#la marketing firm

[a2zwebsolutionllc]

Tips for engaging customers through Social Media

Encourage user-generated content:-

User-generated content is content that your audience builds, and you share about your business profile. It is a various social media engagement approach because it advantages users from socialization with your brand and preparing their content emphasized on your profile.

You can boost your followers to post photos of your outcomes or results from your services. First, invite them to tag your business in the image. Then, when you find their posts, picture permission to post them on your social profile, and once conceded, schedule the content to post on your social media page.

User-generated content is a superb way to improve social media engagement. It urges people to post about your brand, leading to fantastic word-of-mouth recommendations to try your product or service.

It also gives your followers an authentic experience of your product or services, motivating them to engage with your brand more. They get a first-hand glimpse at someone who purchased your product and how they experienced it and liked it.

This content builds people's confidence in your brand and encourages them to engage with your brand in the future.

Read More: http://a2zwebsolution.com/blogs/Tips for engaging customers through Social Media-1

[mygabrielkevin]

Los Angeles public relations & social media marketing agency Tellem Grody Public Relations, Inc. Contact our specialists today to learn more about PR and social media marketing strategies and implementation. For More Details Visit at http://tellemgrodypr.com/

[xolilith]

Rapper Jeno

Você praguejou baixinho quando alguém esbarrou em você pela milésima vez aquela noite.

O cheiro de cigarro e cerveja preenchia seus sentidos, fazendo você entortar o nariz enojada.

Sua atenção é tomada pela voz estridente que apresentava a atração da noite.

Um rapper.

E ele parece ser um dos bons.

Um choque eletrizante corre por você quando o olhar dele prende ao seu por um momento. As sílabas saem ritmadas e exageradamente rápidas. Entretanto, a rapidez das palavras não te deixam tão tonta quanto a beleza do rapper em cima daquela palco improvisado.

O cabelo num mullet possuía linhas desenhadas nas laterais. A sobrancelha com um risquinho atravessado somava-se ao nariz afilado e longo. A boca pequena compunha um visual que era difícil desviar a atenção.

Quando a apresentação acaba você percebe que ele era bem conhecido: é ovacionado, o barulho gracejador enche seus ouvidos e a tira de um transe.

Senta-se no bar, pede uma bebida, seria a última e realmente iria para casa depois. Isso é o que você pretendia, só que alguém parecia ter outros planos pra você ao se colocar ao seu lado.

Era o rapper.

Te deixa surpresa, mas não nega a companhia.

Descobre que ele tem um nome: Jeno. Além de  uma risadinha malandra e melódica demais.

Uma conversinha bem desenvolvida foi jogada ao pé do seu ouvido como desculpa por conta do barulho. E quando se deu conta, tinha se deixado levar até uma viela abandonada. Prensada contra a aspereza do concreto de um muro e fodida.

Ele a deixou bem laceadinha, de frente e de costas. Descobriu que, além de ser um bom rapper, ele poderia ser um bom produtor ao fazê-la produzir sons tão harmoniosos enquanto empurrava o quadril firme contra sua bunda.

E, de uma forma que você não esperava, a noite havia terminado da melhor forma.

Contudo, na manhã seguinte, quando seus músculos latejaram doloridos, você se arrepende um pouco da noite libertina que teve.

Caminha até o trabalho quase num arrastar lento, a cabeça reclama só de pensar que vai ter o dia inteiro de reuniões e gente engomadinha metida a besta.

E você sabe que tem uma ao chegar no ambiente. Discutiria com o diretor de Marketing de uma outra empresa que estava fazendo negócios o caminhar do desenvolvimento da nova campanha.

E você se surpreende quando vê quem é o tal executivo.

Vestindo um terno azul marinho, com uma impressão elegante, bem diferente da áurea intensa e impetuosa da noite passada,

Jeno está na sua frente.

O arregalar de olhos é espontâneo.

Ele não esperava te encontrar ali. Muito menos você.

E você torce para aquilo ser uma alucinação.

Porém, o arrocheado que escapa pela gola da sua blusa social queima como um lembrete da realidade.

[mariacallous]

After a long stretch of record-high rents, Americans are renting fewer apartments as demand in the third quarter fell to its lowest level in 13 years. 

Some renters are choosing to take on roommates, while others are boarding with family or friends. More people are opting to stay longer in their parents’ homes or moving back in, rather than pay steep rent increases, according to a recent UBS survey.

Apartment demand in the quarter, measured by the one-year change in the occupancy of units, was the lowest since 2009, when the U.S. was feeling the effects of the subprime crisis, according to rental software company RealPage. Measured quarterly, the drop in demand was the worst of any third quarter—normally prime leasing season—in the more than 30 years RealPage has compiled the data.

Meanwhile, the apartment-vacancy rate rose to 5.5% in the third quarter, up from 5.1% the quarter prior, according to property data firm CoStar.

Rents have risen 25% over the past two years, according to rental website Apartment List, pushing many renters beyond what they can now afford. Meanwhile, inflation on other essential goods, such as food and energy, is also eating into how much people have left to spend on housing. 

“It’s a signal that rent can’t continue at the same level it has sustained over the last couple of years,” said Michael Goldsmith, an analyst at UBS. “We’ve reached a point where renters are maybe willing to pull out of the market.” 

The apartment rental market looks to be cooling following a boom that started in early 2021. After the introduction of a Covid-19 vaccine, many people—especially younger people who had been living with their parents—rushed to rent in cities around the country. That boosted apartment demand and put upward pressure on rents. Some rental apartments were even subject to bidding wars.

Record high housing prices also played a role. They priced out many Americans who wanted to buy starter homes but instead have remained captives of the rental market. Home prices are now falling on a monthly basis, however, according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.

Rental prices have started to fall on a monthly basis for the first time in nearly two years, too, while other recent data points also show that renters are starting to push back.

Shonda Austin, a home healthcare worker, and her three children moved into her mother’s house in Flint, Mich., this month after facing a 24% rent increase in Las Vegas. She hopes to return to a home of her own by March to somewhere more affordable, such as Arkansas or North Carolina, where she could potentially buy. 

“My goal is to just save as much as I can,” Ms. Austin said.

The supply of new apartments, which has grown this year in large markets such as Phoenix and Dallas, may be contributing to the drop in overall demand, because new projects add empty units to a slowing market. Economic uncertainty rooted in fears of a recession may also be contributing to lower apartment demand.

Leasing also typically eases during colder months, but analysts said the drop in demand that started earlier this year is now greater than what was expected. 

“The spring and summer leasing season was a total bust,” said Jay Lybik, national director of multifamily research at CoStar.

Yet even with the recent decline in demand, asking rents have remained near record highs. Nationally, asking rents have started to drop only slightly month-to-month, and are still up by 6% or more when viewed annually, according to several data sources. In some hot markets, they are up much more than that. In Charleston, S.C., rent is 14% higher than it was a year ago, according to Apartment List. 

To escape record high prices, more people are choosing to live rent free with friends or family, a September UBS survey found. Eighteen percent of U.S. adults surveyed said they had lived rent free with other people during the last six months, up from 11% at the same time one year ago. That was the highest share of adults living rent free with friends and family since UBS began asking the question in 2015. 

Other renters are finding roommates or splitting rent with family members. In North Charleston, S.C., 27-year-old bartender Bailey Byrum said her younger sister moved in with her at her two-bedroom rental house. Ms. Byrum said her sister had trouble finding her own place and had recently been living with her parents. 

