Archives par mot-clé : video

The Latest: Climate protesters in Chicago target Trump Tower

Video Marketing,

CHICAGO — The Latest on climate marches around the U.S. Saturday (all times local):

4:10 p.m.

Thousands of people have marched through downtown Chicago and outside Trump Tower to demand action to prevent climate change and protect the environment.

Saturday’s rain-soaked march coincided with hundreds of similar events across the U.S. as President Donald Trump marks his 100th day in office.

Among those attending the Chicago rally were members of the union representing Environmental Protection Agency employees. Trump has proposed cutting the EPA’s budget by almost one-third, eliminating more than 3,000 jobs.

John O’Grady is president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 238. He says the march is “a chance to speak out in unity against this administration” and its “ridiculous gutting of the EPA budget and staffing.”

Others spoke out about local environmental concerns, crumbling water systems and Illinois’ state budget impasse

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4 p.m.

Thousands of people have assembled in Texas on President Donald Trump’s hundredth day in office to demand federal action on climate change.

The Texas Department of Public Safety told the Austin American-Statesman that about 3,500 people participated in a rally Saturday in Austin — part of nationwide marches calling for climate action.

People marched from the Capitol to the University of Texas. Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett was among the speakers who addressed the crowd.

Many held signs with slogans such as “Climate change is not fake science.”

Hundreds more gathered in Houston, where Mayor Sylvester Turner told participants that climate change is “very much real.”

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4:45 p.m.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders says climate marches taking place around the country are part of a fight for the future of the planet.

The former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination addressed an adoring crowd of about 3,000 people who turned out for a rally at the Vermont Statehouse in Montpelier.

Sanders went through a litany of climate woes, including rising temperatures and increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. He said the fossil fuel industry puts short-term profits ahead of the best interests of the planet.

But he also noted a series of accomplishments that include ever-dropping costs of renewable energy production and well-paying jobs in renewable power.

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2:30 p.m.

While climate marchers in Washington, D.C., contend with sweltering heat, their counterparts in Denver got a dose of spring snow.

Several hundred people marched near the Colorado Capitol and then posed in the shape of a giant thermometer for a photograph Saturday as wet snow fell. A few snowmen held signs in Civic Center Park across from Denver’s City Hall during a rally after the march. About a dozen people rode stationary bikes to power the loudspeakers.

Some booed when a speaker noted that it was President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, but the overall mood was relaxed.

The marches were among more than 300 taking place around the country to call for action to combat climate change.

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4 p.m.

Speakers at climate rallies in New England are focusing on the danger climate change poses to coastal communities and on how marginalized groups have fewer financial resources to help them deal with the effects.

At a demonstration that drew thousands of people to Boston Common, the Rev. Mariama White-Hammond of Bethel AME Church told the crowd, “We are here because there is no Planet B.”

More than 2,000 people came to the Maine State House in Augusta during the day’s rally. Speakers included a lobsterman, a solar company owner and members of the Penobscot Nation tribe. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was expected to speak at a march in Montpelier.

The marches were among more than 300 taking place around the country. The events coincided with President Donald Trump’s 100th day in office and take aim at his rollback of environmental protections.

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1:30 p.m.

Thousands of people across the U.S. are marking President Donald Trump’s hundredth day in office by marching in protest of his environmental policies.

In Washington, D.C., large crowds on Saturday were making their way down Pennsylvania Avenue, where they planned to encircle the White House. Organizers say about 300 other protest marches are expected around the country.

Participants in the Peoples Climate March say they’re objecting to Trump’s rollback of restrictions on mining, oil drilling and greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants, among other things.

In Augusta, Maine, protesters outside the statehouse said they wanted to draw attention to the damage climate change can cause marginalized communities. A demonstration stretched for several blocks in downtown Tampa, Florida, where marchers said they were concerned about the threat rising seas pose to the city.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Premier League clubs to put a price on social media videos for sponsors

Video Marketing,

The modern-day newsfeed is as stuffed with posts from wannabe stars and celebrity spats as it is with videos from training grounds and changing rooms. Yet many of those creating this content aren’t sure of its commercial worth as it becomes increasingly hard to ignore how much more exposure football teams can get on social media compared to TV.

