Adam Richards is a semi-retired business professional originally from Bangor, Maine. He spent the majority of his career in sales and marketing where he rose to the marketing lead of a Fortune 1000 company. He then moved on to helping people as a career counselor that specifically helped bring families to self-sufficiency through finding them rewarding careers. He has now returned to Bangor for his retirement and spends his free time writing.
This blog will be about everything he learned throughout his career. He’ll write on career, workplace, education and technology issues as well as on trends, changes, and advice for the Maine job market and its employers.
Everyone knows that content is essential to attract, engage and convert customers online. We’ve all heard the expression, « content is king. » While this may be true, it’s important to consider the medium involved. Right now, the king of content is clearly video.
The Reasons Behind The Rise Of Video Marketing
The popularity of video marketing may not come as much of a surprise to you. That said, there are some compelling numbers that explain why marketers will continue to use video in the future.
1. Video increases organic traffic and conversions.
It’s not by a small amount, either. As reported by Adélie Studios, companies that use video marketing see 41% more organic traffic than those that don’t. More than just bringing in traffic, video helps convert those visitors into customers. Home pages with videos see 20% more conversions. Landing pages see 80% more.
« We have seen video content be very powerful for e-commerce clients where products have a high touch and feel value, » said Joe Laratro, a local colleague and founder of Tandem Interactive, a digital marketing agency. » Google AdWords constantly makes conversions from YouTube content more likely with better ad units that can overlay e-commerce content. »
2. Viewers retain information better than readers.
When someone views information via video, they retain 95% of it. That number is all the more incredible when you consider that only 10% is retained through reading.
It’s worth noting that completion rates significantly increase when viewers are rewarded. That can involve anything from providing the wifi password to other digital content.
3. The market wants more videos.
The public loves video just as much as marketers do. In fact, 43% of people hope marketers will use video even more in the future. Businesses are focusing on four common video genres: explainers, product demos, how-tos and testimonials.
Facebook’s Foray Into Video Marketing
Another sign that video marketing is on the rise is Facebook’s active interest in the medium. For years, videos have been a fantastic way to increase engagement on Facebook. However, earlier this year, the social media giant doubled down on its investment in video marketing. Its new ad format, Collection, allows videos to play above four recommended products. Companies can either choose the products to be displayed or have Facebook pull popular options from their websites. When someone clicks on one of these promos, they are taken to a landing page that shows them up to 50 more products.
Back in March, Facebook announced that major brands including Adidas, Tommy Hilfiger, Sport Chek, Michael Kors and Lowes had already tested Collection. Sport Chek reported that its conversions doubled and online sales went up 28% simply by utilizing a Collection campaign that involved GIFs. Adidas also had success. Its cost per conversion dropped by 1.8 times when they used Collection to advertise a hoodie and similar items.
A New Analytic
Facebook already offers plenty of analytics to help improve your marketing campaigns. And with Collection it has added a new metric called Outbound Clicks, which will allow advertisers to see how many people click through to their websites and apps. This actionable feedback will allow marketers to create better videos in the future.
Both the introduction of Collection and the fact that Facebook values it enough to create a brand-new metric for advertisers says a lot about how important video is becoming to e-commerce. The company has long sought to improve this profit source and, with video, it may have found the opportunity it has been looking for.
A voter fills out a ballot on the first day of early voting at the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Cincinnati, Ohio, last month.
John Minchillo/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
John Minchillo/AP
A voter fills out a ballot on the first day of early voting at the Hamilton County Board of Elections in Cincinnati, Ohio, last month.
John Minchillo/AP
In odd-numbered years, Election Day consists of a hodgepodge of state, local and special elections.
But in an era when, to flip an old phrase, all politics is national, these low-profile, low-turnout elections might have a lot more to say about the direction of the country than may have been the case just a few years ago.
Two governors races and one president in the background
The marquee races of 2017 are in Virginia and New Jersey where term limits mean that voters are picking new governors. While both races may have begun with an emphasis on statewide issues such as property taxes and education policy, in the closing weeks both have morphed into the latest test of President Trump’s influence down the ballot.
Both Republican gubernatorial candidates, Ed Gillespie of Virginia and Kim Guadagno in New Jersey, have shed their country club Republican roots and embraced a Trump-style message about immigration and social issues, running law and order-centric ads emphasizing violence committed by Latino immigrants.
One Gillespie ad accuses his Democratic rival, Ralph Northam, of casting « the deciding vote in favor of sanctuary cities that let illegal immigrants who commit crimes back on the street » while a Guadagno ad says her opponent, Phil Murphy « doesn’t have our backs. He has theirs, » referring to violent immigrants in the country illegally.
Likewise, Northam and Murphy are banging the anti-Trump drum loudly as way to harness the energy of grassroots Democrats in what are traditionally low-turnout elections. In Virginia, Democrats are banking on that energy to help them down the ballot and gain ground in the state legislature, where Republicans currently hold a commanding lead.
While Murphy is highly-favored to win in New Jersey, the contest between Gillespie and Northam has grown increasingly narrow. The outcome in Virginia could play a big role in shaping each party’s message in the 2018 midterms. For Republicans, a victory by Gillespie could encourage congressional GOP candidates to fully embrace Trump’s style of populism next year. Should Northam prevail, it could quell the ongoing debate in Democratic ranks about the extent to which the party should nominate more liberal versus centrist candidates.
The gubernatorial races aren’t the only nationalized contests this fall. In Washington state, a special election in the Seattle suburbs has become a big money slugfest as Democrats seek to wrest control of the state senate from Republicans – the last legislative chamber the GOP controls along the West Coast. The implications could be significant for climate and gun control policies.
Trump is unpopular with much of the electorate but retains the loyalty of Republican voters. On Tuesday evening, we’ll find out which side is the most highly-motivated.
