Sega’s popular video game character Sonic the Hedgehog is famous for running fast, but now he’s slowing down to grab a bite to eat with some extra friendly company. To help promote the upcoming “Sonic Forces” video game, which will be released in Japan on Nov. 9, Sega is turning Hooters outlets across Tokyo from the restaurant’s trademark orange to blue.

Hooters outlets in Shinjuku, Ginza and Akasaka are planning to decorate their stores with Sonic dolls, hand out “Sonic Forces” coasters and offer a fast-food set that includes French fries, a Sonic-blue colored drink and a chili dog — Sonic’s favorite food.

For those who aren’t up to speed, video-game-and-food collaborations have been around since the days of Atari, with video game characters showing up in children’s cereal or Pac-Man seen drinking 7-Up soda. Now, however, they’re becoming more interactive than simply slapping a sticker on a product, and several popular mashups have caught gamers’ attention this year.

Kurikoan, a chain of taiyaki stalls in Yokohama and Tokyo, caught the Pokemon bug and decided to help trainers catch ’em all. Its limited-time Magikarp-yaki was shaped like the titular orange fish from the series. First introduced in late 2016, Magikarp-yaki became so popular that Kurikoan released a custard version in January. This became a social media hit, with more than 1,250 people using the hashtag #コイキング焼き (#Magicarp-yaki) on Instagram to show off their latest catch.

However, it seems the marketing trend is shifting from filling gamers’ stomachs to taking over their screens. One notable example is “Splatoon 2” for the Nintendo Switch, which encourages players to duke it out over digital food. The popular shooting game, where squid-like kids spray their ink to defeat enemies and mark their territory, features a monthly battle called Splatfest. Players vote for their favorite option in a poll and then fight people who selected the alternative option, with past competitions pitting such things as rock against pop and mayo against ketchup. And then McDonald’s entered the ring.

September’s Splatfest was sponsored by the fast-food chain, asking gamers to pick their favorite side: French fries or McNuggets. One might assume that people would be annoyed to see such obvious paid content in their game, but “Splatoon” fans actually embraced it. Some players created fan art based on the event, others even used the signature section of their profile to draw McDonald’s food. (Although it lost the popular vote, McNuggets ended up winning the Splatfest battle, much to the chagrin of French fries’ fans.)

The only thing hotter than September’s Splatfest is probably the recent tieup between instant noodles and “Final Fantasy XV.” Square Enix’s expansive role-playing game finds its main heroes searching for new weapons, armor and magic spells. In addition, however, the collaboration adds a special item to the list: Nissin’s Cup Noodles.

Certain characters in the game ramble on about how they’re craving Nissin’s ubiquitous snack, and players are even encouraged to purchase instant noodles in-game to satiate their team. Gamers will also see plenty of Nissin billboards and delivery trucks throughout their journey.

Nissin’s campaign became even more in-your-face this year when it released a digital Cup Noodle hat for characters in the game, essentially turning them into goofy walking ads for the company. How does one obtain this rare item? When the campaign was launched, players had to buy a limited-edition set of “Final Fantasy”-inspired Cup Noodles in real life and redeem a code that was included with the purchase. The hat was later made available for free to any player who wanted it.

The collaboration has proved so successful that Nissin has produced a spoof commercial about it. In the video, Nissin took the original commercial for the “Final Fantasy XV” game and added noodles into every scene. The video currently has more than 1 million views on YouTube.

With people all over the internet sharing photos and memes about these recent collaborations, video game developers appear to have found a marketing recipe for success.

When “House of Cards” debuted in 2013, it catapulted Netflix into a whole new level of Hollywood recognition and acclaim. The dark political series about an unscrupulous Washington power couple became Netflix’s first breakout hit, planting a flag for the streaming service in the competitive world of original TV programming.

But just as its protagonist Frank Underwood fell ignominiously from power last season, the series itself has collapsed in scandalous fashion following allegations around actor Kevin Spacey, who has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by numerous men including employees on the show.

Netflix isn’t the only company left holding the bag. Media Rights Capital is the production company that owns the series and licenses it to Netflix. Since news about Spacey broke Sunday, followed by additional allegations, the companies moved quickly to cancel the seventh season of “House of Cards” and put production of the sixth season on indefinite hold. Netflix said in a statement Friday night that it is cutting all ties with Spacey and that he will not be involved with the show that he has starred in since 2013.