“She has a good job… but places by yourself are like $500 to $600 out of her budget,” Ms. Byrum said. 

Some landlords are encountering resistance to steeper rent increases. In downtown Birmingham, Ala., last year, Kim McCann and her husband leased a spacious loft apartment for $2,800, a rent that then already seemed overpriced, Ms. McCann said. This July the landlord texted Ms. McCann to say she would be raising the rent by an extra $900 a month because local real-estate demand had “exploded.” 

Rather than pay $3,700 for the same apartment, Ms. McCann and her husband decided to move out in August. The loft sat on the market until at least this week, according to a listing on Zillow, and the asking price was cut twice.

“Fingers crossed other landlords come to their senses soon,” Ms. McCann said.

[isabellayourboyfriendshere]

*plink*

*plink*

*plink*

*CRACK*

Pepa woke with a start, a shock of lightning zapping her as she heard her window crack.

Cursing she checked the clock and looked twice to make sure it was the right time. Just after midnight. Who would be wanting her after midnight?

Unless...

"Mi vida, mi corazon, let down your hair" she heard Felix shout. Immediately she opened her window, getting his attention.

"You're not meant to be here, my mother will find out" she hissed, finding herself wringing her hands together, a cloud forming above her head. She hated clouds, knowing that people would point and stare making her more self conscious thus more clouds, eventually turning to rain or thunder.

"But amor we've been courting for six months! Surely you can let your Principe up for one night?" Felix asked hopefully.

Unlikely.

Alma was firm when it came to their courtship, Felix couldn't sleep in the same room or bed as Pepa until they were married. Pepa protested bitterly but was met with a warning of not seeing Felix again. She kept her mouth quiet afterwards.

Felix on the other hand was keen to keep on Alma's good side. He and Pepa had met in the market and with Felix being new in town, Alma suggested that Pepa take him on a tour. The tour lasted for over six hours and by the end Felix was head over heels for his beloved. It took a while for Pepa to fall for his charms but when she did she found herself falling hard.

Now six months down the line here they were with Felix trying to sneak in.

Pepa weakened, looking over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching. Nope. "Cassita, help me out here?" She asked the house. Cassita gave a rumble, turning bricks into steps. Pepa gave a nod of thanks, watching as Felix climbed.

Even though he wasn't the most slimmest of men, he was definitely light on his feet. And with his words as well. Mi vida, la Liz de mi vida, mi corazon, all of these made Pepa swoon and forget everything. After a bad day in the fields Felix would walk her back home, her thunders turning sunny by the time they reached Casita.

"Come on, before anyone..." "Sees?" Pepa felt herself turn cold, a light snow shower starting. She turned around to find her sister in the doorway of her bedroom. Julietta pursed her lips and pointed them at Felix, raising her eyebrows accusingly.

"Hermana, what do you think you're doing? You do know Mama is going to find him!" Julietta argued. Pepa rolled her eyes dismissing her with a wave "Mama is not going to find out unless you tell her" she insisted, the snow flurry being replaced with more clouds.

Julietta kept quiet. She knew Mama would disapprove she just KNEW. But why shouldn't she allow her sister this little bit of happiness? Pepa often bore the brunt of Alma's moods, stern looks and being told to calm down, clear skies whenever she got too much which according to Pepa felt like ALL the time!

She was about to open her mouth before deciding against it "I didn't see anything" she said, closing the door behind her.

And that was the way it was till they married. Bruno caught them one time but was sworn to complete secrecy with threats of feeding him to the rats...

It was simple, Felix adored Pepa and Pepa adored Felix.

[black-is-no-colour]

A Glimpse Inside John Galliano’s Treasure-Filled Hideaway in Northern France

Vogue US December 2021

By Hamish Bowles

Photographed by François Halard

“I can’t miss a market or a brocante,” says Maison Margiela’s creative director, John Galliano. “I’m very curious; I love hunting, and then the find—the excitement of the unknown, that one key in a door that opens the door and another door and another door.”“You have to pull him back,” admits Alexis Roche, Galliano’s partner and collaborator. “Otherwise, he doesn’t stop!”Galliano, however, cherishes “things that I’ve found in a flea market, or traveling geographically, or historically—they come imbued with a story, an energy,” he explains, “and they start deep emotions. And when those emotions start, I’m able to create.”

Many of those treasures are showcased in Galliano and Roche’s Paris apartment in the Marais, and in their modest stone farmhouse in the Auvergne, one of the most unspoiled but remote parts of la France profonde, where Roche’s grandmother was born. That house proved to be the perfect refuge at a moment when Galliano’s professional life was unraveling a decade ago, but as he conquered his demons through rigorous recovery programs and brought his creative genius to reshape Maison Margiela—which he has helmed since late 2014—the couple began to yearn for a country retreat that would be more accessible to Paris.

An antique-dealer friend suggested they look at a house in the almost absurdly picturesque Gerberoy, in Picardy, a village of cobbled lanes and half-timbered houses framed by roses and hollyhocks in Northern France.

“It’s like you stopped time,” says Roche. “We felt there was a soul to the village.” (The proximity to the fabled antique shops of nearby Rouen was an additional incentive.) Gerberoy is famed for the gardens created at the turn of the century by the Postimpressionist artist Henri Le Sidaner in the ramparts of a ruined country house, which served as endless subjects for Le Sidaner’s shimmering, evocative paintings. He even painted the very house that Messrs. Galliano and Roche had gone to see: an 18th-century gentleman’s residence that might, as Galliano suggests, have been a setting for Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. The couple were smitten by both the house and the town’s beauty and storied history, and could not resist.

The house, though, was in a parlous state, and Galliano embarked on an ambitious restoration plan that would preserve its romantic patina: The roof tiles were each carefully numbered and removed and, once the structure was stabilized, replaced to rise and dip as they always had. The reconfiguration of the rooms, meanwhile, was largely determined by the light and the views. The main bathroom, for example—crowded with antique perfume bottles, etched Venetian mirrors, and Baron von Gloeden’s photographs of winsome Sicilian youths—serves as an anteroom to the bedroom itself. Now, sitting in the antique tub or standing at the sink, Galliano and Roche have the best vantage points from which to admire the landscape below the window.

While staying at Claridge’s in London, Galliano always took time to admire the antiques and the iconic chintzes at the decorating firm of Colefax & Fowler, then seductively arranged in an 18th-century town house that once belonged to the legendary Nancy Lancaster and was famed for the high-ceilinged drawing room that she painted “buttah-­yellah.” Galliano clearly admired that room, as well as the exacting haute couture standards of the firm’s custom work—“finding craftspeople,” as Galliano notes, “is like gold”—and collaborated with the decorators on the curtains for his Paris apartment. In Gerberoy he worked with Daniel Slowik, formerly at Colefax & Fowler. “It was a very collaborative process,” Slowik recalls, “and it was fun to work with a fashion designer who understands the feel and idea of couture. He’s always going for the most exciting options.”

Ancient kilim carpets, for instance, were carefully reassembled into a patchwork runner for the staircase, which is adorned with racy drawings and photographs, while antique Moroccan wedding coverlets, their purple silk floss embroidery long faded to raspberry pink, were hung unlined in the upstairs pink drawing room to filter the daylight. “He’s so interested in where the light falls and catches,” says Slowik, who drew color inspiration from paintings and objects in Galliano’s collection. (Galliano also put amber glass panes in the door to the kitchen so that at teatime the dining room is bathed in light.)