Big ballot measures
While odd-year elections aren’t typically the venue for major ballot initiatives, there are a couple that bear watching on Tuesday.
Maine: Voters are being presented with the opportunity to bypass Republican Gov. Paul LePage’s veto pen and approve an expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. If the measure succeeds, it would be the first time a state has expanded Medicaid via a referendum and could energize organizers of similar campaigns for 2018 around the country, including Utah and Alaska.
Ohio: Voters will weigh in on whether the state and its agencies should pay the same or lower prices for prescription drugs as the VA medical system. It’s being described as the state’s most expensive ballot measure with the pharmaceutical industry spending nearly $60 million to defeat it.
A very similar measure failed in California last year but if this referendum succeeds, expect to see copycats pop up nationwide in 2018.
New York: With many Americans genuinely unhappy with the direction of the country, a ballot measure in New York state could indicate how much desire there is to blow up the political system and start all over. As part of the state’s constitution, New York voters get to decide every 20 years whether the state should hold a constitutional convention to rewrite or amend the state’s constitution.
The state’s last « con-con » was held in 1967 and produced an ambitious and highly liberal set of proposed changes to the constitution that was ultimately rejected by voters. Will the gridlocked and combative politics of 2017 lead to another convention and could it hasten a push at the state level for a federal constitutional convention?
Mayors, mayors, mayors
Odd-numbered election years are also when many local offices are decided. Among the highest profile this year is the campaign for mayor of New York, where incumbent Bill de Blasio is seeking re-election.
Among the other big cities with mayoral races on the ballot are Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Pittsburgh and Seattle.
With Democratic voters concentrated in urban areas, city governments have become increasingly drawn into the country’s culture wars over the past few years.
When the city of Charlotte approved an LGBT nondiscrimination ordinance in 2016, it sparked of a statewide, and then, national debate about transgender rights and the limits of local control. More recently, many big cities have sought to protect residents who are in the country illegally from Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Further down the ballot, a major issue in smaller communities and lower-profile contests is even finding candidates who are willing to stand for office in what are often volunteer positions.
President Trump talks to military personnel at Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, while South Korean President Moon Jae-In looks on. (AFP/Getty Images)
SEOUL — President Trump asserted Tuesday that his administration is making « a lot of progress » on North Korea, and he urged dictator Kim Jong Un to « make a deal » at the negotiating table on the rogue nation’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
« I believe it makes sense for North Korea to do the right thing, not only for North Korea but for humanity all over the world, » Trump said during a joint news conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in after a bilateral meeting at the Blue House. « I do see certain movement, yes, but we’ll see what happens. » He offered no proof or details.
Trump’s remarks came as he prepared to deliver an address to the South Korean National Assembly on Wednesday in which advisers said he intends to call on countries to rally against the growing threat from Pyongyang. On Tuesday, he praised Chinese President Xi Jinping, whom he will meet in Beijing for a three-day summit starting Wednesday, for being « very helpful » and added that China is « trying very hard to solve the problem. » He offered hope that Russia will « likewise be helpful. » Trump has said he expects to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin at a regional summit later in the week in either Vietnam or the Philippines.
« This not the right time to be doing this, but that’s what I got, » Trump said, ruing that his predecessors at the White House failed to solve the issue. « This is a problem that should have been taken care of a long time ago. »
The president avoided the type of heated rhetoric he has employed in the past while talking about the North, but he emphasized that the United States is « showing great strength. »
The North « knows we have unparalleled strength, » Trump said. « There’s never been strength like this. » He cited three aircraft carriers and a nuclear submarine in the region.
Trump appeared to touch on the themes of his speech when he urged « people all across the globe to come together to confront North Korea and to prevent North Korea’s dictator from threatening millions of lives. He’s threatening millions and millions of lives so needlessly. »
Before the news conference, the president toured Camp Humphreys, the third military base he has visited since leaving Washington on a 12-day trip to the Asia Pacific that began last Friday.
The president landed at the $11 billion base, 40 miles south of Seoul, on Marine One and, after saluting several commanding officers on the tarmac, took his motorcade to the mess hall to have lunch with troops. He sat down on a bench at a long table in between soldiers dressed in green military fatigues. Trump was accompanied by Moon, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Chief of Staff John Kelly and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.
Wearing a navy-blue suit and bright solid blue tie, Trump smiled and waved at reporters. As he ate, a military color guard prepared to welcome him at the Blue House, Moon’s executive office and residence in Seoul.
« Ultimately, it will all work out. It always works out. It has to work out, » Trump said at the start of a briefing with military commanders at the base.
The tour of Camp Humphreys, on the heels of Trump’s visits to Yokota Air Base outside Tokyo and Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, comes ahead of Trump’s address to the South Korean National Assembly on Wednesday. Aides said the speech will be a chance for Trump to rally international support for his campaign to increase economic and diplomatic pressure on Pyongyang.
« The United States remains committed to the complete, verifiable, and permanent denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, » McMaster said last week. « President Trump will reiterate the plain fact that North Korea threatens not just our allies, South Korea and Japan, and the United States — North Korea is a threat to the entire world. So all nations of the world must do more to counter that threat. »
But South Koreans are on edge for Trump’s visit, and police have worked to keep protesters at bay. Trump has low public approval numbers here amid concerns that the president’s heated rhetoric toward dictator Kim Jong Un’s regime could lead to a military confrontation. The president has emphasized that military options remain on the table, though he declined to be specific.
Foreign policy analysts said the stakes are high for Trump to deliver a speech that clearly spells out his administration’s North Korea policy. The administration has made progress in ramping up pressure on the North, but analysts said many in Seoul, as well as Tokyo and Beijing, remain confused because Trump and his senior aides have offered mixed messages.