“Netflix will not be involved with any further production of ‘House of Cards’ that includes Kevin Spacey,” the company said in a statement.

“It’s pretty weedy stuff,” said Dave Camp, a former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee who wrote a 2014 tax bill that laid some of the groundwork for the current one. Mr. Camp, who is now a senior adviser for PricewaterhouseCoopers, said that when lawmakers attempt to overhaul the code, “you get significant pushback on just about everything.”

The groups pushing back the hardest on Friday included those in the real estate industry. Some of them had raised concerns before the bill was released, only to discover their biggest fears realized in the draft legislation. The bill includes several measures long opposed by those groups, including a limit on interest deductions for new home purchases of $500,000 or more and an expansion of the standard deduction.

The Mortgage Bankers Association plans conference calls and discussions with members of Congress throughout the weekend, said David Stevens, the group’s president. Realtors are running online ads raising concerns over those provisions.

Mr. Stevens complained about the “piling-on effect” of the bill’s provisions on homeownership incentives, and said the bill is “moving really fast” through the House. “Every special interest is going to have concerns,” he said. “If Congress is going to have integrity, they’re going to listen to them and make the best decisions.”

Some of those groups were already training their efforts on a still-unfinished Senate version of the legislation, fearing that House leaders — who introduced their bill on Thursday — were intent on speeding the plan to a vote with little time or opportunity to amend it. The House bill, as one consultant to business groups put it, feels “pretty baked” already.

If Republicans decide to take aim once more at the Affordable Care Act, that would add yet another dimension to the battle over taxes.

Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said no decision had been made about whether to include repeal of the so-called individual mandate. But he said Mr. Trump wants its inclusion, and he indicated that Republicans wanted to evaluate the fiscal effects of taking that step. Senate Republicans may not be as enthused about its inclusion.

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“While I support replacing the individual mandate with an auto enrollment system that allows for a consumer to opt out, it would make it more difficult to pass a tax relief bill if it is combined with a repeal of the individual mandate,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said on Friday.

Members of Mr. Brady’s committee will meet Monday to begin marking up the tax bill, but lobbyists fear the process will not yield any substantive changes. Republican leaders are hoping to pass it through the House by Thanksgiving. The Senate, meanwhile, stands ready to release its bill as soon as the House committee approves its version.

Representatives from industry groups were carefully analyzing how the companies they represent would be affected by a proposal in the House bill that would create a 20 percent excise tax on payments to foreign affiliates.

The small-government advocacy groups spearheaded by the billionaire Republican megadonor brothers Charles G. and David H. Koch have been seeking to rally opposition to the excise tax from other conservative groups, as well as trade and industry associations.

The Koch groups already have expressed concern about the provision — as well as a plan to retain an upper-income tax bracket — in meetings this week with the Speaker, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, Mr. Brady and Senate leadership.

The proposed excise tax is “misguided” and its costs would be passed along to consumers, said Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit group funded by the Koch brothers and their network of donors.

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Yet Mr. Phillips said Americans for Prosperity remains supportive of the overall legislation and is walking a delicate line between trying to tweak the bill without diminishing its prospects.

“It’s important to keep this thing moving forward in the House as we try to improve it,” he said, “and then we get another bite at the apple in the Senate.”

Republican leaders warned on Thursday that interest groups would attack the bill and said they would resist efforts to keep things “status quo.”

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“You’re going to gore some sacred cows in an operation like this,” said Representative Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, on Friday. “But I really worry about more what happens inside the building. And as I talk to members, they’re not feeling a lot of pressure at this point against this.”

Any lobbyist push is complicated by the House’s math problem: The bill must contain enough revenue to offset its corporate and individual tax cuts. An independent analysis of the bill from the Tax Foundation on Friday suggested that problem might be larger than Republican leaders anticipated.

The analysis found that the draft legislation would cost too much to survive the budgetary requirements needed to pass the Senate on a party-line vote — a sign that Republicans will almost certainly need to rework it in order to keep their hopes alive for delivering a bill to Mr. Trump’s desk by Christmas.