But because it’s tricky to track the value a brand gets on social, it’s arguably been massively undervalued. No commercial chief can point to half a million Facebook views and say ‘that’s just helped secure my new partnership deal’ when measurement is so blunt. On the other hand, many would ask ‘what’s the cost of not doing it?’

Hundreds of millions in the case of Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo, whose social media accounts generated an eye-bulging $500m in value for Nike last year according to sponsorship analytics company Hookit.

While Ronaldo isn’t a club, he is a media owner like the Real Madrid team he plays for and, just like his employers, the Portuguese forward knows that content and platforms he owns are in high demand. The world’s most prolific athlete on social media had one post last year that was worth $5.8m after it racked up 1.7m ‘likes’ and nearly 13,000 comments due its timing with Portugal’s Euro 2016 victory.

Ronaldo’s post was worth $5.8m after racking up 1.7m ‘likes’

Valuations like these are frequent as they are rooted in the old media equivalency rules of sponsorship. Hookit’s methodology uses average number of impressions per interaction to come up with a monetary value when really sponsors want a clearer way to compare social media posts with TV inventory. What the likes of Hookit do prove, however, is just how much teams could be missing in the media valuations they currently conduct – especially as brands demand sharper measurement from all parts of the marketing mix.

“Some clubs are not doing it [measuring social video] right and those who aren’t need to change the way they are approaching brands,” says Jean-Pierre Diernaz, vice-president of marketing at Nissan Europe. The car maker, which sponsors Manchester City and the Uefa Champions League among others, sees a potential in a fast spinning sports industry and yet is perturbed by what it deems is an unwillingness to fix what has become a largely inefficient market.

The social video sports revolution

Pound-busting TV deals pushed the 20 top-flight English teams to post record revenues of £3.6bn between 2015 and 2016 and yet they still struggled to make a profit. Collectively, Premier League clubs made a pre-tax loss of £110m, according to Deloitte, stressing the need for additional revenue streams at a time when many commercial bosses are yet to properly monetise their online fanbases.

“Every club has a certain number of fans but what is important is those who are actively engaging with the club, » continues Diernaz. ”The clubs need to be actively showing on the platforms that here is the value. If you look at the top 20 YouTubers in the world they are getting a lot of business with what they are doing so why would you not be operating the same as a football club. It’s clearly a strategy that would accelerate this for clubs.”

Several Premier League clubs are wise to the opportunity, resolving to give brands what they want in the hope of extracting more money from sponsorships. When City Football Group’s (CFG) commercial boss Tom Glick says he can see a time when social video could help his team renegotiate deals, he’s actually talking about a point when he and his team understand the market value of every post and the revenues they generate.

Numbers like that could come in handy if City were to try to convince Nike to top the £60m a season, 15-year deal with Chelsea when it comes to renegotiations. A club like Manchester City could potentially command tens of millions in media value on TV coverage alone. Add social into a mix and that could significantly inflate the media value of said sponsorship deal. Placements that were once thought useless on TV such as those at the club’s training ground could be worth more to a sponsor looking to reach the growing number of younger fans who aren’t only concerned with what their club does on match days.

Training ground placements could prove valuable to City, with fans concerned with the club beyond match day

“Often what’s holding social video back is it is generally wrapped into a larger sponsorship deal which can undervalue what that media represents because its not pulled out or compared with other formats – like display advertising – that might be getting sold… to me social video is more valuable than a display ad on a club’s website and yet in many cases these things are not necessarily being valued in the same way,” suggests Gareth Capon, the chief executive at social video production business Grabyo.

“If you’re a training ground sponsor then you don’t get much TV presence on game day, it’s more the main kit and headline sponsors,” he continues. “But now with social video you suddenly have all these assets where fans who want to know what’s happening with their club each day get to see your brand and those posts are shared all around the world. That’s a real change and the value for that media is not well understood… but once it starts to get compared with traditional TV advertising or and other forms of advertising, or at least it’s valued as a component of an overall sponsors package, then I think its value will rocket.”

Being able to quantify the value of social media

Southampton, like City, have made strides in recent years to move away from being so reliant on broadcast, focusing on depth of engagement rather than mass exposure. WPP-owned sports marketing agency Two Circles is helping it make the transition, which is very much a work in progress. “It’s about how best to value the video so we’re not only doing it in a traditional sense,” says James Kennedy, Southampton FC’s head of marketing. “We’re going down much more of an impression-based route as oppose to a sales route.”

