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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

— Wolfenstein (@wolfenstein) October 5, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

— 88 Fingers (@YungShaxx) October 6, 2017

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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• by Karlene Lukovitz
   @KLmarketdaily,

  9 hours ago

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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