« People want clarification, » said a former State Department official who worked on Asian affairs during the Obama administration. He spoke on condition of anonymity because his current job outside government did not allow him to speak on the record. « There’s a lot of nervousness in South Korea. »
Camp Humphreys is located in Pyeongtaek, a sleepy rural city that was chosen because it is outside the range of much of the North’s heavy artillery trained on Seoul, where the previous base was located. Recent U.S. presidents have visited the heavily guarded Korean demilitarized zone, but Trump aides said Moon invited the president to tour Camp Humphreys instead. The move was made in part over concerns that a DMZ visit would ratchet up tensions with the North at a time when the Moon government is preparing to host the Winter Olympics early next year.
A senior administration official said Trump will use his speech to highlight the North Korean regime’s long history of human rights abuses — on its own people and abroad. Trump lashed out at Kim after the North released Otto Warmbier, an American college student who had been detained for 17 months, comatose. Warmbier died shortly after arriving home in Ohio.
In the speech, there will be « some focus on the often-overlooked question of the human rights conditions of North Korea, » said the administration official, who was not authorized to speak on the record in a briefing for reporters in Tokyo on Sunday. « I heard one journalist recently described it as the most totalitarian state in the history of humankind. I don’t think that’s an overstatement. »
The official added that « whether it’s bombing airliners or terrorist attacks abroad, or the hundreds of attacks that have taken place over the decades against U.S. and South Korean personnel, or the abductions of Japanese citizens and, of course, South Koreans who have been abducted over the years as well — it would take a lifetime to be able to meet with all of the people who have been victimized by that regime and are still alive to talk about it. »
In Tokyo on Monday, Trump met with the families of Japanese citizens who were abducted by North Korean agents four decades ago to help the regime learn the Japanese language and culture. Five abductees were release more than a decade ago but at least a dozen remain in the North, according to the Japanese government.
In a news conference Monday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump dismissed suggestions that his rhetoric has created more risk for the United States and its allies. Trump vowed during a United Nations address in September that his administration is prepared to « totally destroy » the North if necessary, and he has dubbed Kim the « Little Rocket Man » in a series of tweets.
« Some people said that my rhetoric is very strong, but look what’s happened with very weak rhetoric over the last 25 years, » Trump said. « Look where we are right now. »
Yet as he has traveled to the region, Trump also has offered notes of encouragement for North Korea citizens, calling them « great people. »
« They’re under a very repressive regime, and I really think that, ultimately, I hope it all works out, » he said.
Law enforcement at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., on Monday. Credit
Todd Heisler/The New York Times
NEW BRAUNFELS, Tex. — He beat his wife, cracked his toddler stepson’s skull and was kicked out of the military. He drove away friends, drew attention from the police and abused his dog. Before Devin P. Kelley entered a rural Texas church with a military-style rifle, killing at least 26 people on Sunday, he led a deeply troubled life in which few in his path escaped unscathed.
In 2012, while stationed at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico, Mr. Kelley was charged with assault, according to Air Force records, which said he had repeatedly struck, kicked and choked his first wife beginning just months into their marriage, and hit his stepson’s head with what the Air Force described as “a force likely to produce death or grievous bodily harm.”
“He assaulted his stepson severely enough that he fractured his skull,” said Don Christensen, a retired colonel who was the chief prosecutor for the Air Force, adding, “He pled to intentionally doing it.”
Prosecutors withdrew several other charges as part of their plea agreement with Mr. Kelley, including allegations that he repeatedly pointed a loaded gun at his wife.
He was ultimately sentenced in November that year to 12 months’ confinement and reduction to the lowest possible rank. His final duty title was “prisoner.”
His first wife, Tessa Kelley, divorced him while he was confined and was awarded the couple’s only four household items of value: a television, an Xbox, a wedding ring and a revolver.
After his confinement, Mr. Kelley was forced out of the military with a bad conduct discharge. The Air Force said the conviction should have barred Mr. Kelley from owning any guns. Instead, law enforcement officials say, he bought several.
Friends from New Braunfels, Tex., where he went to high school, expressed shock in the aftermath of the shooting, remembering how Mr. Kelley was a friendly, if awkward, teenager who grew up active in his church. His senior yearbook photo shows him smiling, with untamed hair and a Hollister T-shirt. But in recent years, friends said, he grew so dark that many unfriended him on Facebook.
“I had always known there was something off about him. But he wasn’t always a ‘psychopath,’” a longtime friend, Courtney Kleiber, posted on Facebook on Sunday. “We had a lot of good times together. Over the years we all saw him change into something that he wasn’t. To be completely honest, I’m really not surprised this happened, and I don’t think anyone who knew him is very surprised either.”
Instead of straightening out after his bad conduct discharge, Mr. Kelley began a long downward slide that culminated in the shooting Sunday.
After getting out of confinement, Mr. Kelley moved into a barn at his parents’ house, which they had converted into an apartment, according to the local sheriff’s office records.
During the next two years, he was investigated twice for abusing women. The authorities in Comal County, which includes Mr. Kelley’s hometown New Braunfels, released records on Monday that showed he had been the subject of an investigation for sexual assault and rape in 2013.
The investigation ended without the filing of any charges — Mr. Kelley’s only skirmishes in the local courts were traffic violations.
Less than a year after the sexual assault report, deputies were summoned again after Mr. Kelley’s girlfriend at the time, Danielle Shields, reportedly sent a text message to a friend saying she was being abused. Deputies who responded told a dispatcher, according to the report, that it was a “misunderstanding and teenage drama.” Mr. Kelley married Ms. Shields two months later, local records show.
At the time of both episodes, Mr. Kelley’s appeals were still pending before military courts.
Mr. Kelley was finally discharged from the Air Force in 2014. He married Ms. Shields in April that year. Law enforcement officials described their relationship this week as “estranged.”
