#there's just so many options for approaching a match and using units creatively

[gruelproponent]

Been revisiting Kane's Wrath and it actually holds up pretty well 👍

[ishkah]

On The Far-Left, Effective Activism & Violence

Introduction to what it means to be on the far-left

So first off, as socialists & anarchists, we know we are far outside the Overton window. We know even if left-wing policy positions are more popular than right-wing, most people are still going to be biased to what they’ve grown up with and what’s familiar to them.

But, we also know we can shift the Overton window from the radical fringe: [1]

The most important thing about the Overton window, however, is that it can be shifted to the left or the right, with the once merely “acceptable” becoming “popular” or even imminent policy, and formerly “unthinkable” positions becoming the open position of a partisan base. The challenge for activists and advocates is to move the window in the direction of their preferred outcomes, so their desired outcome moves closer and closer to “common sense.”

There are two ways to do this: the long, hard way and the short, easy way. The long, hard way is to continue making your actual case persistently and persuasively until your position becomes more politically mainstream, whether it be due to the strength of your rhetoric or a long-term shift in societal values. By contrast, the short, easy way is to amplify and echo the voices of those who take a position a few notches more radical than what you really want.

For example, if what you actually want is a public health care option in the United States, coordinate with and promote those pushing for single-payer, universal health care. If the single-payer approach constitutes the “acceptable left” flank of the discourse, then the public option looks, by comparison, like the conservative option it was once considered back when it was first proposed by Orrin Hatch in 1994.

This is Negotiating 101.

So our hope is that our ideals and passion can be admired by some, like risking prison to sabotage the draft for Vietnam, so some peoples sons aren't conscripted into fighting an evil war. [2] Then any moderate left policies might look reasonable in comparison which makes them the tried and tested policies of the future.

We should also openly acknowledge that the ideal future we would like to see is empirically extremely unlikely to come about in our own lifetimes in the west, as there are still so many hills to climb first in pressuring workplaces over to a more co-operative flattened hierarchy of workplace democracy.

To quickly summarise, the direction the far-left would like to head in, is going from; a two party system, to... a multi-party coalition through preferential voting, to... some local government positions being elected by sortition, to… the majority of society being so content with worker-co-ops and syndicalist unions that we transition from representative democracy to direct democracy. So, a chamber of ministers to federated spokes councils.

Now I might be the minority in the far-left on this, but I would want people to have the option of going back a step if people aren't ready for that level of direct democracy, where the choice is disorganization and suffering or slightly less suffering under a repressive system of governance again. You could relate this to the position Rosa Luxemburg was in in lending support and hoping some good would come of the Spartacist uprising, whilst also wishing they could have been convinced to hold off until they were more prepared.

This is why it’s so important to build the governance model slowly enough to match expertise, so as not to falter with people pushing for ideals before having adequately put them to the test. So as not to cause a whiplash effect, where people desire a reactionary politics of conformity, under more rigid hierarchy of just the few.

-

As anarchists & socialists who desire a more directly democratic society, what tactics should we use if we want to be effective at moving society in that direction?

Electoral politics - We need to get really well educated on how even the baby step policies toward the left would be an improvement on where we are now, we need to learn the internal politicking of government and get good at having friendly arguments with comedy to appeal to friends and acquaintances basic intuitions.

The goal being that we can talk the latest news and (1) Win over conservatives to obvious empirically better policies on the left, and (2) Win over liberals when centre-left parties are in power to feel dismayed at the slow pace of change, and so acknowlege how much better it would be if there was a market socialist in the position willing to rally people to demonstrate and strike to push through bills.

Mutual aid – We should put the time into helping our neighbours and volunteering, for example on a food not bombs stall, to get people to see the positive benefits of a communalist caring society.

Theory – We should be educating ourselves and helping others know what work and rent union to join, what to keep a record of at work, how to defend yourself from rapists and fascists, how to crack a squat and how to write a press release, etc.

Campaigning – We should look for the easiest squeeze points to rack up small wins, like the picketing of a cafe to reclaim lost wages, so that word spreads and it creates a domino effect.

-

What tactics should we or shouldn’t we generally avoid in our political campaigns?

