Business

Latinx was originally formed in the early aughts as a word for those of Latin American descent who do not identify as being of the male or female gender or who simply don’t want to be identified by gender. More than likely, there was little consideration for how it was supposed to be pronounced when it was created. Nevertheless, people have attempted to assign some pronunciations to it. The most common way to pronounce Latinx is the same way you would Spanish-derived Latina or Latino but pronouncing the “x” as the name of the English letter X. So you get something like \luh-TEE-neks\.

The world’s most valuable brands have seen their total brand value increase by 5.9% despite the economic, social and personal impacts of COVID-19, according to the 2020 BrandZTM Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking released by WPP and Kantar. The total brand value of the Top 100 global brands reached US$5 trillion, equivalent to the annual GDP of Japan. It has increased by 245% since 2006, when the total brand value first reached US$1 trillion.

It’s a bit of a business this blogging lark. You write a piece on Facebook and the various companies who have decided in one shape or form to pull funds from the platform, only for Mark Zuckerberg to change the rules thus rendering out-of-date most of what I’d written. If you see him, have a word with him for me, would you? Thanks.  By Brian Jacobs

IPG Mediabrands released its 10 Media Responsibility Principles (MRP) as part of a larger effort to balance brand safety and brand responsibility in advertising. While “Brand Safety” protects the brand, “Brand Responsibility” protects the communities that a brand serves, weighing the societal impact of the content, the publishers and services, and the platforms being funded by advertising. IPG Mediabrands’ MRPs are a call to action for companies to hold themselves to higher standards more broadly when it relates to brand safety and brand responsibility matters, not just in media.

United by their mutual skepticism about attempts to define “Total Market,” indeed wary of the concept itself, Pedro de Córdoba /  Eventus  and David Morse /  New American Dimensions began a regular correspondence via e-mail and text about a month ago. The following is a distillation. [We previously published this article on 4/25/2015 and is worth republishing]

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s death, most of us are trying to understand how to honor this critical moment in our country and evolve. The consequences are many and will continue to impact us as individuals, and as business leaders.  By Isaac Mizrahi –  Co-President of ALMA

The new report, The Power of Belonging: What It Is and Why It Matters in Today’s Workplace, measures employees’ sense of belonging and finds that White men score higher than female employees and employees of other races or ethnicities. Among those groups, Black women and Asian women score the lowest.

The Covid-19 crisis and its fallout — including recession, layoffs, and uneven economic pain — as well as recent protests over police brutality and demands for racial justice have presented many of us with challenges that we’ve not encountered before. The high-stakes and unfamiliar nature of these situations have left many people feeling fearful of missteps. No one can reduce mistakes to zero, but you can learn to harness your drive to prevent them and channel it into better decision making. Use these tips to become a more effective worrier.

Corporate America has played an important role in the progress of LGBTQ+ rights over the past two decades, with many companies making public gestures of support. Hundreds of major consumer brands have become regular sponsors of annual Pride events. A record 206 major corporations signed an amicus brief in the spring advocating for the Supreme Court’s June 2020 decision protecting LGBTQ+ individuals from workplace discrimination. Companies are also increasingly making business-critical decisions about recruitment practices, employee-resource groups, and marketing that embrace LGBTQ+ rights.

2020 has been one of the most challenging years for the advertising sector since the Great Recession of 2008. However, among all the paused and cancelled campaigns, digital video remains relatively stable, driven by Connected TV (CTV).  According to IAB’s U.S. 2020 Digital Video Advertising Spend Report: Putting COVID in Context, CTV is largely responsible for the sector’s resilience and was least impacted by COVID-19.

For our recent McKinsey Global Survey on the topic, we approximated inclusion by combin­ing survey respondents’ reported feelings of authenticity, belonging, and comfort participating in the workplace.  Our survey research finds that respondents of all backgrounds encounter barriers to feeling included—and that women, respondents who are ethnic and racial minorities, and those who identify as LGBTQ+ encounter additional challenges.

As the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic comes into sharper focus, the position of the nation’s small businesses appears, overall, to be particularly bleak. By mid-April, according to a report from the Facebook & Small Business Roundtable, about a third had temporarily stopped operating, and by mid-May more than half had laid off or furloughed employees. Our analysis of several surveys of small businesses suggests that before accounting for intervention, 1.4 million to 2.1 million of them (25 to 36 percent) could close permanently as a result of the disruption from just the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The approaches Aetna, Anheuser-Busch, IBM, and others take to keep their teams’ marketing capabilities sharp

The June 2020 U.S. mid-year forecast is marked by declines in consumer and advertising spend across the board. The COVID pandemic sharply transformed the economic expectations from growth as recently as mid-March to the worst economic decline since the peak of the Great Depression in 1932. That’s according to consensus data as of mid-May tracked by Refinitiv that called for a 5.7% inflation-adjusted decline in economic activity.

Walton Isaacson CEO says a ‘seemingly benign idea’ has turned into ‘a brutal affront to our communities’

For many, COVID-19 has radically changed the topography of a typical workday.

As a result of the pandemic, B2B marketers are rushing to convert their in-person events into live virtual experiences

LERMA/ announced that the American Advertising Federation (AAF) Dallas has chosen Salma Gottfried as one of the 2020 Shining Stars in Advertising and Marketing. Gottfried is the principal of Brand Management at LERMA/, a Dallas-based next-generation communications agency dedicated to creating disruptive and impactful content for multicultural America.

Despite the economic downturn wrought by COVID-19, over 75% of local US businesses have remained open during the pandemic — with many  looking to adopt effective, fresh marketing and advertising strategies, according to a recent study by Viamedia.

It wasn’t too long ago that developing and launching a truly breakthrough product was largely dependent on a company’s size and brand stature. Yes, there were exceptions, but they were just that—exceptions. Today, amid widespread information access and connectivity, the scales have tipped, and while massive scale and big budgets remain valuable in launching breakthrough innovations, they’re not necessarily essential.