A few months after the wedding, the couple moved to Colorado Springs, where voter registration documents list his address as Parking Space 60 at a collection of trailers in a gravel lot called the Fountain Creek RV Park.
A woman living in a camper next door, who gave her name only as Susan, said a man of similar age and description lived in Spot 60 for a few months during that time.
Photo
Devin P. Kelley. Credit
via Texas Department of Public Safety
“He was kind of off,” she said as she loaded blankets into one of the RV park’s washing machines.
He said hello a few times in passing but was never friendly and stayed only a few months, she said. She never heard any arguments from his trailer.
“The only thing that sticks out about him was his dog,” she said.
He had a puppy that he kept tied up in the sun all day outside his RV without water, she said. She also recalled an episode in which the police were called because he had struck the dog repeatedly in the head.
Records show Mr. Kelley was charged with cruelty to animals, a misdemeanor, in August 2014, pleaded guilty and was given a deferred sentence. He moved out a few weeks later, she said.
While in Colorado and Texas, Mr. Kelley purchased a number of guns at gun stores, according to law enforcement officials. On Monday, the Air Force admitted that it had failed to enter information from Mr. Kelley’s domestic violence court-martial into a federal database that could have blocked him from buying the weapon used in the church attack.
Mr. Kelley, whose father, Michael Kelley, is a computer programmer and accountant, enlisted in the Air Force soon after graduating from New Braunfels High School in 2009. Devin Kelley served as a low-ranking airman in a logistics readiness unit. A LinkedIn account in his name says he worked in cargo and distribution before his court-martial.
The account says that after the military, Mr. Kelley briefly worked as an aide at a youth Bible school in Kingsville, Tex., “helping their minds grow and prosper.”
Friends said on Facebook that in recent years, Mr. Kelley had become vocally anti-Christian, to the point where many stopped communicating with him. His Facebook page, which has been deleted, listed that he liked a number of atheist groups.
“He was always talking about how people who believe in God were stupid and trying to preach his atheism,” one of his Facebook friends, Nina Rosa Nava, posted on the site, saying she unfriended him because of it.
Photo
A home in New Braunfels, Tex., which records show was owned by Mr. Kelley’s parents. Credit
Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman, via Associated Press
Law enforcement stopped short of saying religious views may have influenced Mr. Kelley, saying Monday that the shooting may have been motivated by a “domestic situation” involving Mr. Kelley’s estranged wife and her family.
Mr. Kelley never held jobs for long after the military. In June of this year, Mr. Kelley was hired as an unarmed night security guard at Schlitterbahn, a vast water park in New Braunfels. Less than six weeks later he was “terminated,” a spokeswoman for the park, Winter D. Prosapio, said Monday, adding, “He was not a good fit.”
By 2017, he had returned to a house in New Braunfels that records show was owned by his parents. The house was about an hour from the church where the shooting occurred. According to local law enforcement, Mr. Kelley’s second wife at times attended the church with members of her extended family.
The cover photo on Mr. Kelley’s Facebook page appears to show a Ruger 8515 rifle, equipped with additional aftermarket products, including a red-dot aiming sight for faster targeting and a two-stage trigger for greater accuracy.
Such rifles have been legal for civilians to own in most of the United States since the federal assault weapons ban expired in 2004, and have become popular among many firearms owners.
Mr. Kelley seemed enamored with the weapon. He posted a photograph of it on Oct. 29 with the caption “She’s a bad bitch.”
Law enforcement officials guarded the cactus- and rock-dotted Kelley property in New Braunfels on Monday morning, when the top of the house was just barely visible atop the tree line. A wire fence ran along the roadway.
Signs on a cattle gate at the entrance read “No Trespassing” and “Beware of Dog.”
Some neighbors said they sometimes heard gunfire from the property. But in this stretch of the Texas hill country, that is hardly cause for alarm.
One neighbor, who would give his name only as Doug, said he heard shots fired at the Kelley property that would set his dogs barking.
“My dogs, they would be outside, and we would hear, ‘Bim-bam, bim-bam, bim-bam, bim-bam,’” he said.
Xbox One X – it’s out today, but are you getting one?
GameCentral talks to Microsoft’s Albert Penello about the new Xbox console, 4K technology, and the future of video game generations.
The Xbox One X, as Microsoft are very keen to point out, is the most powerful video game console ever made. It’s out today and is not only compatible with all existing Xbox One games but is able to enhance them with 4K resolution and other extra features.
In that respect it’s similar to Sony’s PS4 Pro, but that power does not come cheap and the Xbox One X’s £450 price tag is enough to make anyone think twice.
We’ve already given our verdict on whether the Xbox One X lives up to its promises in our hardware review, but the question of whether it’s really worth it or not is not an easy one to answer.
Xbox marketing exec Albert Penello has some experience in trying to do exactly that though. And while usually there’s not much point talking to a marketing guy we had a very interesting chat with him about the Xbox One X’s abilities, priorities, and future…
GC: Okay, I’m sure you’re well practiced with all your marketing style answers, but let’s give this a go.
AP: [laughs] I will give you my best marketing answers for all these questions.
GC: [laughs] Well, this first one I never got a straight answer on for the PS4 Pro. But put simply, what exactly is the Xbox One X for?
AP: I would say the Xbox One X is for people that want to play the best versions of the games that are available. That’s really, in my opinion, the simplest way to describe it. We saw 4K internally and it really energised us and excited us. The quality of the image, the wide colour gamut, the high dynamic range, it really energised us. We were excited about the tech.
We saw the industry reports and talked to TV manufacturers, and knew that that was the direction that displays were headed. We saw PC developers really embracing 4K rapidly, and creating the assets required. But, you know, 4K capable PCs are pretty expensive, and so we decided that we wanted Xbox players to be able to play the best versions of games; we want to be the device that shows off a 4K TV, which is why we have 4K Blu-ray and 4K streaming; and we want to put enough horsepower in the box to take all those amazing PC assets and bring it to your living room.