The dining room, with wide, tapestry-seated Louis Quinze chairs drawn up to the circular table and portraits of toucans and parrots (and earnest early-19th-century children) on the cool blue walls, has taffeta curtains in an antique pale yellow and blue stripe tied back with rosettes scrunched from the same fabric, all based on examples in 18th-century upholsterers’ manuals—along with those in Pauline de Rothschild’s fabled London apartment, which was designed with John Fowler himself. The yellow drawing-room windows, meanwhile, are hung with a silver and buff African-inspired glazed cotton that Galliano worked on with Fortuny, and the main bedroom is hung and curtained with a chintz from Antoinette Poisson that evokes the blue-and-white azulejos tiles that Galliano admired in Portuguese gardens and houses. (He was so obsessed with them, in fact, that he commissioned the trompe l’oeil artist Eloïse d’Argent to create a narrative sequence of Delft tiles that now spins its tale on the Salon Jaune’s fireplace wall, and brings even more light into the room when the fireplace is roaring.)

The property is protected by a 1779 gatehouse—now crowned with a banner, crafted by the Margiela atelier, depicting two roosters (galli in Spanish, for Galliano)—that once served as monks’ quarters. Galliano created a brace of guest rooms and a soaring atelier in the space, complete with a library of his favorite reference books. (His beloved first-edition Dickens novels, with the illustrations that so inspired him as a child and as a fashion student, are kept closer to his bedside table.)

After the atelier’s terra-cotta tomette tiles underfoot were carefully restored and laid with antique Turkish rugs, Galliano had small squares of the different colors that he was considering painted around the room to determine the changing effect of the light. “The ultimate test with me is always candles,” says Galliano. “The glow, and how the color reacts: That’s when the color really sings. I spend a lot of time in candlelight.” He settled on a rich terra-cotta, a color that he describes as “almost like a deep breath in the evening.” That singing pink is painted eight layers deep, ceiling and all. “I wanted this kind of cocooning effect—the idea was that the light would reverberate and bounce off each wall and the roof,” he continues. “And it works: It’s super relaxing in here. I come to pull out my favorite Vionnet book and dream.”

Through the centuries, artisans—tile makers, glass-​blowers, and, of course, the tapestry workshops of nearby Beauvais—have flourished in this region of France. In homage to their work, Galliano began sleuthing the artworks originally created to serve as templates for those weavers at the local antique fairs. “I kind of live, breathe my work,” Galliano avers, “so, being at Maison Margiela, this idea just came very naturally to find these wonderful cartoons and recycle them, upcycle them.” He cut them up into a collage of imaginary landscapes that now cover one wall. “I love the trompe l’oeil effect of real trees swaying and refracting in their light,” Galliano explains. “I was playing with the idea of the outside in and the inside out. I’ve saved some,” he adds, “and when the fancy takes me, I’ll do another little collage.”

The atelier’s mystery is further enhanced by the window shades. “They’re from a Japanese monastery,” Galliano says, and were assembled by Lilou Marquand, a friend and collaborator of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. Galliano, who describes the nonagenarian Marquand as “an artist, a poet,” was bidden for tea at her Parisian home to see if he passed muster as a client. “You could feel the energy zooming around her,” Galliano says. He was enraptured by her atelier, “an Aladdin’s cave of wonderment, of Japanese fabrics, Indian sari fabrics from the ’30s, pom-poms, trims, tassels—I was gagging on the Chanel ribbons!” At one point during the visit, Madame Marquand “trod on something—I don’t know whether it had fallen out of her very elegant trouser suit, or if it was already on the floor,” Galliano recalls. “She picked it up, and it was like this little elephant: a pincushion, with really sharp pins on it,” fashioned from pink silk velvet that had rubbed bald through years of use and love. “I’d never seen anything so gorgeous,” Galliano says. “I’d like you to have this,” Marquand told him. “It belonged to Coco.”

With Marquand’s blinds at the window, the room, notes the designer—in true Galliano-speak—“is a little bit of Marlene-on-the-train.” He is referring to Marlene Dietrich in director Josef von Sternberg’s 1932 Shanghai Express, veiled and shaded in feathery glamour by the legendary costume designer Travis Banton. “It’s a place of mystery,” says Galliano.

The atmosphere of the house is enhanced by the soundtrack—Billie Holiday’s plaintive voice on the day I visited, for instance—and the heady, richly layered fragrances that Galliano loves, including church incense, Diptyque’s musk, Santa Maria Novella’s pomegranate, and Indian joss sticks that waft through the rooms.

The main house is also one room deep and flooded with light from both sides. That upstairs pink sitting room is filled with devotional church figures in their antique robes of shattering silk (“I turn everything into shrines,” Galliano confesses), and the drawing room below is painted another 18th-century color that was known, as Galliano notes with delight, as pipi de vache, as it was inspired by the urine of cattle fed a mango diet. “Once again,” he explains, “it’s an amazing color that works in a mysterious way in sunlight and sunset, and glows in candlelight.”

The fruits of Galliano’s sleuthing with Roche are abundantly evident. His suave juxtapositions in the Salon Jaune, for instance—including splay-legged 1950s Gio Ponti armchairs upholstered in a chintz design of plump pomegranates and peonies, a rosy needlepoint rug, a 1940s marmalade red velvet sofa, a Louis XV chair in sunflower silk velvet, and an 18th-century painted Italian commode—bring the room seductively into the 21st century and illustrate the couple’s passions.

Galliano thinks nothing of hanging a Sex Pistols poster or Ron Raffaelli’s portrait of Jimi Hendrix to jostle 19th-century salon art, Brassaï and Penn photographs, and homoerotic Jean Cocteau drawings. Madame Bijou, Brassaï’s 1932 portrait of a disheveled woman sitting at a table in a bar, an original print of which now hangs in Galliano’s guest bathroom, “has inspired many a collection,” the designer confides. “The volume of the coat, the hat, the wig, the jewels, the fallen stockings, the tap-dancing shoes—I mean, it’s just an endless dialogue with Madame Bijou!”

The house is also a palimpsest of the places Galliano and Roche have traveled, particularly on the epic inspiration trips that Galliano once took with his teams for his eponymous brand and for Christian Dior, the house that he redefined as artistic director from 1996 to 2011. These travels took them to Japan, China, and India, among other exciting locales. One end of the Salon Jaune, for instance, is hung with a collection of exquisite 17th- and 18th-century Indian miniatures found in Rajasthan on that India reconnaissance mission. “There’s always been a magical relationship with India,” Galliano says.

Outside, Galliano worked with Camille Muller to create a romantic, English-inspired garden, although it is an ancient beech tree that perhaps excites his imagination the most. (In the last quarter of the 18th century, a complaint was brought against the house’s dissolute owner, and Galliano is convinced that the scars in the stately plane tree’s trunk are a flagellant’s stigmata.)

Soon after they arrived, Galliano and Roche befriended the village’s colorful cast of neighbors, who now provide gardening and psychic advice, gossip, and delicious produce and local culinary delicacies. Dressed like a Bloomsbury Group eccentric on an afternoon that I visited—in a Margiela prototype sweater knitted from strips of blue and lilac gingham, a Margiela trench, Wellington boots, and a woven-straw cloche hat pulled down low on his brow—Galliano set off with Roche to pay his calls with the couple’s Brussels Griffons, Gypsy and Coco, gamboling at their feet.