The analysis found that the bill would add $2 trillion to the federal budget deficit over the next decade, an amount that shrinks to $1 trillion even when additional economic growth effects from the bill are factored in.

“This does not pay for itself,” said Scott Greenberg, a senior analyst at the Tax Foundation.

The bill would continue to add to deficits after 10 years, violating the procedural budget rules that Republicans are hoping to use to avoid a Democratic filibuster in the Senate.

The White House is projecting robust economic growth from the tax cut, and the analysis found that, if those growth projections hold, the bill would create an additional one million jobs and raise incomes for rich, poor and middle-class Americans. If those growth projections fail to materialize, the top 1 percent of earners would see income gains twice as large as those seen by middle-class workers.

When economic growth is taken into account, the gains would be more evenly distributed, with the middle class seeing the biggest income increase on a percentage basis. That is because the Tax Foundation assumes additional growth spurred by business tax cuts largely finds its way into workers’ paychecks.

Republicans are looking for other ways to squeeze more dollars out of the bill. On Friday, they released an amended version that would reduce the value of the income tax cuts for individuals by $90 billion over the course of a decade and slightly shrink the estimated cost of the legislation.

The amended bill includes a technical change that immediately adopts a revised measure of inflation, known as “chained C.P.I.,” which would change how inflation is calculated, thus slowing the speed at which tax brackets grow with inflation. As a result, Americans would more quickly find themselves in higher marginal tax brackets — jumping from a 12 percent top bracket to 25 percent, for example — as their incomes increase.

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The chained measure would also slow the value growth of some inflation-adjusted tax benefits, such as the earned-income tax credit.

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President Trump on Friday kicked off a nearly two-week Asia trip with a stop in Hawaii, visiting military and historic sites amid protests and growing concern over security threats in the state and U.S. Pacific territories.

The president, who was visiting Hawaii for the first time since his inauguration, appeared at times humbled and excited as he stopped for a briefing at Pacific Command, the U.S. military’s headquarters for the Asia-Pacific region, and later toured the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.

Hawaii residents to Trump: « Wish you weren’t here » »

The visit to a site honoring those killed in an attack that led the U.S. into a war in which it would drop nuclear bombs on Japan had new symbolism compared with previous presidential visits, due to the growing nuclear standoff with North Korea. Trump is expected to spend part of his five-nation tour in Asia honing security alliances as well as pushing U.S. economic ties. The president was also meeting Friday with governors of U.S. states and territories in the Pacific to discuss the North Korean threat.

Melania Trump to the Arizona memorial, where he took part in a wreath-laying ceremony. White House Chief of Staff Gen. John F. Kelly, national security advisor H.R. McMaster and Adm. Harry Harris of Pacific Command joined the president, who said it would be “exciting” to see Pearl Harbor.

“I’ve read about, spoken about, heard about, studied, but I haven’t seen” the site, he said.

At the memorial, built above the Arizona’s sunken hull, the president saluted as he entered and watched as sailors placed a wreath of white flowers near a wall bearing the names of those who died in the attack. Afterward, the couple threw white flower petals into the water outside. The president did not make a public statement at the ceremony.

About 100 supporters — a mix of military service members and civilians — cheered the president and first lady, who had been given traditional Hawaiian leis upon their afternoon arrival at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. Trump supporters also gathered at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in tourist-heavy Waikiki, where the overnight presidential visit closed streets and snarled traffic before an expected early-morning departure.

President Obama was not born in Hawaii.

“Welcome to Kenya” and “No, Trump, HI is Obama’s birthplace,” some of the signs read. “Aloha also means goodbye” and “So bad you make Bush look good,” said others.

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Innovid,
the world’s leading video marketing platform for advertisers to engage
consumers across all screens and channels, today announced the
appointment of Bryan Simkins as senior vice president of brand
solutions. Simkins will be responsible for growing and cultivating
Innovid’s brand partnerships and helping them implement data-driven
video marketing – a key element in marketer’s campaigns and strategies
for 2018. Simkins will help connect brands with their consumers more
effectively, particularly in this time of rapid transformation of the TV
industry.