Civility as an end in itself

They’re not lies, they’re “falsehoods”; it’s not racism, it’s “racially charged comments”; it’s not torture, it’s “enhanced interrogation.” For years, U.S. media has prioritized, above all else, norms and civility.

Mean words or questioning motives are signs of declining civility and the subject of much lament from our media class. However, op-eds explicitly advocating war, invasion, sanctions, sabotage, bombing and occupation or cutting vital programs and lifelines for the poor are just the cost of doing business. What’s rhetorically out of bounds - and what isn’t - is far more a product of power than any objective sense of "civility" or “decency.”

Where did these so-called norms come from, who do they benefit, and why is their maintenance–-even in the face of overt white nationalism––still the highest priority for many liberals and centrists in U.S. media? [3]

This is so important to challenge, and yet incredibly nuanced. So, it is obviously a great success that the rate at which people would go around hurling racist insults looks to have dropped in favour of more political correctness.

It is also true that in pursuit of political correctness and an ethic of care, we can look for simplistic niceness, to the detriment of being able to identify systems of oppression.  We need to be able to refuse the emotional labor of treating our bosses as friends when we have no desire to be friends with them. [4]

Similarly in our everyday interactions, we need to encourage our friends to accept us for who we are or not to accept us at all, so as to create deeper connections which builds stronger communities: [5]

It can be annoying or hurtful when others presume they know everything about you. But rather than assert their wrongness and make them defensive, you can acknowledge it as a common human failing and find creative ways to hold a mirror up to what life experiences they’ve had that lead them to jump to those conclusions.

One way is a kind of playful authenticity, telling a lie about a lie, to get back closer to the truth. So don’t outright challenge the idea, but don’t live up to it either, in fact live down to it. Playfully undermine the idea by failing to live up to the glamour of what it would mean to be that person, then find a way of revealing that it was a misunderstanding all along, so they needn’t worry about it applying to you.

Media Chasing – We shouldn’t chose our actions for the primary purpose of provoking conversations because it is insincere to ones own desires to materially affect change and it’s recognised as such by those who hear about it.

Transparency – We should be transparent with our supporters in all we hope to achieve and how successful we are being at achieving that task, so as not to attract funds for labor we haven’t and aren’t likely to be able to do.

Civil Disobedience – Whether it be breaking the law without causing any damage or economic sabotage and political violence which we’ll talk about later, anarchists hope to chose the right actions to provoke conversations and materially challenge unethical industries and actors, so as to push electoral politics towards direct democracy and eventually consolidate our gains in a revolution.

Fascists will also use tactics from civil disobedience to political violence, and tend toward violence against people for people holding ideas as the things they hate, rather than the lefts systemic critique of material conditions. All in the hopes of pushing society towards a more authoritarian constitutional republic, before seizing power in a palace coup and attempting to rule as a sequence of dictators for life.

It is up to the left to try and counter this violence by doxxing, making their rallies miserable, etc. And it is up to everyone to decide which government to vote in, to enact what degree of punishment to bring down on people breaking the law on either side.

Any direction the society goes in for either not controlling or bowing to which protesters demands is still the moral culpability of the government and those who participated in the party political process.

There simply is an obvious legal and moral difference between for example victimless civil disobedience on the left aimed at all people being treated equally in society like collecting salt from the sea or staying seated on the bus, to the type of violence you see on the right, like Israeli settlers throwing people off their land with arson attacks, stealing another country’s resources against international law.

But again, it is true that to whatever degree anarchists chose bad targets optically, we do to some degree bring the slow pace of change on ourselves by handing the right an advocacy win.

Graffiti & Culture Jamming – Whether it be an artistic masterpiece that no one asked for or altering a billboard to say something funny and political, instead of the advert that was there before pressuring you to consume more and more, most people can be won over by this as a good form of advocacy. Just don’t practice tagging your name a million times over every building in town.

Hacking – Obviously most people agree whistle-blowing war crimes is a yay. Selectively releasing documents to help conservatives win elections however, is a nay.

Sabotage – We should chose targets which have caused people the most amount of misery, for which people can sympathise most, like the sabotaging of draft cards I wrote about at the beginning. So causing economic damage to affect material conditions and make a statement.

We also need to carefully consider the difference between property which is personal, luxury, private, government owned and co-operatively worker owned.

