

Video Marketing,

Republicans on Thursday cleared the way for Judge Neil Gorsuch to be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, overcoming a historic Democratic blockade by changing the rules of the U.S. Senate — a move that highlighted the fierce partisanship that has seized Congress.

The long-anticipated rules change now means that all presidential nominees for executive branch positions and the federal courts need only a simple-majority vote to be confirmed by senators.

The GOP decision to ram through the rules change is also likely to further divide an increasingly partisan Senate. Several senators openly fretted that eliminating the minority party’s right to block high court nominees could lead to the end of filibusters on legislation — effectively transforming the Senate’s traditional role in the legislative process as the slower, more deliberative chamber.

The ultimate confirmation of Gorsuch, which is expected sometime on Friday, represents a major victory, however, for President Trump as well as for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who refused to even consider President Barack Obama’s nominee after Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016.

[McConnell: ‘Nuclear option’ helps Senate. McCain: ‘Whoever says that is a stupid idiot.’]

View Graphic How the Senate voted to alter its rules on Supreme Court appointments

The unflinching discipline displayed by McConnell (R-Ky.) in rejecting pleas from Democrats for a hearing on Judge Merrick Garland enraged them and prompted demands for a Gorsuch blockade by their progressive base. But the Democrats’ high-profile filibuster had fizzled by midday Thursday after McConnell moved to alter the rules and received the backing of his entire Republican caucus.

As he left the Senate chamber, the usually reserved McConnell flashed a bit of showmanship — he high-fived some colleagues, awkwardly embraced Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and gave a thumbs-up to photographers.

The majority leader argued that ending the filibuster for high court nominees will actually decrease partisan tensions in the Senate and return the upper chamber to a time when filibusters weren’t so commonly used to block nominations.

“This will be the first and last partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nomination,” McConnell vowed ahead of Thursday’s votes.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded by warning that “the consequences for the Senate and for the future of the Supreme Court will be far-reaching.”

And Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who supports Gorsuch but opposed the rules change, said it was “everybody’s fault” that the Senate invoked the “nuclear option” and no longer requires 60 votes to confirm Supreme Court nominees. Manchin declared that Republicans will “rue the day that this happened” if they lose their majority.

George Washington “had it right” about the Senate, Manchin said. “We’re the saucer. Should be, anyway. Should be cooling off that tea. . . . The hot tea’s going to scald you now. It’s going to burn you.”

Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee hold a hearing on Gorsuch’s nomination on Monday. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

[The Daily 202: The legislative filibuster will be at risk now that the Senate has gone nuclear]

Republicans, determined to restore the conservative tilt of the Supreme Court since Scalia’s unexpected death, worked in lockstep on Thursday to see that Gorsuch would ultimately be confirmed. They remained remarkably united on the three votes needed to set Gorsuch on a glide path to confirmation.

By 1 p.m. on Thursday, most of the drama was over. On a vote of 55 to 45, all Republicans and three Democrats voted to proceed to final debate on Gorsuch, 49, a Denver-based judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. Senators at that point had the option of using as many as 30 hours for debate.

Thursday was the second time in less than four years that senators voted to reshape the way they offer advice and consent to a president on executive branch and judicial nominees. In 2013, Democrats — angered by years of Republican blockades on Obama’s nominees — pushed through a rules change that allowed all executive branch nominees and lower-court picks to be confirmed with a simple majority vote. But Democrats did not include Supreme Court nominees as part of the changes, believing that lifetime appointments to the nation’s highest court should be handled differently.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a past critic of invoking the nuclear option, said negotiations to prevent the rules change failed this time because of what the Senate has become.

“There’s such a profound lack of trust, and that’s what many of us are committed to trying to rebuild,” she said. “We need to make very clear to the leaders on both sides that there’s no support for curtailing our existing ability to filibuster legislation.”

Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) agreed that the clash was “hard to avoid” because Republicans saw Gorsuch as such an indisputably qualified nominee and Democrats had deep concerns about him.