Simkins brings more than 15 years of media and marketing technology
expertise, including senior roles at Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG),
where early on he recognized the importance of Innovid as a media
agnostic video marketing platform. He also held roles at Digitas,
Accuen, BBDO, FedEx, and most recently at Transparent, a marketing
technology consultancy, where he was a founding partner and provided
services to senior industry leaders—from strategy development to
implementation of marketing technologies, as well as amplification and
education across the industry.

“Innovid is an undisputed leader in creating and executing strategic,
data-driven video marketing across all screens,” said Simkins. “In a
time where transparency is critical, the largest global brands in
consumer packaged goods, auto, financial services and more, are using
the Innovid platform to get a single view of their entire digital video
investment. I am excited to work with them to grow their businesses, and
create strong customer relationships through technology.”

“With hundreds of Innovid campaigns in 2017 being data-driven and 79
percent of brand marketers stating that data would be key in their 2018
video strategy, having Bryan on board couldn’t come at a better time,”
said Beth-Ann Eason, president of Innovid. “Bryan’s expertise in
addressability will help us to support more marketers in their quest for
better business outcomes through data-driven video marketing, and will
help shape the industry development of the future of TV. Bryan’s
experience and knowledge of a marketer’s needs is a huge asset to us and
will put Innovid in an ideal position for future growth.”

For more information about Innovid, please visit www.innovid.com
or follow us on Twitter @Innovid.

About Innovid

Innovid is the world’s #1 online video marketing platform, delivering
more video than any company across PCs, tablets, mobile phones, smart
TVs and streaming devices. Innovid helps leading advertisers and
agencies leverage the power of data to create interactive and
personalized video that delivers 80 percent higher performance than
traditional pre-roll. Most recently, Innovid was featured in Business
Insider’s 19 Most Interesting Ad-Tech Startups of 2017. Please visit www.innovid.com
for more information.

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The hardest part of video marketing is getting started, but don’t let your doubts keep you from reaching your audience. Here are some of the most common worries keeping businesses from video marketing and how to conquer them.

1. I’m not funny or creative

Here’s a secret — not every brand has to be funny and not every video has to be overly creative. Instead of thinking of video marketing as entertainment, think of it as a way to inform. You know your product; you know what you do. Focus on your message — that’s how you reach the customers who are the right fit for your business.

Still have writer’s block? Sometimes choosing the specific type of video you want to make can help you organize your ideas. Here are a few videos that are easy to make and tailored for social media.

Share blog teasers.

Drive traffic back to your site with highlights from an interesting or high-performing blog post. Use text to convey the blog post’s main points, then add a few images or video clips for visual interest. Keep your video under a minute and share on social media, as HubSpot did in this video.

Feature promotions and special events.

Is your business doing something new? Spread the word! Whether it’s a big sale or a customer appreciation event, creating a video lets your audience know what you’re doing, when it’s happening and how they can participate.

A promo doesn’t have to be long — just a few seconds is plenty. For example, when my company wanted to promote our Social Video Marketing Summit, we created a 25-second video that showcased our speakers and gave viewers the info they’d need to attend. No fuss, no muss.

Create a product video. 

Often the best sales technique is just showing what you’ve got. Grab a few images of your products, add your tagline and voila! You have a video catalog or a product intro. See how Brooklyn Grooming introduced its new product with just three images and a little text.

2. I don’t have images or video clips.

You don’t need a pro to produce content for your marketing videos. As a business, you probably already have more than you think. Look for photos of your products, your logo, images from events or pictures of employees. Even if you don’t have any images at all, you can still make a video. Here are a few options:

Create an all-text video. 

For shorter videos, sometimes plain text is enough to cut through the clutter on social media. The clean, image-free look is both easy to read and offers just a little bit of mystery, especially if you’re teasing an upcoming event.

Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what’s happening in the world as it unfolds.

KITCHENER, ON–(Marketwired – November 02, 2017) – For the fourth year in a row, Vidyard, the new generation video platform for business, has partnered with Demand Metric, the marketing research and advisory firm, to publish The 2017 State of Video Marketing report. Based on research conducted with B2B marketing and sales teams across a wide range of markets and company sizes, this year’s results showed that the use of video within marketing teams is rapidly accelerating with a significant growth in the number of sales teams now also using video:

1. Video Creation Remains Priority as Usage Rapidly Increases: Over 90 percent of study participants report that video is becoming more important as a form of marketing content, while 93 percent report having some type of video creation capabilities in-house to reflect those needs.
2. The Role of Video is Expanding from Marketing to Sales: 37 percent of sales teams are now using video throughout the sales cycle and 23 percent are now creating their own video content, both measures are up more than 50 percent from the previous year.
3. Video is Becoming More Integrated with Business Systems: 45 percent of marketers report integrating video data within their marketing automation or customer relationship platforms, up more than 30 percent from the previous year.