So, it could be seen as ethical to chose material targets of evil actors in order to cause economic damage and make a statement, so long as in the case of personal property, the item has no sentimental value and can be replaced because the person is wealthy. Or is a luxury item that was paid for through the exploitation of others labor. Or is private property, meaning the means of production which should be owned collectively anyway.

It’s an expression of wanting to find an outlet for legitimate anger against that which causes us suffering. For example, if taking the risk to slash slaughterhouse trucks’ tires in the dead of night is how you develop stronger bonds with a group of people and gain the confidence to do amazing things like travel the world and learn from other liberation struggles.

Fighting – First off, I think propaganda by the deed, physically hurting people for the purpose of making a political statement is evil, as it runs counter to our philosophy on the left that material conditions create the person and so we should make every peaceful effort to rehabilitate people.

However, to the extent that some current institutions fail to rehabilitate people and the process of seeking justice through these institutions can cause more trauma, then personal violence to get to resolve feelings of helplessness in the face of evil acts can be an ethical act.

For example survivor-led vigilantism: [4]

“I wanted revenge. I wanted to make him feel as out of control, scared and vulnerable as he had made me feel. There is no safety really after a sexual assault, but there can be consequences.” -Angustia Celeste, “Safety is an Illusion: Reflections on Accountability”

Two situations in which prominent anarchist men were confronted and attacked by groups of women in New York and Santa Cruz made waves in anarchist circles in 2010. The debates that unfolded across our scenes in response to the actions revealed a widespread sense of frustration with existing methods of addressing sexual assault in anarchist scenes. Physical confrontation isn’t a new strategy; it was one of the ways survivors responded to their abusers before community accountability discourse became widespread in anarchist circles. As accountability strategies developed, many rejected physical confrontation because it hadn’t worked to stop rape or keep people safe. The trend of survivor-led vigilantism accompanied by communiqués critiquing accountability process models reflects the powerlessness and desperation felt by survivors, who are searching for alternatives in the face of the futility of the other available options.

However, survivor-led vigilantism can be a valid response to sexual assault regardless of the existence of alternatives. One doesn’t need to feel powerless or sense the futility of other options to take decisive physical action against one’s abuser. This approach offers several advantages. For one, in stark contrast to many accountability processes, it sets realistic goals and succeeds at them. It can feel more empowering and fulfilling than a long, frequently triggering, overly abstract process. Women can use confrontations to build collective power towards other concerted anti-patriarchal action. Physical confrontation sends an unambiguous message that sexual assault is unacceptable. If sexual violence imprints patriarchy on the bodies of women, taking revenge embodies female resistance.

Other examples we can think of are personally desiring to fight fascists in the street to block them from marching through immigrant communities. To pushing your way through huntsman to save a fox from getting mauled to death by dogs.

-

Political killing

I’ll work through hypotheticals from circumstances relevant to the past, present and future, then talk through the ethics of each.

-

Past possibilities

Most people agree anyone who took it upon themselves to assassinate Hitler a day before the break out of WW2 would be seen as committing an ethical act, no matter who follows, because throwing a wrench into the cult of personality spell built around Hitler would be a significant set back for the fascist state’s grip over the people. And given all the evidence pointing to the inevitability of war, such an act could easily be seen as a necessary pre-emptive act.

-

Present possibilities

Most can sympathise with quick revolutions against dictatorships where the result is a freer society, like the Kurdish uprising in Northern Syria which took power from a regime who had rolled tanks on demonstrators and outlawed teaching of their native language.

But, even there, there are key foundations you need to work from, like the probability you won’t just give an excuse for the oppressor committing even worse horrors as was the case with the Rohingya militants who ambushed a police checkpoint, resulting in army & citizen campaign to burn down many villages, plus murder and rape those that couldn’t get away.

As well as a responsibility to put down arms after winning political freedoms and a majority are in favour of diplomacy through electoral politics, like in Northern Ireland today.

Under representative parliamentary systems, the sentiment of most is that even if it could be argued that a war of terror against the ruling class was the easiest route to produce a better society, that it would still be ethically wrong to be the person who takes another’s life just because it’s the easiest way. Since regardless of manufactured consent or anything else you still could have worked to build a coalition to overcome those obstacles and change the system slowly from within.