As it had for much of the past few weeks, Garland’s name hovered over the proceedings in a way that was impossible to miss.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) stridently faulted McConnell for blocking Garland, saying that “the senator from Kentucky has made history. . . . He made history in denying a presidential nominee the opportunity for a hearing and a vote which had never, never happened before.”

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) conceded that Democrats “are still bitter about Merrick Garland and, you know, I can’t blame them for that.” But he added, “If the roles were reversed they would have just tromped all over us. I mean, you know, they’d have done the same thing.”

The carefully staged deconstruction of the Senate tradition began Thursday with a “cloture vote” — a special feature of Senate procedure that ends debate on a bill or nomination, allowing the process to move to a final vote. Schumer and McConnell looked on from their desks at the front of the Senate chamber just a few feet apart as the voting began. Schumer took gulps of water between conversations with Durbin, his top deputy, and aides. McConnell sat calmly at his desk with a solemn expression.

Other senators sat patiently reading, checking their smartphones or filing in and out of the Senate cloakrooms as the clerk called the roll.

“It was very sanitary. Unemotional. Telegraphed in advance. Planned in advance,” said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).

[Here’s your guide for dummies to Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Supreme Court]

After about 30 minutes, McConnell stood and switched his vote on advancing Gorsuch from “yes” to “no” — a parliamentary tactic allowing him to bring up the nomination again and to begin moves aimed at changing the rules.

The two Senate leaders then launched a series of procedural maneuvers that culminated with the rules change. McConnell first raised a “point of order” to suggest that Gorsuch’s nomination could be advanced with a simple majority rather than the usual 60 votes. Schumer responded by unsuccessfully moving to delay Gorsuch’s nomination and to adjourn the Senate. Then senators voted, with Republicans prevailing.

McConnell’s move was the culmination of nearly 14 months of work by the majority leader, who insisted just hours after Scalia died in February 2016 that his seat would remain open for the next president to fill. Since the start of this year, Gorsuch’s confirmation has sat atop his to-do list.

His gloating — reserved as it was — was criticized by wary Democrats.

“My GOP colleagues high fived each other after voting to damage pillars of our democracy. This is no cause for celebration,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said on Twitter.

But Republicans remained cheery. Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), casting his first vote on a nomination to the high court, paused before heading to the Senate floor to record a message using Snapchat. He adjusted the camera to make sure the shot included a statue of Benjamin Franklin behind him.

“It’ll be great to have a fellow Westerner on the court!” he said of Gorsuch, who is from Colorado.

No Supreme Court nominee has ever been blocked by a single-party filibuster. Abe Fortas, nominated to be chief justice in 1968, was the only nominee to get blocked on the cloture vote, by a bipartisan coalition that had enough votes to defeat his nomination outright.

Gorsuch’s nomination was announced in late January, and three days of confirmation hearings began on March 20 in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Formal debate on his nomination officially began Tuesday and was dominated into Wednesday by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), one of the Senate’s most liberal members, who spoke overnight for more than 15 hours against Gorsuch.

Merkley, among other Democrats, signaled on Thursday that beyond concerns with Gorsuch, they would not necessarily support restoring Senate traditions if they retake control of the chamber.

“We can’t unilaterally disarm,” Merkley said.

But Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) warned that the change to Senate rules “makes it less likely you’re going to have centrist, moderate nominees on the Supreme Court.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who grilled Gorsuch on campaign finance laws during the confirmation hearings, argued that no deal between the parties to maintain a filibuster would prevent Republicans from jamming through a future nominee if the court’s balance was at stake.

Asked what he was thinking as he walked to the Senate floor to vote on Gorsuch, Whitehouse said one word: “Inevitability.”

David Weigel and Kelsey Snell contributed to this report.

Read more at PowerPost

Why Serving Up Relevant Content to Consumers Is a Big Responsibility

Video Marketing,

Though she’s only been in her current position for little more than a month, Carla Hassan, evp, global chief marketer, Toys”R”Us, brought valuable insights to a panel discussion she joined at Adweek and Bloomberg Media’s breakfast event on March 28 called “Marketing In an Interruptive World.” The former Pepsi exec pointed out the importance of placing the consumer first in dreaming up marketing that will resonate with them.