He seemed very much at home.

Source: Vogue 

[uwmspeccoll]

(Antiquated Pop) Science Saturday

This Saturday we are sharing chomolithographs from our second edition copy of Louis Figuier’s Les Races Humaines, published in 1873 in Paris by Hachette. The plates were designed by P. Sellier and printed by G. Regamey.

Louis Figuier, a trained medical doctor with a PhD in pharmacology, left the field to become a full time science writer, publishing on a range of subjects, from natural history to photography. He was hugely popular, both in France and published in translation in the United Kingdom and the United States. His 1863 book on earth history, La Terre Avant le Déluge, was a major inspiration for Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Center of the Earth. Figuier was adamant that popular science texts and science journalism should be left to trained scientists. That is not to say Figuier always got his science right, and Les Races Humaines is no exception. Even by the standards of his contemporaries there are strange classification decisions and descriptions. But to the modern reader, it is unabashedly racist. We collect items like this not to glorify clearly racist viewpoints, but to remember and document the racism that pervades publishing history.

Established by Louis Hachette in 1826, the Hachette publishing firm focused primarily on educational and classical texts and by 1851 had become one of the most successful publishing outfits in France. Hachette sought to expand his influence, establishing an immense network of railroad station book stalls in France, inspired by a similar system he observed in England when he visited for the 1851 Great Exhibition. The railroad bookstores quickly gave Hachette a monopoly in the French book market, and the company branched out into what would today be called “trade” publishing (including works from the emerging field of popular science) to stock his growing distribution network. This monopoly did not go unchallenged and the ensuing battles, both legal and in public pamphlet campaigns, would help redefine the role of the publisher in the book trade (for more on this, see “Louis Hachette and the Defense of the Publisher” from Lost Illusions: The Politics of Publishing in Nineteenth-Century France by Christine Haynes (Harvard University Press: 2015)). 

View more Science Saturday posts here. 

-Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[briancantorinlasvegas]

Brian Cantor Las Vegas - Creating an Ideal Testimonial Video for Your Business

Envision you need another hand blender for yourself. You have a couple of choices as the main priority in a video. How would you choose? All things considered, by surveys! Yet, the first video has a profoundly itemized survey most likely made by an editing agency, talking about its benefits and features. Where in the next video, there is just a dubious articulation like "it's a decent blender".

Not sure about you, however, I will choose the firm one. The explanation is straightforward; I have confirmation of how it has helped other customers through their testimonials, and they have done that after using the product. Today Brian Cantor is talking about creating an ideal testimonial video and how it can help your business. To learn more marketing hacks, read Brian Cantor Las Vegas - How to Promote Business with Unique Marketing Hacks?

Customer Testimonials

Not we all prefer to toss cash at an occasion we like something. For that reason, regardless of how great your product or brand is assuming individuals have not known about you previously, they will be suspicious of interfacing you. You can invest a great deal of energy idealizing your advertising effort and brand mindfulness procedures. Be that as it may, the most widely recognized method of persuading individuals to purchase something is through testimonials. They depend on genuine surveys, and with those, they decide if an item is worth buying or not.

Video Testimonials

Video surveys join all types of information that incorporate text, symbolism, and visuals. Assuming you counsel an editing agency for this, it unquestionably pays off since it is figured that a site is multiple times bound to be recorded on the primary google search if your business video is on it. Brain Cantor can assist you with the top marketing hack and as an introduction, you can read Brian Cantor Las Vegas - Creating Quality Business Content with Animation Video. 

Creating an Ideal Video Testimonial

Anyway, what is the mystery in creating an ideal video testimonial? How does a professional do it? Can you make one yourself? Here are a few focuses that can help you create your visual substance more interesting.

Preciseness

There's no compelling reason as to why you need a testimonial video on your website. We want to feature the critical highlights of the item, in addition to the advantages they proficiently offer the customers. Testimonial videos are a significant piece of any advertising process.

Grasping Storytelling

Feelings are the main thrust of a person. Also, you should induce them for your potential benefit with dazzling video content. Not in an insidious manner but instead in the creation of a charming story. It shouldn't be fantastical, yet it additionally ought not to be draggy or exhausting.

Make a realistic testimonial video

Each video requires content, and your testimonial should revolve around your product or service. It needs to talk about the brand and why your product most suited for your customers is. As indicated by a proficient editing agency, a great video includes three fundamental parts as far as design is concerned. These are presentation, middle, and conclusion. 

Give the buyer a talk about their hardships in the introduction. Then, at that point, make them explain why they needed your product. In the middle, they can as to why picked your brand against your competition and the benefit they received. Finally, wrap it up where they talk about the way that the product addressed their requirements and assume they were happy with it.

[ejzah]

In Miss Blye’s Class, Part 2

***

“And then Ava said that she wasn’t going to Marco’s party anymore because he knocked down her tower. Even though it was an accident. So then Marco started crying and then Miss Blye said play time was over,” Caleb explained, sucking in a deep breath after a 15 minute monologue describing the intricate social system of his kindergarten class.

From his current position under the kitchen sink, Deeks could just see Caleb’s feet dangling off a chair. He’d finished his homework for the day and now was coloring a picture of Captain America.

“But Marco was still crying so I gave him my snack to make him feel better,” Caleb added. Deeks paused in the middle of working at the nut above the tailpipe to slide out far enough to see see his face.

“That was a really nice thing to do for your friend, Kiddo. Did you have enough to eat though?” Deeks asked, knowing that under certain circumstances, Caleb readily give up his whole lunch without complaint.

“Uh-huh. I just was extra hungry at lunch so I ate everything. Even the carrots.” He threw Deeks a quick toothy grin before returning to his picture, wiggling in his seat. Some days it felt like he barely stopped moving.

Smiling to himself, Deeks crawled back under the sink and resumed battling the pipe.

“C’mon,” he muttered, muscles straining as he struggled with the rusted hardware. When his realtor had promoted this house as a work in progress, he’d thought she was referring to bad decor or a few minor repairs. He hadn’t anticipated that every pipe in the place leaked and squeaked and the upstairs bathroom floor was one step away from caving in.

When he’d packed up and moved to LA two months ago, with a job offer at a good law firm, and little else in place, this was one of the first houses on the market that didn’t cost roughly a million. So, he’d snapped it up. Maybe, once he was better established, had a little extra cash, and…well, for now, he was testing the limits of his handyman skills.

He gave the pipe a twist, grimacing when more water spurted out. Wiping at his face, he quickly twisted the other way, and decided it was time to call a plumber. He slid back out and mopped up the puddles of water as much as he could, sticking an old strawberry bucket directly under the leak.

“Did you fix it, Daddy?” Caleb asked, hopping down from the table. Without asking, he started piling tools back into the box and wiped up a few stray drops of water.

“Nope,” Deeks answered cheerfully. “But it’s getting late and I bet you’re hungry again.”

“I’m starving!”

“Ok, you want chicken or pizza today.”

“Chicken. Can I have a cookie?” he requested, leaning into Deeks with a pleading look.

“After dinner.”

“But I might get so hungry I’ll fall over and then I can’t go to school tomorrow. And the Miss Blye will get mad because I’m not there.”