At the end of the day what that means is – and I’m knocking on wood that the reviews will bear this out – but we believe that the best versions of all the games that you can play are going be the Xbox One X versions. That’s probably the simplest answer I can give.
GC: Xbox One X is much more important to Microsoft than the PS4 Pro ever was to Sony. Not least, as you implied, because for the first time since the early 2000s you’ve got the most powerful console on the market. But historically that’s never made much difference. The PlayStation 4 is the first time the most powerful console has ever been the most successful. Is that just a statistical anomaly or has something changed recently?
AP: You have a lot of interesting questions and points of view embedded in that!
GC: Well, it is my job.
AP: [laughs] In fairness, I’ll start with the debate as to whether or not the 360 was more powerful than the PS3.
GC: Well, that was always the thrust of Sony’s marketing, as it is now with the Xbox One X.
AP: I’m only saying that because actually, I think if you look at how the game comparative reviews work we were considered to be the best platform…
The Xbox One S on the right is cheaper, but less powerful
GC: Oh sure. The Xbox 360 was usually the best multiplatform version. But that only seems to underline that having the most powerful machine doesn’t necessarily mean much.
AP: For both Xbox and Xbox 360 we had the best versions, so really it was only on the Xbox One that that wasn’t necessarily the case. But really, the thing that I wanna focus on is that Xbox One X is about driving differentiation. It wasn’t just… the fact that we were the most powerful console… we didn’t know about the PS4 Pro when we were building Project Scorpio [the codename for Xbox One X – GC]. We had no idea. So we had our own internal goal, about what we wanted to do.
And so for us, if we were going to do something, and Phil [Spencer] said this many times, it needed to be meaningfully different from the other consoles that we already had in the market. There had to be a meaningful differentiation for customers. And so we needed a milestone like 4K to really drive it, to be a goal… that real reason to have these performance levels. And so that’s really what it’s all about.
At the end of the day we want customers to buy Xboxes, we think Xbox One S is still gonna be the primary volume driver for us. And I think there’s lots of industries where the customers can upgrade if that performance matters to them. I think the iPhone 8 and the iPhone X is the perfect example of two significantly different things shipping at the same time.
Customers can figure this stuff out, I think. It’s only console gaming that hasn’t really done this before. So I like that we have great value with the Xbox One S at a great price, and for the gamer that really cares about performance, and is gonna got out and buy a 4K TV, we have the best product you can possibly buy. The best place to buy games. And to me that’s a great position to be in.
GC: What kind of impact do you hope the Xbox One X is going to have on Xbox sales in general? Sony talks about a figure of one in five for sales of the PS4 Pro versus the standard model. Are you thinking something similar?
AP: Well, what do you think? I’m curious as to your opinion.
GC: Well, as I said, the Xbox One X is much more important to Microsoft than the PS4 Pro is to Sony. I have certainly advised that if you can afford it, the Xbox One X is the model you should get. Especially if you have a 4K TV. So I would assume you’re hoping for a better ratio than Sony.
AP: Trying to predict it is always interesting, I think the feedback we’re hearing from fans, the feedback we’re hearing from folks in the industry, the level of developer support that we’ve got for games… I feel good about how the mix is shaping up.
I don’t wanna call the ball on this one, just because part of doing this is learning. And figuring out what the customer behaviour is like, I do think it’s gonna be a hot item this holiday. We’ve got a really aggressive replenishment plan to try and get more out. I will be very curious to see the overall mix, I would like to see us do better than one in five. But I dunno, I’m gonna be looking at these numbers super carefully.
GC: Will you actually provide numbers? It’s frustrating that you don’t for ordinary Xbox sales.
AP: Ah… that’s not a question for me. But that’s a good question. That’s not my call. [laughs]
GC: This isn’t necessarily an Xbox One X specific issue, but in terms of 4K I have found that it’s not necessarily something I can show a non-gamer and be sure they’ll understand. They’ll squint a bit and say something like, ‘I think I can see the difference’ but often that’s all. Surely that’s a problem when you’re trying to sell a £450 piece of electronics?
AP: It’s an interesting observation, and I’ll be perfectly honest with you. You’re one of the first people that have ever said to me, that they didn’t think that the upgrade between 1080p and 4K was significant. My experience in showing even a casual gamer – and everyone uses their own anecdotes, their own family – but my wife and my parents… I showed them Planet Earth II on my 4K set and they were blown away. And they’re far from videophiles.
I’ve had quite the opposite experience, particularly with HDR and wide colour gamut content.
GC: Sure, but that’s not 4K. HDR, I agree, can be very impressive and I’ve found it’s that people react to rather than 4K itself. But HDR support does not require an Xbox One X.
AP: I think it’s the overall experience, and that’s why things like Dolby Atmos and 4K Blu-ray are important so that you get the whole package. We shall follow up after launch, because we’re actually going to be introducing something called Insects, which is an interactive in-engine technology demo that our Advanced Technology Group did for developers and is now going to be released to the public.
And it basically is a real-time demo that you can manipulate to show 4K, 1080p, HDR, and everything. So I would really love to follow-up with you afterwards and get your perspective once you’ve run that and shown it to people. Because the response I’ve gotten to the demo from real casual people has been super positive.
GC: That will be interesting. I have to admit though that the thing I really care about is 60fps. I realise you can’t really make it mandatory, but I really wish it got the same marketing push as 4K. Because 4K doesn’t really change the gameplay, but 60fps absolutely does.
AP: This is an interesting discussion that has a lot to do with the artistry of games, what the platform holder can mandate, and the fact that I think that the reality… there are certainly 60 frames per second purists, people that think that that it should be absolutely mandatory.