“I actually hate the word digital, and I don’t like to use it because I think everything that we do—if you really start with the consumer, that’s their life,” Hassan told Adweek after the panel session. “Their life is mobile. Their life is digital. So we have to come up with solutions across the board and across all the channels that talk to them. If we start with them, we’ll be able to deliver content that’s relevant to them in the all the spaces they play.”

Take a look at the video to see what else Hassan said. And check out this video featuring Visa’s Kim Kadlec from the Adweek-Bloomberg Media event.

Rocket Fuel Remains the Only Company Currently Integrated with IAS to Run Video Campaigns on Verified In-Stream …

Video Marketing,

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – April 6, 2017 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Rocket Fuel (NASDAQ: FUEL), a predictive marketing platform, today announced, in partnership with Integral Ad Science (IAS), research showing that within a particular set of video impressions, up to 70% labelled as ‘in-stream’ were actually misrepresented as in-banner. This research helps brands and agencies make better decisions regarding video ad inventory placement. Through a deep integration with Integral Ad Science, Rocket Fuel is now also equipped to help marketers and agencies address this problem, bringing more transparency to programmatic video buying by allowing them to run video campaigns on IAS verified in-stream inventory.

The study Rocket Fuel conducted looked at more than 47 billion video impression opportunities that were categorized as in-stream by an exchange partner or publisher. Rocket Fuel then used IAS data to determine whether those impressions were actually in-stream or not. The test was deployed across both desktop and mobile, as well as private marketplace (PMP) inventory and Open Exchange to show a complete picture of the drivers of both high and low quality inventory.

« The industry needs a new video solution for brands, » said Randy Wootton, CEO of Rocket Fuel. « We are dealing with a highly non-transparent market where many other video platforms are unable to accurately distinguish an in-banner from an in-stream impression. »

Rocket Fuel also found that traditional strategies that advertisers typically rely on to improve video inventory quality may not be effective, including large player targeting and PMPs. Solutions like large player size targeting only brought in-banner rates down by 4% compared to the average, and PMP showed a higher than average in-banner rate.

However, it is now possible for marketers and agencies to protect themselves from misrepresented in-banner. Using the same types of methods the industry has typically relied on to address similar quality issues like viewability and fraud, IAS powers capabilities that allow Rocket Fuel to provide clients with:

  • Independent 3rd party verification, to hold partners accountable.
  • Predictive targeting to limit mislabeled in-banner.
  • AI-based fraud detection because fraud evolves and machine learning is one of the most efficient ways to identify suspicious impressions before bidding on them.

« This is why we partnered with IAS – to bring more transparency to programmatic video buying and to develop a solution that would allow advertisers to reduce the amount of in-banner video they buy against their will, » continued Wootton. « It’s through partnerships and efforts like these that we’ll continue to see turn around in the industry. »

Backbone Media, an online marketing firm, has been relying on Rocket Fuel for verified placement to deliver quality inventory for its client, the Breckenridge Tourism Office, and has seen strong results on in-stream placements.

« When you’re building a campaign that’s strictly about awareness, it’s hard to point to metrics that can prove whether or not it was a success, » said Morgan Cole, Media Planner at Backbone Media. « With Rocket Fuel, we’re finding that we’re getting real people who are going to interact with Breckenridge and it’s not just inventory lost on users that show little or no interest. A lot of times the programmatic world gets misrepresented by traffic that looks like bots and that’s one thing that Rocket Fuel has addressed. We’ve worked hard with Breckenridge to show that we’re buying the inventory they want and showing their ads to the people we want to see them, and these added layers of protection prove that. »

Rocket Fuel’s verified placement quality solution, powered by IAS, is deployed across Open Exchange, PMP, desktop and mobile, and is compatible with all the most common targeting and optimization tactics that Rocket Fuel typically offers to brand buyers.