Deeks narrowly concealed a short as a cough, mildly impressed as always by Caleb’s thought processes. Although his logic sometimes fell through, he was a master debater. He supposed it was the likely outcome from having a lawyer for a dad.

“Yeah, I saw you eat two cookies when you got back from school,” Deeks said, grabbing Caleb under the armpits and swinging him around the room, making him giggle. “I’m surprised you haven’t turned into a cookie yet. I’ll have to start calling you “Cookie Monster Caleb”.”

“Dad, you’re silly,” Caleb gasped, even as he continued to giggle, kicking his legs in the air. Drawing to a stop, Deeks loudly kissed the top of his head, which started a whole new round of laughter, and set him back down on the floor.

“Ok, Kiddo, you sure you got all your homework finished?”

“Uh-huh. Oh, but Miss Blye said I need to bring in something for tomorrow’s show and tell. There’s a paper about in my backpack.”

“Crap, I forgot about that,” Deeks hissed, rubbing his forehead again. “Ok, we’ll think of something while we eat.” He was pretty sure he’d gotten on Kensi Blye’s bad side on their first meeting last week. He hated that he was now one of the “irresponsible parents” in her eyes and had been working to redeem himself.

“Maybe I can bring your gun and special badge from your old job,” Caleb suggested, hanging onto Deeks’ arm.

“Yeah, that would definitely get me in your teacher’s good graces. How about something a little less likely to get both of us expelled?”

“Fiiine. Then my Captain America shield.”

“Much better choice.”

“And the stuffed ladybug mom brought me last time she visited,” he added.

“The other kids will love it,” Deeks said and Caleb nodded, a little distracted now as he toyed with Deeks’ sleeve.

“Daddy, when’s mommy coming to see us again?”

“I don’t know,” he told him honestly. It was a question Deeks had wondered himself since his now ex-wife left two and a half years ago. “Why don’t you go watch some TV while I get dinner ready?”

“Ok. Love you,” Caleb said, jumping up to kiss Deeks’ shoulder before he ran off for the family room.

As soon as Caleb was out of sight, Deeks braced his hand on the table, letting his true exhaustion show for the first time. He didn’t like to hide things from Caleb as a general rule, but right now he didn’t need the extra worry while he was still settling in.

Aside from dinner, there was a stack of client files he had to prep for tomorrow and he knew it would be another extremely late night. It was worth it though. For the chance to start over new and for every time Caleb smiled.

***

A/N: I’m so glad you guys enjoyed the first part of this little story. I promise it won’t be super angsty. But just a touch.

[dirty-kids-do-it-best]

So, in light of the supreme court decision on roe v. Wade I propose we riot and burn some shit down...I'm in Las Vegas right next to the world market center on grand Central parkway... ladies, bring a brick a glass bottle, 12 fl. Oz. Of gasoline or kerosene and a thic cloth and I'll show you how to make a decent Molotov...

1825: 3 African slaves led a revolt in Guamacaro Cuba that began the revolution to end African slavery

June 28th to July 3rd 1969: Stonewall INN, located in Greenwich Village NYC, Marsha P. Johnson, an African American trans woman stood in defiance against illegal police raids in gay communities. This turned into a riot, the first gay pride parade...Marsha, who was described as happy, loving, caring, was found dead in 1992 ruled suicide by cops who didn't want to waste time on the "colored fag" this woman fought, not just for herself but for the social injustice against her community. She died a martyr.

1968: Democratic National Convention Chicago, Civilians filled the street, all of them opposed the Vietnam war, had gathered in protest. After days of harassment and threats the police opened fire with tear gas and mercilessly pummeled unarmed civilians with batons. All because they gathered in a park without a permit. As the fight ended with the protesters bloody, broken, some critically injured, a couple dead, began the chant "the whole world is watching"

2020: country wide Black Lives Matter riots. After multiple instances of police brutality resulting in death against the black community people took to the street and returned the brutality.

Dr. Martin Luther King has a quote/speech...I can't fully remember the whole thing but I'm going to do my best, while adding revisions...

"Contrary to Dr. King, intelligent as he was, that I am committed to MILITANT FUCKING VIOLENCE when dealing from a direct action point of view. He believed that riots only intensified the problem, I stand firm in the belief that people don't listen until you Kick Their Fucking Teeth In. The conditions in this mocking joke of a country are absolutely fucking intolerable and it's time to take a stand. A riot is the collective voice of a people unheard. And what exactly has the supreme court failed to hear? No, not failed... just fucking blatantly ignored? It's the cries of all you women who deserve not just the American right but the human right to govern your own body. The united states' government took your bodily autonomy and gave your uterus to "God". A god who might I remind everyone, sent his only begotten son to be tortured and crucified. Women's rights have been set back 50 years. They claim to care about the child's life but neglect countless children in foster care or homeless, children who are abused and many times killed by caregivers. They don't give a fuck about life, they care more about their bullshit christian fairy tale and keeping the status quo. You should all be disgusted by this, Female and Male alike. And this isn't only about women's rights, no ladies you're just the first domino to be toppled. Religious belief took your rights, next it will be the sanctity of marriage and LGBTQ right are going to be attacked, then African American rights, then before we know it we're going to be back in the Salem witch trials because they are no longer separating church and state. The time is now to stop this before it gets too much momentum. I'm willing to die for this, who's with me?"

[terrence-silver]

Hello lovely! Can you give us your thoughts on what would have actually happened after KK3 with Terry? [Not the terrible Cobra Kai charactersation] What would his life look like? What's his relationship with John? Thankya x 💜💙💚

I mean, I could write a whole novella about what I think OG KK3 Terry wouldn't do.

And what his life between KK3 and Cobra Kai season 4 would’ve been like ---

But here's some, in (angry) snippets;

- Dynatox? He would’ve been running Dynatox in full swing --- which has probably gone conveniently green somewhere between the 80′s and present day to strategically fit the shifting politics, narratives and world views aimed at a new age as he re-brands himself as eco-friendly, with his face on billboards all over LA, on various products, in news papers, on TV commercials. He’s like an inescapable, looming phantom hovering over the city. The grandeur of Terry’s power is never showcased like that which is a shame. Of course, this isn’t an agenda Terry believes in or cares for, it is simply a way to blend in like a chameleon and make even more of a profit by shapeshifting his firm in the public perception and turn himself marketable. He couldn’t care less about the oceanic flora and fauna, the Amazonian rainforest or saving the whales. He’s still very much running a toxic company fronting itself as green. Yet, Dynatox in the show is literally never explored. Why?

- Terry would never allow someone to call his friend essentially inbred, especially considering we discovered John has a history of mental health in his family and that his mother committed suicide back in the days, something that was met with great stigmatization --- a fact Terry no doubt knew about, so to just sit there grinning like a self-content idiot while Emile or whatever rando backhandedly remarks that the best friend he ever had, his comrade, his Captain, the man who saved his life at least a couple of times has a Hapsburg Jaw would’ve had KK3 Terry escorting at least half of the posse at that garden party off of the estate post-haste and suing at least several of them for defamation and slander purely based on that fact Terry would’ve been more offended than John --- as is usually the case with these two. With good reason too. I don’t know why, but this one never sat well with me.