Video Creation Remains Priority as Usage Rapidly Increases

For the fourth consecutive year, over 90 percent of study participants report that video is becoming more important as a form of marketing content within their businesses. The percentage of participants that report that video converts better than other content types have averaged 71 percent over the four years of this study, with video remaining the favored content type. The most commonly produced video continues to be Product videos, produced by 63 percent of the organizations surveyed.

As businesses continue to create videos, budgets are following. This year, 90 percent of study participants reported having the same or a growing video budget. The usage of video across websites, social media, landing pages and sales conversations has increased year-over-year, with the volume of videos produced annually increasing to an average of 38 videos, up 31 percent from 29 last year. Today, only seven percent of study participants rely exclusively on third-party production for video creation with 93 percent having some type of video creation production capabilities in-house.

« Marketers today need little convincing that video is a powerful content form. By every measure — lead creation, conversions, SERP ranking, time on page, likes, shares and any other form of engagement — video’s power to inform and persuade is unmatched, » says Jeff Loeb, CMO at Vidyard. « With the rise of new-generation video platforms, marketing and sales teams are using video to drive more qualified leads, cut through the noise, and accelerate pipeline ».

The Role of Video is Expanding from Marketing to Sales

There has been a two-fold increase in the number of survey respondents who report using video as part of their account-based marketing (ABM) strategy. More companies today (37 percent) use video as part of their sales conversion process, up from 25 percent last year. Video creation within sales departments is also on the rise with the introduction of tools like Vidyard GoVideo and others. Results indicate that 23 percent of sales teams are creating more of their own video content this year, up from just 15 percent in 2016. Usage of video viewing data by sales teams to qualify, engage or influence deals is also up 13 percent year-over-year which indicates that video has become more accessible and desirable for personalized communications.

Video is Becoming More Integrated with Business Systems

Integrating video viewing data into marketing automation platforms (MAP) or customer relationship management platforms (CRM) like Salesforce, Marketo, Eloqua, Hubspot, and others enable marketing and sales teams to monitor and track video usage metrics. In 2017, 45 percent of marketers reported having integrated video viewing data within these applications, up from 30 percent each of the last two years. The percentage of organizations that have integrated video viewing data — and are exploiting it — with key sales and marketing systems jumped from 13 to 20 percent this year.

Over 70 percent of this study’s participants were in marketing roles in B2B or mixed B2B/B2C organizations that reported revenue growth in the most recently completed fiscal year. All of the organizations that participated in this study are using video in their sales and marketing efforts. Agencies and studios were disqualified from contributing to the study.

More Information:

• Download the Report: https://www.vidyard.com/resources/state-of-video-marketing-2017-report
• Blog Post: https://www.vidyard.com/blog/peers-beating-video-marketing-results/

About Vidyard

Vidyard is the new generation video platform for business that helps organizations drive more revenue through the use of online video. Going beyond video hosting and management, Vidyard helps businesses drive greater engagement in their video content, track the viewing activities of each individual viewer, and turn those views into action. Global leaders such as Honeywell, McKesson, Lenovo, LinkedIn, Citibank, and Sharp rely on Vidyard to power their video content strategies and turn viewers into customers. To learn more about Vidyard, please visit www.vidyard.com.

About Demand Metric

Demand Metric is a marketing research and advisory firm serving a membership community of over 100,000 marketing professionals and consultants in 75 countries. Offering consulting playbooks, advisory services, and 500+ premium marketing tools and templates, Demand Metric resources and expertise help the marketing community plan more efficiently and effectively, answer the difficult questions about their work with authority and conviction, and complete marketing projects more quickly and with greater confidence — thus boosting the respect of the marketing team and making it easier to justify resources the team needs to succeed. To learn more about Demand Metric, please visit www.demandmetric.com.