About Rocket Fuel

Rocket Fuel is a predictive marketing software company that uses artificial intelligence to empower agencies and marketers to anticipate people’s need for products and services.

Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., Rocket Fuel has more than 20 offices worldwide and trades on the NASDAQ Global Select Market under the ticker symbol « FUEL. » Rocket Fuel, the Rocket Fuel logo, Moment Scoring, Advertising That Learns and Marketing That Learns are trademarks or registered trademarks of Rocket Fuel Inc. in the United States and other countries.

About IAS

Integral Ad Science (IAS) is a global technology and data company that builds verification, optimization, and analytics solutions to empower the advertising industry to effectively influence consumers everywhere, on every device. We solve the most pressing problems for brands, agencies, publishers, and technology companies by verifying that every impression has the opportunity to be effective, optimizing towards opportunities to consistently improve results, and analyzing digital’s impact on consumer actions. Built on data science and engineering, IAS is headquartered in New York with global operations in ten countries. Our growth and innovation have been recognized in Inc. 500, Crain’s Fast 50, Forbes America’s Most Promising Companies, and I-COM’s Smart Data Marketing Technology Company. Learn more at www.integralads.com.

Contacts

Bite Communications for Rocket Fuel
Bethany Mullinix, 415-817-9990
Rocket_Fuel@biteglobal.com

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Pepsi and Kendall Jenner’s controversial ad is also a straight up rip of an old Chemical Brothers music video

Video Marketing,

This morning, inside Pepsi’s headquarters, some disconnected marketing executive is packing up their office and boxing up their desk for green-lighting the most pitifully dejected, tone-deaf piece of advertising in recent memory. In case you missed it, the soft drink giant is facing serious backlash after clumsily placing Kendall Jenner at the center of some poorly produced, vapid attempt at co-opting the numerous protest movements that have sprouted in this time of considerable tension in the United States and worldwide.

The Millennial-pandering commercial features Jenner at a photoshoot, when all the whimsy is interrupted outside by a massive passing protest. Jenner quickly tears off her wig, wipes away her lipstick and runs outside to join the cause. She pops open a crisp, delicious Pepsi — *psstt* — walks straight up to a law enforcement officer, and offers him the can of happiness that eases all the tension in America! Sadly, it gets worse.

The Pepsi commercial seems to be a thinly-veiled recycling of The Chemical Brothers 1999 music video for “Out Of Control,” though somehow it manages to miss the original’s mark by almost, to be gracious, 100 miles. The original feature stars Rosario Dawson facing a tactical police force in a similarly tumultuous protest scenario. With the power of a bottle of cola, she fends off the riot squad, only for the camera to pan to what is actually a television set in a living room, Dawson actually being the star of a commercial playing on the TV advertising the fizzy beverage. Meta, right?

Its hard to deny both videos’ conceptual similarities. Pepsi has since pulled the controversial ad and issued an apology. They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, though in this case, its unlikely The Chemical Brothers find anything flattering about Pepsi’s mess.

Read More:

Watch The Chemical Brothers’ surreal new video for ‘C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L

Lorde may have just teased new music in a cryptic commercial

 

Reports in unmasking controversy were detailed, had info about ‘everyday lives’

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The intelligence reports at the center of the Susan Rice unmasking controversy were detailed, and almost resembled a private investigator’s file, according to a Republican congressman familiar with the documents.

« This is information about their everyday lives, » Rep. Peter King of New York, a member of the House Intelligence committee said. « Sort of like in a divorce case where lawyers are hired, investigators are hired just to find out what the other person is doing from morning until night and then you try to piece it together later on.”

On the House Intelligence Committee, only the Republican chairman, Devin Nunes of California, and the ranking Democrat Adam Schiff, also of California, have personally reviewed the intelligence reports. Some members were given broad outlines.

Nunes has consistently stated that the files caused him deep concern because the unmasking went beyond the former national security adviser Mike Flynn, and the information was not related to Moscow.