Look, we could put even more powerful stuff in the box and there would be game developers who will still crank everything to 12 and run it at 30 frames per second. [laughs]
So there’s an interesting debate about, ‘Well how come you’re not 60 frames per second on every game?’ Well, because the game developers don’t want to do that. That’s just not how they want their titles to show off. If they did, they could. And people go, ‘Oh, well you don’t do enough with the hardware…’ But we did! It’s very capable of doing it, and even if we put more powerful stuff in developers would still find a way to break it and push beyond the capabilities.
That’s always the way that video games have always kind of worked. So it’s certainly nothing we could mandate, because it’s not our job, I think, to tell game developers what the best thing for their game is. So this is really a conversation between gamers and the game developers.
GC: We’re starting to get the first rumblings that maybe Sony, at least, is thinking of releasing a new console in Christmas 2019. I doubt you’re going to give me a life expectancy for the Xbox One X but can you say anything about whether the traditional generational model is still relevant today?
AP: It’s a good question. I find it interesting, just as a guy who’s been in the business for a long time. But the day you launch a new console it’s sort of like when you get a girlfriend and your parents ask when you’re gonna get married, and then you get married and they ask when you’re gonna have kids. They’re always stuck on the next thing. And it’s the same with consoles.
GC: [laughs] But it does seem a more important question here because if you’re spending £450 on a new console you want to know whether it’s going to be superseded by something else in just two or three years.
AP: What we can say is we’re obviously putting a huge focus on game compatibility. If you think about Xbox Play Anywhere, if you think about the 360 back compat., the fact that we went all the way back to original Xbox. The fact that we have 100% game compatibility between Xbox One S and Xbox One X, that’s our focus.
And I actually think in this day and age, when we’ve just got a new iPhone, consumers have shifted a little bit from, ‘How long does my device last?’ to ‘How long does my content last?’ ‘How long do my apps last?’ And that is the model I think we are definitely focused on. What’s going to happen with console cycles and console generation is gonna be up to consumers and the pace of technology, and there’s lots of factors in that.
But I do think we can say, that when you think about game compatibility and investing in Xbox and that content staying with you… that’s a critical part of our long-term strategy.
GC: But with an iPhone you have a good idea when the next one is coming out. You can look back at the historical pattern and gauge your purchase from that. It’s not your fault that this is the first time it’s been done with consoles, but you are asking people to take a risk.
AP: We’re going to support the Xbox One S and the Xbox One X for a long time. And the thing I can say definitively is we care a lot about the game compatibility and making sure that that investment you’re making with us lasts.
That’s a big part of our strategy, it’s a big part of our future. And I think it takes a lot of the risk out of the actual device you’re buying. It’s more about investing in Xbox content and that content’s gonna stay with you.
GC: Okay, that’s great. Those were good answers for a marketing guy. [laughs]
AP: [laughs] Thanks, it was great talking to you.
Email gamecentral@ukmetro.co.uk, leave a comment below, and follow us on Twitter
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here.
In The Feed
Facebook’s ability to put a short product video in front of hundreds or thousands of potential buyers has made it indispensable to CPG and ecommerce startups. For those advertisers, Facebook and Instagram “are the stuff of fantasy – grand bazaars on a scale never seen before,” writes Burt Helms at The New York Times. Contacts, toothbrushes, razors, water filters, shoes, mattresses, fitted clothes and more have “spawned a wild proliferation of specialty digital sellers that depend on the social network’s algorithm to find their early customers.” More. But managing complicated Facebook campaigns can be a bit overwhelming. One startup manufacturer decided to reduce Facebook advertising “for the sake of their business and their own sanity,” instead testing a 15-second TV spot. Returns were harder to prove without the data feedback, says one executive, but at least “[y]ou can push the button and get on with your life.”
Lean On Me
In its latest pitch for TV ad dollars, Twitter inked a deal with Time Inc. to stream content from its online video network, PeopleTV. Advertisers will be able to buy across Twitter and the network’s OTT channel, with Twitter taking a cut of the revenue. The partnership will include a “significant amount” of live celebrity news, The Wall Street Journal reports. “PeopleTV on Twitter will give us greater audience scale,” says Ian Orefice, head of programmatic at Time Inc. Twitter already has similar streaming content deals in place with Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, Vox Media, Live Nation and the WNBA. More.
Mar’ked Up
Marketing tech vendor budgets will grow by double digits next year as marketing departments take on more responsibility for driving business growth, according to a Forrester CMO report. Scott Hagedorn, CEO of the Omnicom media agency Hearts Science, “suggested that traditional, consumer-facing companies have yet to create a successful, large-scale innovation effort for mobile-first consumers,” notes Adweek. Forrester forecasts that reaching and understanding these “large, lucrative segments of shoppers” will drive a wave of brand budgets to mar tech companies in the next year. More at Adweek.
Power In Numbers
By 2019, Asia-Pacific advertising is expected to surpass North America in total dollars spent, according to analysts at eMarketer and Zenith. China will remain the second-largest national ad market behind the United States, but hundreds of millions of new smartphone owners across Thailand, Indonesia, India and Singapore are powering ridiculous growth for ecommerce and social media advertising. “Because the ad market in Asia-Pacific is growing, there is more incentive for large technology companies that rely on data-based advertising revenue to invest in products and services that will increase their margins in those regions,” writes Sara Fischer at Axios. More.
Throughout the past 10 years, personal and desktop computers, laptops have been slowly evaporating from the market. People often turn to mobile phones or tablets to reach or even to create the content they desire.
What’s making it more possible today is the price. It’s cheaper than ever to get a phone or a tablet with a tiny HD video camera embedded. Cloud-based, close to unlimited storage facilities, lightning fast Wi-Fi and 4G signals are considered a commodity rather than a luxury.