This means partnerships aren’t typically signed off with an agreed number of tweets and database blasts to feign brand activation. Rather, Southampton are focused less on selling price and impressions and much more on delivering engagement and value.

“The ‘impression-based route’ is about understanding a brand’s target audience and helping them reach this group (in a targeted, cost efficient way) across the club’s entire digital network – web, email and social,” adds Kennedy. “So while achieving mass brand exposure and positive affinity is one objective, Saints can help brands develop campaigns to achieve specific objectives because they can segment their entire digital fanbase.”

Methods like this are heavily reliant on equivalent media value measurement. In the case of Southampton, the club argues that it doesn’t apply an “equivalent” media value in the traditional sense. However, because they – along with Two Circles – eschew inflated media values, they have a more consistent benchmark for a marketer to compare the impact of a campaign with buying the media space elsewhere.

Southampton FC’s marketers have become smarter as to how they use their owned media to generate commercial value

Simply put, what Southampton et al are using involves reach and frequency measures of signage to determine the value of sponsors exposure. These are calculated in differing ways and to varying degrees of sophistication but every measure – or impression – is ascribed an equivalent media value that a marketer can compare with paid for advertising. Hence, the underlying assumption for any brand tracking social video this way is it keeps their sponsorship rooted in the value of logo exposure as well as brand equity.

“The way content is valued is media equivalency so if Chevrolet wanted to buy ad space from TV for millions of people then how much would that cost versus being on the front of the Manchester United jersey… it’s exactly the same premise for how we [Nielsen Sports] value digital and social content, » says Max Barnett, global head of digital at Nielsen Sports. The measurement firm is readying a product it claims brings social media and traditional media valuation together for the first time, meaning for every minute of brand exposure data collected, an average of 5,000 data points are input to algorithms to calculate qualitative and valuation based outputs. While similar tools exist, Barnett hopes Nielsen’s own alternative becomes a unified measurement of sponsorship across all media channels.

“We’re seeing more ​clients’ commercial teams target 15% to 20% ​share of ​media value through digital and social” he continues. “If you have declining TV audiences then that’s a really important gap ​to fill. The audiences are more than likely not leaving, but consuming the content in a different way. Likewise, you could see brands selecting properties with a more significant social footprint to align to their wider marketing channel objective. Could we also see brands go after digital and social assets in the not too distant future? That depends on how rights holders want to package and promote.”

Is it time for football clubs to think like media owners

Some Premier League bosses hope to do this using social metrics such as earned impressions, shares and followers. The Drum understands a number of commercial bosses have at least considered the possibility of adopting a cost per engagement as a new standard in ROI measurement. While these talks are yet to materialise into anything beyond speculation, that they are even happening is vindication enough of social video’s potential value.

Putting a price on social video has been a thorny subject for some time and it was a challenge we have been seeking to shine more light on with our research report series,” says Michael Litman, founder and chief executive at Burst Insights. For example, the social analytics firm found that of the top 20 best performing videos across each social video platform from last season only Manchester United and Chelsea saw exposure value within the set reach over 31m. Arsenal ranked third, Liverpool FC fourth, Manchester City were in fifth place and Tottenham Hotspur rounded out the top six.

“This shows that for example Arsenal are overachieving on social video performance versus actual player performance on the pitch,” adds Litman. “Spurs fans on the flip-side I think will prefer to be nearer the top of the table in real life. I think we will see in time real world performance, correlating more closely with digital performance as the clubs become more akin to global media broadcasters in their own rights.”

Sports sponsorship has become a new game stuck with old rules. No longer is it enough for rights holders to give sponsors the most media for their money. Instead, sponsors want to know how the rights they’re buying add value to their brands, a shift that’s forcing the likes of Manchester City and Southampton FC to behave more like media owners.

The global success of the top six [Premier League] clubs generates a constant demand for sponsorship assets,” says Tom McDonnell, chief executive at digital fan interaction specialists Monterosa. “Brands are looking for end-to-end solutions that entertain and engage. It’s not enough to count a ‘view’, which could be fleeting, but to also consider interaction and active conversation. If a club provides better assets via social video with proven engagement and interaction, it differentiates the club’s offering and that hits the bottom line. »

HTC teases its rumoured squeezable phone in new video ad

Video Marketing,

HTC is set to unveil its new flagship phone in around two weeks’ time, with a unique take on how to interact with the device at its centre – a frame you squeeze.