- I just refuse to believe Terry Silver, the Terry Silver, wouldn’t know of John’s whereabouts during those thirty years of absence or rather, that he wouldn’t care. Or Daniel Larusso’s whereabouts. Or the whereabouts of Daniel’s family. Or that Johnny Lawrence had a fully-fledged son. Stalking man Terry? Spying Terry? Obsessive Terry? Snooping, nosy, voyeuristic Terry? Terry who hid in a chimney once? Not knowing? How? Daniel became the owner of this huge car dealership in The Valley and yet when John brings Daniel up to Terry for the first time in decades, Terry is so surprised like he had no prior information about Larusso Auto whatsoever. I somehow literally refuse to believe Terry wouldn’t keep at least partial track of all of these people purely to get a (partially sick) kick out of their lives unfolding. That doesn’t seem like him.

- Also, to expand on Terry keeping track of everyone in secrecy --- he would’ve found a way to help John even if John kept rejecting his aid. If the devil works hard, Terry works harder. I cannot imagine KK3 Terry ever abandoning John to homelessness, living in shelters and general destitution, even if they had a grudge and even if John made it difficult to be aided. I envision Terry slipping John the occasional help, whether monetary or otherwise and utilizing his channels to covertly cover up the fact it is from him, making the support virtually untraceable. John might figure it out eventually, but the help always keeps coming and Terry pretty much forces it upon him from a distance. This is pretty much the guy who forced him to go on an impromptu vacay to Tahiti, sexy masseuse girls involved after personally driving him to the airport. Terry isn’t someone who would just give up helping him.

- I somehow doubt he would neglect Karate and Cobra Kai, but that’s just my personal opinion. Cobra Kai might’ve gone underground after the ‘85 tournament loss, but Terry in KK3 seemed somewhat unfettered by everything ranging from being sued, indicated and sent to court (which he bribed) and so to simply entirely neglect martial arts after a one loss is...strange? Sure, one might argue it deeply affected him because this was to be a victory he wanted to procure in John’s name, but to simply abandon Karate entirely?

- In KK3 we see Terry having an apparent liking towards his staff. He’s chattering and being cheeky with Margaret. He’s amused by Snake and Dennis. By Mike Barnes too. In present day, in CK, there’s this weird disconnect in the company and social circle Terry keeps. He seems weirdly annoyed (with a chagrin) and detached from everyone and I just personally don’t like it. It makes me uneasy and sad.

- Terry would never write off his own behaviour in KK3 as merely ‘being on Coke in the 80′s’ regardless if he was actually on Coke or not. One gets the impression he’s shrugging off his entire personality, knack for devotion, fierceness, intensity, taking things too far, impulsivity, loyalty, undying friendship as merely a side-effect of substance abuse and nothing else. Those are the things that make Terry Terry, so basically, they have the character himself out here implying that he’s none of those things, because it’s all basically the drugs. So, who is he then? I don’t think Terry would ever do that and that he would have too much pride to admit something controlled him enough to have him act out, if anything, at least privately, in front of John, I can see him being cocksure, deflecting and remarking something along the lines of ‘Yeah, I did what I did. Fuck it.’ purely to seem in charge of himself. 

- Also, why is Terry suddenly seeming ashamed of everything about himself? His service in the military? His martial arts? His friendship with John. Again, so strange and I legitimately...don’t think this is in character. Like, maybe Terry would act to be cringed out by himself, but to truly and honestly be? 

- Terry (and John) generally viewing their relationship as weakness. Why? How? When?

[mygabrielkevin]

Los Angeles public relations & social media marketing agency Tellem Grody Public Relations, Inc. Contact our specialists today to learn more about PR and social media marketing strategies and implementation. For More Details Visit at http://tellemgrodypr.com/

[dresshistorynerd]

So I saw this illustration recently floating around here and it’s so riddled with bullshit I decided to go through it with meticulous detail. Also it’s whole point is bullshit, but we’ll circle back to it. I have to note I’m not dress historian and don’t know all the nuances related to history of undergarments, and wouldn’t have even room for that in this post. And the illustration is completely devoid of them anyway.

So strap in and jump into the rabbit hole with me! Let’s start with the accuracy of the figures illustrating the undergarments. I don’t know why the 18th century stays (corsets come later) look like that? They are so wrong in so many ways. This is what 18th century stays looked like.

They did not flatten the bust at all. On the contrary, they pushed the bust up. It makes the stomach flat, but bust very much not. The boning was made from whale bone, reeds or slim wood bents most often, which are all very bendable and soft materials. Which means it was firm but not hard or restrictive. They mostly just smoothed the torso and supported bust. Also none of these illustrations have shift or chemise under their corset/stays, which was extremely important part of the undergarment (they protected the skin from corset/stays and it from oils of skin).

Now I’m questioning weather the makers of this info graph have seen Regency dresses. Firstly they claim that the ideal figure was “natural waist” when you can see that the waist can’t even be seen under the dress. There’s literally no waist. I would rather say the ideal figure was long tube body and boobs (emphasis on boobs). They also say the “corset” (still stays) stops bellow the bust line, but if you have seen a Regency dress, you know the bust is basically on the chin. (There were some stays that actually stopped under breasts, but the ones with cups where much more common as they were better at getting the fashionable silhouette.)

You don’t achieve this look without some heavy lifting done by the undergarments.

Here’s what they looked like. (Picture is from Abigail Polston’s blog.) They were basically push up bras. They didn’t have boning at all or sometimes a couple bones, but were usually made at least partly of stiffened fabrics. Between the breasts there’s a wooden slab that keeps the boobs separate and the stays from crinkling. They only smoothed out the rest of the torso and their only real purpose was support the bust and lift the hell out of it.

The next figure has so so many things wrong about it. In 1830s the stays were basically same as Regency stays. In 1840s the stays started to have a little more of the Victorian hourglass shape, but their construction was still similar. Though at the same time corsets started to live along side stays, till in the 1850s they took over the undergarment business. Here’s an example of 1890s corset.

Victorian corset is result of very complicated engineering. The shape is achieved with very ingenious patterning and strategically placed bones. Maximal shape with minimal boning. When you go back to look at the 18th century stays, which are covered in bones and then check out bow little there’s bones in the Victorian corset. The shape subtly changed thorough the rest of the century, but the basic construction and hourglass figure stayed the same.

Now the description says tight lacing became popular and it’s not entirely wrong. Tight lacing became a thing. In the previous centuries it wasn’t really even possible in same sense, because the materials used were too soft. Well some rich fashionable women still did it in 18th century (with regency stays it just wasn’t possible), but because of the materials, they couldn’t restrict bodily functions like breathing (looking at you PotC). Victorian corsets however usually had couple of iron bones, the rest being the soft whale bone, giving them more ability to shape the body. Tight lacing however was not common. Some rich, young and fashionable ladies would do that, but it was seen broadly negatively at the time. People talked about the health consequences and perhaps more than that, saw it as very vain. Tight lacing every day for a long time had negative health consequences, but vast majority of women didn’t do that and they were nothing nearly as dramatic ass people claim. Corset’s magic wasn’t it’s ability to reduce waist, but rather accentuate bust and hips. It was all about the illusion. Padding was added too on top of the corset. All women used corsets and it didn’t restrict them from doing all kinds of stuff, like working in a factory, or climbing a mountain.

I don’t really have anything to complain about the 1900s, 1910s and 1920s. They have at least the right shapes and don’t have weird claims. Now, I’m not very knowledgeable in any decade after 1920s, but I know at least that bullet bra were already a thing in the 40s? You can see it in 40s dress silhouettes too.