Virtually, there are no boundaries on where, how and when people interact with content. Video content is quickly emerging and the stats show that it is becoming one of the best marketing mediums out there. After all, it’s cheap, it’s accessible to everyone and if executed correctly it has the best ROI.
According to MWP, online videos are watched by 55% of people daily, WordStream says that 90% of Twitter videos are viewed through a mobile device and more than 10 million videos are watched on Snapchat daily. Peter Shroeder also claims that click-through rate of emails with videos increases by 200%-300%.
While all the numbers look enticing, video marketing is only successful if it provides real value to the consumers, when and how they want it.
Today’s fast-moving world accommodates only video content that fosters relevance, merit, and flexibility to the viewers, while they are trying to balance their on-the-go lifestyles.
How Facebook predicted the future
Video marketing is one of the best tools to execute a social media campaign, SEO exercise or to refresh website’s content and Facebook knows that. The promising future of video marketing is the reason why it spent $2 billion on acquiring Oracle’s VR. Even though the return of investment wasn’t even close to the money spent, Facebook showed a completely new side of content marketing and what it can achieve.
Facebook Spaces
3D video posts made on Facebook Spaces and shared on people’s walls are a completely new and extremely interactive way of marketing a product or a brand on social media. People are able to interact with the content by viewing it through a 360-degree perspective. The use of VR in Facebook video marketing gives a sense of participation to the viewer. A consumer can closely inspect the product without having to leave the comfort of home.
Credit: Nicole Lee/Engadget.
The descendant of 3D posts was Facebook’s Venues, allowing social media user base engage in real time concerts or sporting events. Adverts or social media campaigns created on Facebook Venues would interact with the audience in the most engaging way known to us to this day. By putting the VR set on and locating itself in the video, the viewer becomes an active part of the campaign. However, as strong content marketing channel as Facebook Venues is, it is limited to only those who own Oracle’s VR headset.
James McQuivey, a digital marketing expert, explains that in today’s world, one minute of video content is worth 1.8 million words. With Facebook being the single biggest social media platform, video content on it undeniably becomes one of the most effective digital marketing tools.
Facebook Watch
After doing some research, Facebook discovered that people like scrolling through their news feeds and discovering videos, but what they also noticed is that viewers want a dedicated place where more different types of videos can be found and the concept of Facebook Watch stands for exactly that.
Social media executives developed an in-app feature where people can enjoy discovering new videos every day.
Credit: Daniel Danker.
Marketing today is not about promoting brands and products by producing expensive advertising. It’s more about word of mouth, from one ear to another. People are more likely to buy a product or a service recommended by someone like them, someone who isn’t related to the brand and has already bought and tried the service. Facebook Watch is a platform created for that. Community members and influencers now have space to create and share their videos with minimum expense.
The changing horizons of corporate video
It’s great to have multiple platforms to show your video content on and it’s even greater to have the kind of content that everyone loves, shares and engages with. One other reason why video is the future of content marketing is the rebirth of corporate video.
Wide Wings, a Lithuanian advertising agency, are storytellers, changing the perception of a corporate video. Instead of focusing on a product or service, the agency focuses on what the company is about and the message it wants to tell the world. Their videos are focused around the viewer. The storyline is illuminating, explorative and it shows a perspective. Their mission is to make people richer in some sense.
A clear example of a completely newfangled take on their corporate video marketing is the Filippo Loreti advert of watches. The advert is not about watches. It’s about the lack of time there is, it’s about the value of it and it’s about Filippo Loreti saving your time. Wide Wings is taking corporate video to completely new direction.
Every day we see corporate companies, startups and emerging new businesses presenting the world with powerful video content that not only builds trust in the brand or product but also tells a story, educates and calls for action. Corporate video is much more customer-centric than it is focused around the brand, it more often answers the question why rather than what and it’s designed to solve a problem rather than talk about the benefits.
The rise of influencer marketing
As mentioned above, based on consumer trends, people are more likely to buy a product or service recommended by someone like them. Someone they trust to provide an objective opinion, pros and cons, and enlighten them on how the product or service will improve their everyday lives.
Credit: Adrian Sava/Unsplash.Influencers are a big part of marketing in 2017, and companies are more likely to invest in influence marketing than traditional channels.
What is said about the brand by others is much more influential than content created by the brand itself. Influencers are a big part of marketing in 2017, and companies are more likely to invest in influence marketing than traditional channels. With the right influencers chosen, a campaign can achieve bigger exposure and reach a wider audience. Engaging personalities and attention grabbing videos are what people actually spend time watching. In influence marketing, video content is much more powerful than written paragraphs of text.
Video consumption trends
The video is the future of content marketing mainly because of how people choose to receive information. Trends are now drawn from user behavior and marketing is focused on consumers rather than brands or products. There is more video content reaching audiences every 30 days than the major US TV networks have created in 30 years, YouTube owns a third of the internet users, and millennials (25-34) watch more online videos than any other age group. It’s known that 46% of viewers act after watching a video advert and a video advert is more influential than written content. No one can afford to misread or simply ignore such data, especially those in marketing.
To sum up
The growing need of adverts embedded in video content — whether it’d be a minute or 5 minutes long, live or recorded, based on a script or reality, animated, dedicated for IT professionals or those driven by fashion and anyone in between — has steeply increased, justifying the undeniable importance of honest marketplace for a medium that’s barely limitless. As human beings, people are more prone to interact with visual information than text on a page.
Video content is at its peak at the moment as it’s easy to create, it’s more engaging than any other medium and it is loved by any type of audience.
This post is part of our contributor series. The views expressed are the author’s own and not necessarily shared by TNW.