The Taiwanese firm has already made references to the “squeezable” phone in its marketing around the launch, and now a new video ad has hammered home that message.

While as an idea it sounds slightly outlandish, the concept of an interactive and squeezable frame on a smartphone isn’t completely new – a Japanese mobile carrier created a concept in a similar mould several years ago where touch sensors on the edge of the device could be used to open apps and perform searches.

HTC’s next flagship may well offer similar levels of interaction judging by the teasers we’ve seen so far, and leaked footage from the beginning of the year that appeared to show an unnamed HTC device being squeezed as a way of opening an app launcher menu.

What else the phone giant has planned for the device remains unknown, but we don’t have to wait too much longer to find out – HTC will unveil the device at a live show on May 16 – in the meantime, expect to see plenty more references to just how “squeezable” the phone will be.

5 Things You Need to Know About Video Marketing

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You have probably heard it everywhere: video marketing is the future — and the present. Hubspot claims that “video content in no longer an option, it’s a necessary component of any successful marketing strategy.”

Here’s the lowdown on video marketing:

So even if you’re not a big believer of video as the future, the statistics might convince you to dip your toe in the pool of marketing possibilities. Here are five things you need to know before you start producing videos.

1. Tell a story (not a sales pitch)

According to Digital Marketing Institute, the same rules that apply for your written marketing content apply for your video content: concentrate on the value you’re providing for your customers.  Do not annoy them by actively promoting your product or service, instead center your video around a story. Take the time to research your customers wants, needs and desires and appeal to them through visual narrative. After all, storytelling is the new sales pitch.

American Greetings did exactly that with their extremely successful video “World’s Toughest Job. » The company puts their product in the background, focusing on human emotion instead (with a surprise twist). American Greetings builds a story around their product, allowing people to feel connected with the brand.

2. Create how-to videos

If you are launching a new product or service this year, create a video to demonstrate how it works. Video has the power to explain everything. In fact, viewers retain 95 percent of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10 percent when reading it in text. In addition, 30 percent of people’s YouTube searches are for how-to queries. Remember, YouTube is the second largest search engine, after Google (who owns YouTube). And to top it all off,  73 percent of consumers are more likely to make a purchase after watching how-to videos explaining a product or service.

BuzzFeed’s Tasty is the master of how-to videos, often producing viral content. “How to Cook Perfect Pasta” is a good example of a how-to video that explains a mundane subject matter step-by-step in a capturing way. Tasty uses hyperlapse to speed up the demonstration, so that viewers receive the information as quick as possible. People’s attention spans are getting shorter, therefore videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement. Keep it short and sweet!

3. Deliver in the first 10 seconds

10 seconds — that’s how long you have to grab the viewer’s attention, before they move on to the next best thing online. Research shows that you’ll lose 1/3 of your viewers by 30 seconds, and 60 percent of them by two minutes. So, you have a very short window to get the point across and convince viewers that your video is worth watching. Similar to blog posts or presentations, start your video with a hook to grab their attention. Then, immediately convey why viewers should keep watching. A great example is “SIRIS Pancakes, » a video that immediately piques the viewer’s interest.

4. Don’t be discouraged

You probably come across hundreds of videos a day, some of them extremely well scripted and expensively produced. Even though we would all love to make ultra-professional videos, many small to medium sized businesses do not have the budget or manpower for this. But don’t be discouraged! You don’t need expensive video equipment to make good videos. Video quality is actually not the most important thing when it comes to video marketing. Thirty-seven percent of viewers are put off by a video that doesn’t explain the product or service clearly enough (versus 25 percent of people discouraged by a video’s low quality). Content is the most important qualifier in successful video marketing.

So, don’t get bogged down by the fact that you don’t have a professional video studio. Smartphones are capable of taking amazing videos now. If you’re budget is limited, you can start small by purchasing semi-professional lighting and backgrounds on Amazon — that’s how we did it at Bizness Apps. You can also turn to animated videos, which have proven to be very effective. For instance, “Dumb Ways to Die, » a simple animation video, has gathered over 68 million views in its mission to educate people about rail safety. Now that’s a bang for your buck!