Schiff said in a statement, “I cannot comment on the content of these materials or any other classified documents, and nothing should be inferred from the fact that I am treating classified materials the way they should be treated – by refusing to comment on them. Only the Administration has the power to declassify the information and make it available to the public. »

Former National Security Adviser Rice is under scrutiny after allegations she sought to unmask the identities of Trump associates caught up in surveillance – such as phone calls between foreign intelligence targets. Rice denies ever having sought such information for political purposes and has defended her requests as routine.

But the most recent government data shows that unmasking or identifying Americans happens in a limited number of cases. The Office for the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the 17 intelligence agencies, said « …in 2015, NSA disseminated 4,290 FAA Section 702 intelligence reports that included U.S. person information. Of those 4,290 reports, the U.S. person information was masked in 3,168 reports and unmasked in 1,122 reports. »  

The report said « NSA is allowed to unmask the identity for the specific requesting recipient only under certain conditions and where specific additional controls are in place » and those conditions were met for « 654 U.S. person identities » in 2015.

That means Americans were identified in 26 percent of the cases, or roughly one in four intelligence reports.

During his March 20 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, NSA director Admiral Mike Rogers said only 20 individuals within the agency are authorized to approve those requests.

“They receive specific training, there are specific controls put in place in terms of our ability to disseminate information out of the databases associated with U.S. persons,” Rogers said at the time. What it appears to suggest is that the NSA itself agreed that the instances in which Rice requested unmasking warranted that action.

FBI Director James Comey was less direct. « I don’t know for sure. As I sit here, surely more, given the nature of the FBI’s work, » he testified.

« It would be nice to know the universe of people who have the power to unmask a U.S. citizen’s name, » South Carolina Republican congressman Trey Gowdy pressed. « Because that might provide something of a roadmap to investigate who might’ve actually disseminated a masked U.S. citizen’s name. »

Rice told NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell that the reports were requested by the Obama administration, which announced a probe into the Russian election hacking in early December. Two months earlier in October, before the election, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Homeland Security Department put out a joint statement about Moscow’s interference.

Given the late fall timeline, it is not clear the intelligence reports Rice discussed during the NBC interview, are the same files reviewed by Nunes and Schiff.

Speaking to Fox News Wednesday, President Trump said he believed the former national security adviser may have committed a crime when she sought the identities of the Trump team members. The allegation was first reported by the New York Times.

While not commenting on the individual case, a former senior intelligence official explained the request must be approved by the NSA. Rice would have understood that there is an extensive government paper trail, that can be audited within the NSA, that shows who requested the unmasking, on what basis, and whether it was granted. This raises more questions about Rice, her motivation and whether it was authorized higher up, offering cover. 

If approved, the former senior intelligence official said, only the requester, in this case Rice, would receive the information. Based on Fox News’ reporting, the information was shared beyond Rice, but it is not clear if those who received it had a “need to know.” 

A spokeswoman for Rice, Erin Pelton, said in an email to the New York Times on Wednesday, “I’m not going to dignify the president’s ludicrous charge with a comment.”  Pelton works for Mercury LLC, a crisis management firm. 

At the height of the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack fallout, and questions about whether Rice and a former senior intelligence official had misled Congress about the role of an internet video in the deaths of four Americans, Mercury LLC was also tasked with handling the Fox News media inquiries.

Catherine Herridge is an award-winning Chief Intelligence correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC) based in Washington, D.C. She covers intelligence, the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security. Herridge joined FNC in 1996 as a London-based correspondent.

Pamela K. Browne is Senior Executive Producer at the FOX News Channel (FNC) and is Director of Long-Form Series and Specials. Her journalism has been recognized with several awards. Browne first joined FOX in 1997 to launch the news magazine “Fox Files” and later, “War Stories.”

Trump condemns Syria chemical attack and suggests he will act

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If proven to have been carried out by Assad, the chemical attack Tuesday would represent a challenge to Trump to act where Obama did not. The attack followed recent Trump administration statements backing away from Obama’s insistence that Assad must leave power as a part of any political settlement in Syria.