TOKYO — President Trump was reciting the sort of rote praise that leaders of allied nations heap on one another when he suddenly cut himself off during a joint news conference Monday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“The Japanese people are thriving, your cities are vibrant, and you’ve built one of the world’s most powerful economies,” Trump said, before looking up from his prepared remarks. Turning his head to face Abe next to him, Trump ad-libbed: “I don’t know if it’s as good as ours. I think not, okay?” He emphasized the “okay” by drawing it out leadingly as a parent might with a child.
“And we’re going to try to keep it that way,” Trump added, for good measure. “But you’ll be second.”
Abe, listening to an interpreter through an earpiece, smiled and remained silent. But his face betrayed a touch of uncertainty as the U.S. leader returned to his script. After the Japanese government had rolled out the red carpet for Trump and his family for two days, the patron was being patronized. It is becoming a familiar theme for Abe.
Their relationship can seem like an oddball mismatch of global leaders who are thrust together over their shared dislike of the nuclear-armed tyrant next door in North Korea, but who somehow hit it off amid golf course hijinks. Since Trump took office, Abe has been his most consistent suitor, courting him with luxurious gifts (a $3,800 gold-plated driver) and constant attention (numerous phone calls and a personal visit to the White House and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida).
UPresident Trump toasts after delivering a speech at the opening of a welcome dinner hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Nov. 6, 2017. REUTERS/Shizuo Kambayashi/Pool
But as Abe has lavished attention on Trump, their relationship has retained a subtext in which the U.S. president insists on asserting his dominance in a passive-aggressive manner. It started with Trump’s emasculating 19-second handshake with Abe in their Oval Office meeting in February, after which Abe appeared to grimace as though his fingers had been crushed.
Trump has let up on the power grip since then but in more subtle ways he has continued to show who is the alpha — a price Abe appears willing to pay in his strategic servitude to keep Trump supporting the post-war security alliance that the president had openly questioned in his election campaign.
As Abe praised their relationship as the best of any two leaders in the history of U.S.-Japan relations — something George W. Bush and Junichiro Koizumi, who visited Graceland together in 2006, might dispute — Trump had obvious difficulty playing along. The two had played nine holes the day before, and Abe jokingly said the match had been “neck-and-neck.”
“What was the reality? I hope Mr. Trump can give his evaluation,” Abe said through an interpreter. Trump just smirked and cast him a skeptical sidelong glance.
Before their round of golf on Sunday, when Trump and Abe signed white hats emblazoned with the slogan, “Donald Shinzo, Make Alliance Even Greater” in gold lettering, Trump wrote his name in the center of the brim, in large lines, which meant that Abe had to curve his signature off to the side.
The prime minister was the first foreign leader to visit Trump after his election victory, showing up at Trump Tower after calling the president-elect and offering to stop by on his way to a regional economic conference in Peru. At that meeting — attended by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, now a senior White House adviser — Abe presented Trump with the golf club and suggested they play a round together.
President Trump talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a state banquet at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Monday, Nov. 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, Pool)
He even went out of his way to inform the president-elect about the Japanese singer Pikotaro, whose goofy song “Pineapple Pen” was a global viral hit last year that caught the attention of Ivanka’s daughter, Arabella. Ivanka Trump visited Tokyo last week to speak at a conference on women in the workforce, prompting Abe to tell the president Monday that the Japanese have a “fever” for Ivanka — even though the conference hall was half-empty for her speech.
“Japan consistently supports the position of President Trump when he says that all options are on the table,” Abe said of the U.S. strategy on North Korea. “I once again strongly reaffirmed that Japan and the U.S. are 100 percent together.”
The charm offensive has worked — to a degree. Although he made good on his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal that included Japan, Trump has backed off some of his harshest rhetoric on trade, and this week he called Japan a “treasured partner” and a “crucial ally.” Abe was the first foreign leader Trump invited to Mar-a-Lago; the president personally drove him around on a golf cart, weaving around the course to show off the best views.
At the same time, Trump’s embrace has forced Abe into the role of a sidekick. Photos taken by Mar-a-Lago guests of Trump and Abe — in the middle of the restaurant, coordinating their response to a North Korean missile test moments after the news broke — made it seem as though the Japanese prime minister was being dragged into an uncomfortable new reality.
At the news conference Monday, a reporter asked Abe about his message to Trump regarding largely pacifist Japan’s role in its self-defense, amid reports that Trump was disappointed that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces did not shoot down a North Korean test missile. Before Abe could answer, Trump pulled rank and cut in.
“If I could just take a piece of the prime minister’s answer, he will shoot them out of the sky when he completes the purchase of lots of additional military equipment from the United States,” Trump declared.
Abe has found himself in an undeniably better position than South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has not bonded with Trump. There is great unease in Seoul as Trump prepares to arrive there on Tuesday. Yet some Japanese analysts have questioned whether Abe has tied himself too tightly to a mercurial president who tends to cycle through close aides, abruptly banishing those once thought to be in favor.
As one former Asia policy aide in the Obama administration put it last week, Abe could wake up one day and find himself “excommunicated by a tweet.”
On Monday evening, Trump and Abe, along with their wives, entered a gilded ballroom at the Akasaka Palace in the middle of Tokyo for a lavish state dinner. Abe had invited Pikotaro, the “Pineapple Pen” performer. Also in attendance was Japanese golf legend Isao Aoki, 75, whom Trump praised as one of the greatest golfers he has ever watched.
But as he turned his attention to Abe, Trump could not help but turn the toast into a roast.
He regaled the audience of high-level diplomats and senior advisers with a story about how Abe was so desperate to visit him at Trump Tower after the election that the Japanese leader would not take no for an answer — though Trump’s aides worried that such a visit would be “inappropriate,” given that Barack Obama was still president.
Finally, Trump said, he called Abe to tell him no, but the prime minister was already flying to see him.
“I said, ‘You know what? There’s no way he’s going to land and I’m not seeing him,’” Trump said. “So I saw him, and it worked out just fine.”
Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up 