After all this wildly inaccurate info, the whole point of the info graph is that lingerie is going backwards and apparently it’s a bad thing. It gives the impression that undergarments were bad in the ye olden times, then they got good and apparently they are bad again. I think the funniest part is when it says in the 80s bit that “lingerie no longer a way to control the body but to empower women”. Empower how? How were 80s bras more empowering that previous or following bras? Also it says that the ideal figure was “any”. Now, I’m not that familiar with 80s, but if you look at the fashion then, you definitely notice a common silhouette: broad shoulders and natural waist.

After that apparently shaping bras are used to make the bust look bigger, which is bad I guess. Worse than padding on shoulders for some reason?

It is not outright said that the undergarments of earlier periods were used to control women’s bodies, but it’s implied. That’s a really common misconception, but not really true. In the 17th century women didn’t wear stays, but the bodice was heavily structured and boned. When mantua (loose robe draped on body, think of robe á la francaise) entered the western fashion (around 1680s), women jumped on it. Stays became very quickly very popular, to give the fashionable silhouette even without the rigid bodice. Stays and mantua combo was more comfortable and more adjustable to changes in body so it took completely over the fashion during the 18th century. And when corsets became a thing in the Victorian era, most corset makers were women. Women invented a lot of the engineering that went into patterning corsets.

Corsets and stays were not some torture devices. They were flexible, constructed with the right measurements and their purpose wasn’t to reduce the measurements of the body, but rather create optical illusions and support the bust and the back. Many people who have used recreations of historical corsets say they are in many ways more comfortable than modern bras, which shift all the weight of the bust on shoulders. Corsets and stays distributed it on hips instead. Perhaps the biggest actual health concern with a regular use of corset especially (excluding tight lacing and stays didn’t to my knowledge have this problem at least to the same extend) is it supporting the back too much, making the wearer’s deep muscles wither. So in a way, they were too comfortable. Victorians were aware of that, and upper class women, who didn’t do manual labour, were encouraged to excercise to keep their torso in good shape.

Now at some point when making this post, I started to wonder who made this illustration and why. It does seem, if not well researched, at least professional. After googling the label in the bottom left corner, I found this.

The poster is saying it’s terrible when fashion tries to shape your body with clothing and it has the solution for you. Shape your body literally with the serum they are selling. They even say in the 2000s section that big bust is the desired shape, which now looks a lot like marketing. Though it doesn’t seem like they are selling it anymore. Their website is down and I couldn’t find any info on them. The whole product seems a little suspicious. It’s apparently a cream containing estrogen you put on your breasts and it should make your breast grow. Now I’m no expert, but that’s not how estrogen works. Any cream that claims it has some hormones that will change your body or skin? They don’t work. Don’t buy them.

I think this illustrates very well why I disagree so much with the idea that shaping your silhouette with clothing was so terrible and it’s good that we moved away from it. Fashion always has a silhouette, it’s part of the overall look. When the silhouette was still achieved with undergarments, your body shape and size didn’t matter. It wasn’t about the size, it was about proportion and you could create that with corsets/stays, padding and illusions. Nowadays you see sometimes thin celebrities praised for being fashionable when they wear boring clothes which show their stomach, and people have started to question if they actually have style or are they just thin. And often bigger people are ridiculed for wearing the exact same thing. Now it’s the body which is fashionable, not the clothing. And it leads to companies like these trying to push people to change their bodies.

Now, I don’t think any strict fashion or beauty standard is ever good, even if it could be achieved with clothing alone. But I think there’s something to be learned from past, to maybe not reserve fashion and style only for a specific type of body. I don’t think it’s ever helpful or healthy for a body type to be trendy. There’s always all types of bodies and they all deserve to enjoy style, if they wish.

TL;DR: Add tried to sell their boob cream by spewing inaccuracies about historical undergarments.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

DoS a federal agency, then charge for access

There’s a hell of a zap that neoclassical economics puts on your head. After being brainwashed to think that markets “naturally emerge” wherever a shortage occurs, a certain kind of evil asshole will take it upon themselves to “create markets” and thus “solve the problem”

Remember Reservationhop? It was founded by an SF bro who couldn’t get restaurant reservations so he had a brainwave: what if I found a “business” that creates fake identities and books every table in town and then auctions them off to would-be diners?

Markets in everything, right? He’s just using markets to solve a distributional challenge by (checks notes) committing thousands of acts of fraud and selling something that doesn’t belong to him. This guy’s brain-worms are amazing:

https://brianmayer.com/2014/07/how-i-became-the-most-hated-person-in-san-francisco-for-a-day/

Markets in everything! Monkeyparking was another SF startup that let people sell their street-parking spot — before you drove away from the meter, you used an app to auction off the right for someone else to get the spot after you.

https://www.theverge.com/2014/6/23/5836232/san-francisco-is-going-after-apps-that-let-people-sell-their-public-parking-spots

I mean, you don’t own the spot. Monkeyparking doesn’t own the spot. They were gonna go global, despite the fact that this is horrifically antisocial and radioactively illegal.

And they had competition! Sweetch, Parkmodo — yes, those are actual businesses that someone’s brain-worms forced them to found.

Really.

Which brings me to Enq. They’re a startup that has “solved” the problem that the IRS has been so consistently underfunded that no one can get through them on the phone.

Guess how they solved it. No, really, guess. You’re gonna love this.

Enq has a giant phone bank that places floods the IRS help-line with simultaneous calls, so no one else can get through. Then they sell the right to take over a mature on-hold call — one that is near to being answered by a human being — to busy tax professionals.

They claim they can cut your wait time — that they created with a Denial of Service attack on a federal agency — by 90%! Ransomware by another name.

https://callenq.com/

The LA Times’ David Lazarus called them “enterprising” (“find a need and fill it”).

Founder and CEO Andrew Valiente told him, “When there’s a problem, there’s an opportunity.”

Brain.

Worms.

https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-10-05/column-tax-calls-irs-enq

Yeah, Valiente isn’t the reason that the IRS can’t fully fund a call-center. But his denial of service racket isn’t an “opportunity,” it’s an electronic assault on a federal agency.

He’s not “finding a need and filling it,” he’s “finding a need and exacerbating it.”

There’s a reason the IRS hasn’t solved this problem by offering gold memberships to large accounting and tax-prep firms — government agencies should not operate like airline frequent flier clubs.

The fact that people raised on neoclassical econ can’t tell the difference between “addressing a distributional problem” and “making it worse but also letting rich people buy their way out of it” is basically the core problem with the world today.

I mean, it’s great news for Riley Quinn and the Trashfuture podcast crew — they’re never going to run out of hilariously awful tech startups to dunk on at this rate. But for the rest of us, it’s just hell on Earth.

https://trashfuturepodcast.podbean.com/

Image: Matthew G. Bisanz (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NYC_IRS_office_by_Matthew_Bisanz.JPG

CC BY-SA: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

[28quavers]

Bertelsmann Music Group: How Hartwig Masuch made BMG more profitable than the market leader Universal

The manager leads the largest European music label more profitably than the big US competitors - because he keeps BMG away from the superstars of the hour.

09/12/2019 | by Alexander Demling

Berlin. Of course, the corridor to Hartwig Masuch is adorned with music memorabilia: In front of the Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) office there is an almost life-size black and white picture of Nick Cave and the poster for a documentary about David Crosby, on a shelf inside there is a shrink-wrapped one Vinyl record by Kylie Minogue.