5. Don’t be boring

A boring video can do more harm than good. Make your viewers laugh, teach them something new or transport them into another world. The most popular form of online video content is comedy, as you might have guessed, closely followed by news and music. 

Chatbooks took all of this to heart in their “Stop Wasting Hours Making Photo Books” video. As you may notice, this video tops at 3:50min, which goes against the engagement statistics. But with its perfect combination of wit, charm, product description and honesty, people didn’t mind its lengthier format. With 10 million views, this video proves that it pays off to be original.

Even if you are in a “boring” business, videos can still be a great way to attract and close customers. The most dull subjects can become highly engaging with video. We all know “Jake from State Farm”, putting a boring insurance company in an entertaining light.

Video is here to stay! If you want to beat the competition and stand out in the crowd, video marketing might be your holy grail. 

More from Bizness Apps

North Korea defies Trump

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Hours after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called for tough new action towards North Korea on Friday, the nuclear-armed dictatorship thumbed its nose at the Trump administration with the latest in a series of missile tests that Trump officials say could provoke a military conflict.

The test’s timing implied an act of calculated defiance by North Korea’s 33-year-old leader Kim Jong Un. It came a day before President Donald Trump’s 100-day mark and less than 24 hours after Trump warned of the potential for a “major, major conflict” over Kim’s expanding nuclear capability.

Story Continued Below

The message seemed to be that two weeks of saber-rattling — which included military deployments and a visit by Vice President Mike Pence to the North Korean border “so they can see our resolve in my face” — had failed to intimidate Kim.

The test, which was North Korea’s ninth since Trump took office, also underscores for Trump officials how hard it will be to halt and then reverse North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs before they can threaten the U.S. mainland. Despite the talk of potential U.S. military action against Pyongyang in recent days, Tillerson finished the week with an emphasis on diplomatic and economic efforts similar in kind to ones pursued by the Obama administration.

Presiding over a special session of the United Nations Security Council on Friday, Tillerson called for “a new approach” to the nuclear-armed dictatorship.

“In light of the growing threat, the time has come for all of us to put new pressure on North Korea to abandon its dangerous path,” Tillerson said.

But in broad strokes, much of what Tillerson said was familiar.

U.S. officials have long advanced a policy similar to Tillerson’s call for “increased diplomatic and economic pressure on the North Korean regime” paired with the promise of negotiations. Last February, then-U.N. Ambassador Samantha Power told the same body that forthcoming U.N. sanctions backed by Washington “would constitute a major increase in pressure” on Pyongyang.

Tillerson also asserted a “willingness to counteract North Korean aggression with military action if necessary,” while adding that “we much prefer a negotiated solution to this problem.”

That echoed remarks from his predecessor, John Kerry, who said in October that sanctions and diplomacy “are entirely preferable, obviously, to the military choice, which … is a last resort and only as a matter of defensive measure to protect our nations.”

Former Obama officials say the main difference in Trump’s approach so far is largely a matter of stagecraft. Trump summoned the entire U.S. Senate to the White House on Thursday, for example, for a briefing on North Korea that many senators called uninformative but which commanded media attention.

Underlying the theatrics, though, Trump’s strategy is mainly based on pressuring China to further constrict North Korea’s economy, something Obama also did — albeit cautiously, for fear of poisoning the U.S.-China relationship. (Beijing fears a sudden collapse of Kim’s neighboring regime and prefers negotiations to extreme pressure.)

« It appears from their more formal moves that the official strategy on [North Korea] is not all that different from the one pursued late in the Obama administration,” said Laura Rosenberger, a former Obama White House and State Department official who has worked closely on North Korea policy.

A Trump official said Thursday that the biggest shift is a change in priority for the issue: “Is it different from the Obama administration’s policy? I think it is in the sense that it’s the number one security challenge that we’re facing right now, according to the administration and the president,” said Susan Thornton, acting assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, at a Thursday Foundation for Defense of Democracies event.

But even a shift in rhetoric is a meaningful change, say Trump’s defenders.

“The effectiveness of some of the hard instruments of American power depend on its credibility — and that’s where the theatrics of the Trump administration in can be very useful in sending a message to Pyongyang,” said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told POLITICO after interviewing Thornton.