Trump did not call for Assad to go and said nothing about Russian culpability for backing the regime and defending it against charges that it targeted civilians. The Assad government and Russia blamed the chemical release on rebel forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said that at least 72 people were killed, making it the deadliest chemical assault since 2013, when the Syrian government dropped sarin on the Damascus suburbs, killing hundreds of people as they slept, and bringing the United States and European allies to the verge of military intervention.

On Wednesday, Trump repeated campaign-trail criticism of the Obama administration for threatening military action over that 2013 attack and then backing off. For the balance of his presidency, Obama struggled with the limits of an arm’s-length approach that he maintained was still preferable to direct military involvement.

“We have a big problem. We have somebody that is not doing the right thing. And that’s going to be my responsibility,” Trump said. “But I’ll tell you, that responsibility could’ve made, been made, a lot easier if it was handled years ago.”

Trump had supported Obama’s decision not to bomb in 2013, but as a candidate, he used the episode as an example of what he called the Democrat’s weakness and indecision. Trump promised certitude and strength, and there were echoes of that rhetoric in his first Rose Garden news conference Wednesday.

“We will destroy ISIS and we will protect civilization,” Trump said, referring to the Islamic State group that operates in ­Syria and is one of many players in the fractured country. “We have no choice. We will protect civilization.”

Abdullah, whose small country has been overwhelmed by Syrian refugees, largely dodged a question about whether Trump’s proposed travel ban, which would block Syrians from coming to the United States as refugees, would add to Jordan’s burden.

“The Europeans are being very forward-leaning” in providing financial and other help, Abdullah said. “A tremendous burden on our country, but again, tremendous appreciation to the United States and the Western countries for being able to help us in dealing with that.”

In the past, attacks on civilians such as the one Tuesday have increased the pressure on Syrians to flee.

Earlier Wednesday, Haley assailed Russia in blunt terms for protecting the Syrian government, saying that Moscow is callously ignoring civilian deaths.

“How many more children have to die before Russia cares?” she said in New York, with representatives of the Syrian government and its Russian backers looking on.

She held aloft gruesome ­images from the attack in Idlib province. One showed a child splayed and apparently lifeless.

“Russia has shielded Assad from U.N. sanctions. If Russia has the influence in Syria that it claims to have, we need to see them use it,” Haley said. “We need to see them put an end to these horrific acts.”

[Deadly attack in Syria likely involved banned nerve agent, experts say]

At the United Nations, Russia’s representative lamented what he called “clearly an ideological thrust” to the discussion at the Security Council.

Accusations of the Assad regime’s involvement are “closely interwoven with the anti-Damascus campaign, which hasn’t yet reached the place it deserves on the landfill of history,” Russian representative Sergey Kononuchenko said.

Russia is likely to block a proposed Security Council condemnation of the attack.

Syria’s representative, Mounzer Mounzer, dismissed the accusation that his country is to blame, saying Damascus condemns the use of chemical weapons. “We don’t have them. We never use them,” he told the council.

Under Russian pressure, Syria agreed in 2013 to give up its chemical weapons and claimed it had eliminated its stockpiles.

Russia tried Wednesday to shift the blame to armed groups opposing Assad.

Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a Russian military spokesman, said Syrian warplanes had been targeting rebel workshops and depots.

“The territory of this storage facility housed workshops to produce projectiles filled with toxic agents,” he said in a recorded statement.

The World Health Organization said Wednesday that victims’ symptoms bore all the hallmarks of a chemical attack, possibly involving a banned nerve agent. Syrian forces also have used ­chlorine-based weapons.

The British and French ambassadors to the United Nations criticized Russia directly for protecting the Assad government at the expense of civilians.

“History will judge all of us in how we respond to these unforgettable and unforgivable images of the innocent,” British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said. “How long are we going to sit here and pretend that actions in these chambers have no conse­quences?”

He said Russia and China squandered an opportunity to call out Syria when they vetoed a February effort to condemn smaller reported instances of chemical weapons use.

John Wagner contributed to this report.