All a bit sober for a music label, at least when measured against the glittering pop world of a Katy Perry or Taylor Swift. But Masuch doesn't see discovering pop phenomena as his main job. “Global artists with a history, a brand and a fan base”, that is the target group that the BMG boss is after.

Like Kylie Minogue, whose greatest successes (“Can't Get You Out Of My Head”) were a long time ago, but who landed high in the charts in 2018 with her album “Golden” produced by BMG - because her fans apparently didn't got out of my mind. “Wanting to spot the next Ed Sheeran on the guitar on the street is a much more volatile business. On a global scale, that's insanely risky, ”says Masuch.

The figures prove him right: with sales of 545 million euros, the subsidiary of the Gütersloh family company Bertelsmann is the largest label in Europe and the fourth largest in the world, behind Universal, Sony and Warner - and it is more profitable at the same time. Market leader Universal, who has many of the world's most successful artists under contract with Taylor Swift, Drake or Ariana Grande, has more than ten times the turnover. The margin on earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of 22.4 percent is one and a half times as high at BMG.

The 65-year-old looks so decidedly natural and age-appropriate that he could pass as an eccentric himself in the eccentric music business. Masuch, who dropped out of economics shortly before graduating, has retained the sober view of an economist on the business with stars and hits. He speaks of contribution margins, of the "predictability" that he wants to offer his artists; Artists whom he sometimes calls “key accounts”. Record boss sentences like "I'll make you a star" cannot be imagined from Masuch's mouth, an old "Kraftwerk" line is more appropriate: "I'm the musician with a calculator in hand."

He seems to fit in well with a time when even young artists are looking for reputable merchants instead of dream sellers at labels. They want to control their work themselves. They would like to select services such as marketing or sales à la carte instead of giving up the rights to exploit their music in an all-encompassing record deal.

Like Taylor Swift, one of the most successful pop stars in history. When Swift let the contract with her ancestral label Big Machine Records expire and switched to Universal in late 2018, the 29-year-old announced that it was "important to be on par with a label" in view of the future of the music industry.

Would the "Shake It Off" singer have also been a good fit for BMG? "Taylor Swift would absolutely be an artist that we would be interested in," says Masuch. Global success, despite her age already having a "history" of 15 years, that fits into Masuch's scheme. Still, there were no conversations. "For us it was too early for an act of this international magnitude," says Masuch. "Not this time, but maybe next time."

The so-called “label services deals” currently make up a good eight percent of the market, but the segment is growing by a third every year, says Mark Mulligan, head of the London-based analysis firm Midia. BMG is a key player in this area, but the market leaders have long been competing with the Berliners. But BMG has built a reputation for being good with artists. "It's a people's business," says Mulligan. And quite a few artists would have burned their fingers with one of the big labels.

A wonderful time for artists

"We are at a historic turning point for labels," says Mulligan. The classic major model of cross-financing the development of current top artists through the catalog of older artists is coming under pressure.

Still, Mulligan thinks it's a wonderful time for artists. They owe this to the Internet: when records and CDs had to be transported to the shops in trucks and a musician could only be known through the radio and posters, the path to fame inevitably led through a label. In the streaming era, 17-year-old Billie Eilish produced her number one album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?" With her brother in the nursery and initially distributed the songs on Soundcloud. Eilish now has a universal contract, but the conditions for it are changing. “It's a question of bargaining power,” says Masuch.

The man from Hagen knows all sides of the industry: He played in a rock band from which Nena and Extrabreit emerged. Later he pushed the Neue Deutsche Welle as manager of Ina Deter and other artists. He then worked for Warner and, since 1991, for BMG - the old BMG, a major label that Bertelsmann merged with Sony Music in 2004 . In 2008 the group sold its shares to the partner from Japan.

In October 2008 Masuch re-founded BMG Rights Management - the same month that Spotify went on the market. This enabled them to fully adapt BMG to the new, digital world of music. Masuch believes this world will soon be radically rearranged. The sales growth of the labels is currently mainly driven by the streaming of older songs, which accounted for the majority of the hits. The streaming sales are often not sufficiently taken into account in the rights contracts, which is why many artists do not receive much attention. “Many contracts for the 20 most successful catalogs are due for renewal over the next 36 months. The labels lose the digital dividend, ”he says.

The BMG boss therefore expects the owners of the major labels to turn the companies into cash at the height of the boom. Buyers could be technology companies like Apple or Amazon . The first sign of this trend is that Chinese tech giant Tencent is interested in Universal Music.

Tencent , which operates the Chinese service Tencent Music and holds shares in Spotify , could put pressure on Apple or Amazon and their music services with a stake in Universal . “Netflix doesn't have to have all of the content. In the music business, on the other hand, everyone needs everything, ”says Masuch. The subscribers would not accept to be able to hear only artists who, for example, have a contract with Warner or Sony. For Apple Music, an alliance between Tencent and Spotify and Universal is therefore threatening as long as the iPhone producer does not have its own leverage, such as a stake in another label.

For BMG, however, Masuch sees no need for action. “Our repertoire is needed. We'll take a look at it. "

More: Tencent is negotiating with the Vivendi group to take over ten percent of the shares in Universal Music. It would be a billion dollar deal.

[marketingnewspress]

Repeat Offender Permanently Banned from Telemarketing Selling Business Programs

A scammer, who boasted that consumers could earn a six-figure income if they purchased and used his $10,000 “asset protection service” business program, is banned for life from telemarketing and from selling any type of business program in the future.

The Federal Trade Commission previously charged that the scam artist falsely claimed consumers would make a substantial income, and that he failed to disclose that his company’s “references” were paid to give favorable reviews. An FTC order entered in 1997 barred those deceptive practices, but the scammer has violated the order by using the same deceptive business practices in his most recent scheme. In addition, he failed to disclose significant facts to consumers, especially his time spent in federal prison for money laundering and wire fraud - a violation of the FTC order.

marketingnews, based in Las Vegas, Nevada, his business partner, , and their firm, Asset Protection Group, Inc, told consumers with no sales experience that by purchasing their “APG Program” they would become well-paid business consultants selling APG’s “asset protection” services. For $9,800, consumers received training materials, a one-day training session, and a business affiliation with APG, which defendants claimed would provide consumers with carefully-screened “qualified prospective clients.” Consumers were supposed to make money by selling APG’s asset protection services to clients who wanted financial privacy and wanted to make their assets less obvious to potential litigants or creditors. These services involved guidance on forming Nevada corporations and creating offshore corporations. The defendants promised consumers that they would readily make a six-figure income; the company even provided references that consumers could call who would back up their claims.

In fact, consumers paid thousands of dollars for cold call lists, rather than pre-screened clients. Not only were they unable to achieve six-figure incomes, according to the receiver appointed to oversee the business, approximately 94 percent of the consultants failed to earn back their initial purchase fee for the program. Only one person ever earned a six-figure income, while hundreds of consumers lost money. The company’s references were, in fact, paid to deliver positive reviews of their experience. In addition, the 1997 order required that marketingnews provide written proof to the FTC of a $100,000 performance bond to the Commission before marketing any program, which he failed to do while continuing to market his business opportunity program.

The judge entered a second permanent injunction against marketingnews, which permanently bans him from advertising, marketing, promoting, offering for sale, selling, or otherwise inducing participation in any program and bans him from telemarketing.