“So much of this is about psychology, not just diplomacy and sanctions and the use of other instruments of American power,” he added.

Skeptics say the rhetoric and actions of Trump officials has been too scattershot to intimidate Kim and may create an impression of strategic confusion in Washington.

“Their apparently uncoordinated blustery rhetoric, not attached to specific actions, raises questions about their ability to executed a coordinated strategy,” Rosenberg said.

It’s hardly a surprise that North Korea has moved up on President Donald Trump’s agenda. Outgoing President Barack Obama warned Trump in November that the country’s growing nuclear program should be his top national security priority.

Obama White House officials also handed off detailed options for Trump to address the North Korean crisis, though they are unsure whether top Trump aides—including Matt Pottinger and Alison Hooker, the national security council’s top aides for Asia and Korea respectively—have relied on them.

Despite Trump’s saber rattling — including his recent declaration that he had sent a naval “armada” towards North Korea (a statement that proved misleading) — the risks of even a precision strike on Pyongyang render it unlikely for now.

“People who are writing headlines about war have it wrong,” said Patrick Cronin, an Asia security expert at the Center for a New American Security. “Kim Jong Un would see any attack on him as a regime-change strategy, and he would respond to an unacceptable degree.”

North Korea has the world’s fourth-largest military and is capable of devastating the South Korean capital of Seoul with a cross-border artillery bombardment. Even an all-out surprise U.S. attack on the North might not be able to prevent a catastrophic counterattack — including, possibly, a nuclear one — that could kill tens of thousands of South Koreans, and many of the 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in the country.

« If you are going to do a pre-emptive strike, you’d better get it all,” said a former senior Obama Pentagon official.

Despite occasional reports of planning for a so-called “decapitation,” any strike that could take out Kim and his inner circle would have dangerously unpredictable consequences. Kim’s survival would guarantee all-out war, and his death would touch off a wild scramble for power.

“You could easily end up with a civil war on the inside,” Graham Allison, a professor at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, said in a Thursday talk at at the Center for the National Interest. “We’ll take our side and the Chinese will take their side, and that’s a scenario where the two could start fighting.”

Allison added that a military official in the region had told him Kim’s overthrow or demise would touch off a “vertical track meet” between U.S. and Chinese forces racing to secure the country’s nuclear weapons.

Obama officials studied the military option thoroughly, but concluded it to be impractical short of a dire situation like an imminent North Korean attack. These officials believe that Trump’s team has inevitably reached the same conclusion.

« This is getting hyped up to look like the prelude to the Iraq war,” said Jon Wolfsthal, a former national security council director for non-proliferation in the Obama White House. “People are over-interpreting the language from the Trump administration. »

Some former Obama officials were struck by Tillerson’s acknowledging in Thursday NPR interview that he would consider direct talks with Kim’s government.

Tillerson was responding to a question and it was not clear whether he was reflecting considered policy.

Even if it did represent policy, it would not be unprecedented: An Obama administration special enjoy, Stephen Bosworth, held three rounds of talks with North Korean officials in Obama’s first term.

Trump really needs an economic boom. So far, he’s not getting one.

Video Marketing,

President Trump came into office promising to make the economy grow at rates the United States hasn’t seen for decades. On Friday, as the government reported that the U.S. economy expanded in the first quarter at its slowest pace in three years, he got a glimpse of just how far he has to go.

In the first official growth estimates of Trump’s presidency, federal economists reported gross domestic product, a broad measure of economic growth, grew at an annualized rate of just 0.7 percent in the year’s first quarter, down from 2.1 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2016.

[U.S. economy grew at sluggish 0.7 percent in first quarter of 2017]

The report underscored the challenge the White House faces in reaching its target of 3 percent growth, an expansion Trump not only promised on the campaign but is counting on to fuel his broader economic agenda. The administration is proposing steep tax cuts, and top Trump officials argue those policies will deliver enough economic growth to essentially pay for themselves, with new activity allowing the government to collect the same amount in taxes despite the reduced rates.

But if that growth fails to materialize, the tax cuts would lead to a massive and potentially destabilizing increase in the national debt as the federal government borrows to make up the gap between elevated spending and falling revenue.

“Tax cuts are a good idea — they help growth — but only if they’re paid for,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “The proposal the president put forward on Wednesday would blow a big hole in the budget, and that won’t help the economy.”

[Trump, in new tax plan, promises to do what Reagan couldn’t]

Friday’s report also noted that consumer spending grew at just 0.3 percent in the first quarter, the slowest pace since 2009.

Reduced spending at all levels of government weighed on GDP, as did a strong dollar that lowered exports and increased imports.

Asked for comment on the report, the White House pointed to a statement from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who said it demonstrated why the president’s agenda was needed “to overcome the dismal economy inherited by the Trump Administration.”

Yet Trump has not shied from taking credit for positive economic news early in his administration. Following the release of strong February job-growth numbers, Trump retweeted this from the conservative Drudge Report: “GREAT AGAIN: +235,000.”

Economists caution that it is probably too soon for Trump to have exerted much influence over the economy either way. He has not had a chance yet to put many policies in place, and if he does, they will take time to yield results.

The first-quarter report may have also painted an overly negative portrait of the economy. Because of measurement complications, first-quarter economic growth is often underestimated in government reports. Additionally, one-time events such as unseasonably warm weather in January and February dragged down the reported growth rate, since Americans ended up purchasing significantly less electricity and gas to heat their homes.

“I don’t think there’s real cause for alarm, because there were a lot of temporary factors that were hurting growth in the first quarter,” said Leslie Preston, a senior economist at TD Economics.

Many economists expect U.S. growth to rebound in the second quarter of 2017, and they believe it to be on solid footing in general, especially as it is bolstered by the improving economic situation abroad.

Still, in the long term, they expect GDP growth to hover around 2 percent. They argue that the economy Trump has promised — one in which GDP is expanding at a pace of 3 percent a year or more and 25 million new jobs are created in the next 10 years — is probably unattainable.

Long-term changes in the economy, including demographic trends such as the aging U.S. labor force, will also complicate Trump’s bid for rapid economic growth, the experts say. Although more Americans have gone back to work since the financial crisis nearly nine years ago, the percentage of the population that is working has declined in recent years as baby boomers retire, limiting how much the economy can produce. At the beginning of 2000, 67.3 percent of the adult population was working or looking for work. As of last month, that figure was 63 percent.

In defending Trump’s growth targets, many administration officials point to the economy’s performance under President Ronald Reagan. After an initial recession during the Reagan administration, GDP skyrocketed 7.3 percent in 1984 and continued at a rapid clip for the rest of his term.

Reagan, however, had advantages that Trump will not have. In the 1980s, women were swelling the ranks of the labor force and the economy was on the verge of a technological boom. Today, growth in productivity — an important measure of how much the American economy can produce — has stalled, for reasons economists do not well understand.

And while Trump hopes to boost growth through his proposed tax cuts and large-scale investments in infrastructure, the administration is considering other policies that economists say could weigh on growth. Trump plans to clamp down on immigration, which would further reduce the U.S. labor force. He has also entertained measures to protect U.S. industry from foreign competition that could start a trade war. This week, Trump threatened to pull the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

He later backed off, saying he would instead try first to renegotiate the pact.

The Trump economy could be further complicated by the Federal Reserve, which after nearly a decade of propping up the economy is now trying to make sure it doesn’t run too hot. At their meeting last month, Fed officials said that the economy was performing according to expectations and that they plan additional interest-rate hikes if the current trend continues. Investors are expecting another increase in June.

The Trump administration is not alone in its enthusiastic expectations for the economy. Surveys show that consumer and business confidence have soared since the November election, creating one of the biggest divergences in recent memory between soft data — measurements of how people feel about the economy and their future — and the hard data that government statisticians release each month.

Hard data has painted a more mixed picture. In the first two months of the year, the number of jobs added to the U.S. economy surpassed expectations. But the number of new jobs created slumped in March, partly because of a snowstorm that prevented some Americans from working.

Diane Swonk, a Chicago-based economist, took a dim view of Trump’s proposal to create 25 million jobs in the next decade.

“That’s more than we generated in the 1990s, the longest expansion in the post-World War II period, which is significantly more robust than what we have now — mostly because we had a lot more people to employ,” she said. “Are you going to have 80-year-olds working at McDonald’s now? What are we talking about?”

“There’s been a resistance to deal within the constructs of mathematical reality,” she said.