And I agree, it would be an act of self-harm to treat life with such disregard when you could have been that same deluded person shrouded in the justificatory trappings of society treating your behaviour normally. I don’t think the way we win today is treating a cold bureaucratic system with equally cold disregard in whose life we had the resources to be able to intimidate this week. Time on earth is the greatest gift people have, to make mistakes and learn from them.

So then, an easy statement to make on life under representative parliamentary systems is; outside of absurdly unrealistic hypotheticals, I could never condone purposefully killing others when campaigning against such monoliths as state and corporate repression today.

Breaking that down though; what do I mean by an unrealistic hypothetical? For example the philosophical thought experiment called the trolley problem, where you have a runaway trolley hurtling towards 5 people tied to a track, and you can pull a leaver so the train changes tracks and only kills 1 person tied to a track. Or you can change it to 7 billion to 1 even. Or 7 billion of your average citizens vs. 1 million unethical politicians, police and bosses, to make it political.

Now what do I mean by purposeful, well we can think of for example the most extreme cases of post-partum psychosis which has mothers killing their babies. But more nuanced than that, the rape victim who gets worn down by their abuser for years until they have a psychological break and kill.

That does still leave a lot of lee way for people knowingly taking risks with others lives, not intending to kill, but who are reckless in their actions, such as with some forms of economic sabotage. And I agree such a reckless act would bring up feelings of revulsion for all kinds of reasons like questioning whether the person was really doing it to help people or for their own ego-aggrandizement. All that can be hoped is a person makes a careful accounting of their ability for human error and weighs it against the outcomes of doing nothing.

-

Future possibilities

We can hypothesise the unrealistic case of 99% of society desiring a referendum on a shift from parliamentary representative system to a federated spokes council system and the MPs dragging their feet, the same way both parties gerrymander the boundaries to make it easier to win despite it being the one issue most everyone agrees is bad, and people needing to storm the halls of power to force a vote to happen.

More likely though, an opportunity for revolution might arise from such a confluence of events as climate refugees and worker gains forcing the state and corporations into trying to crack down on freedoms in order to preserve their power and enough people resisting that move, who are then able take power and usher in radical policy change, with either the army deciding to stand down or splitting into factions.

-

References

1. Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution - Use your radical fringe to shift the Overton window P. 215.

2. The Camden 28 - The Camden 28 were a group of Catholic left anti-Vietnam War activists who in 1971 planned and executed a raid on a Camden, New Jersey draft board. The raid resulted in a high-profile criminal trial of the activists that was seen by many as a referendum on the Vietnam War and as an example of jury nullification.

3. Citations Needed Podcast - Civility Politics

4. Slavoj Žižek: Political Correctness is a More Dangerous Form of Totalitarianism | Big Think

5. A Love Letter To Failing Upward

6. Accounting for Ourselves - Breaking the Impasse Around Assault and Abuse in Anarchist Scenes.

-

[brand-strategy-consulting-blog]

26 Greatest Advertising Brand Strategy Consulting Services

We use increased brand consciousness to help draw prospects to your model by way of low or no price strategies. A U.S. alcohol beverage firm in the United States wished to enhance its comparatively weak place in the premium house of the market. To analyse the actual progress potential, we segmented key portfolio priorities and gaps. Maximising shareholder worth means selecting a course of action that has the most intrinsic value brand strategy consulting services. 

We help purchasers enhance their shareholder value by setting objectives primarily based on perception and foresight concerning the fundamental sources and drivers of worth. We then establish and buildcapabilitiesat the enterprise level and throughout enterprise models that may drive sustainable development over the lengthy run.

The Hackett Group® is a leading global strategy and operations consulting agency, with particular experience in performance benchmarking and enterprise course of reengineering . For corporations desirous to optimize their service delivery models, we offer deep experience in brand strategy consulting services  organizational design and in business course of outsourcing options together with HR outsourcing, IT outsourcing and extra. Our cash move evaluation services have helped shoppers to release billions of dollars in improved money move. The most trusted marketing consulting firm in India helps purchasers achieve profitable progress via strategic marketing, branding and digital advertising innovation.

When buyers go searching and see awkwardly brand strategy consulting services splayed arms in all places, they have nowhere to gravitate. Select two major traits or capabilities of your business and mix them. You could possibly declare that you are the chief on the intersection of these two things. The very first thing many companies do is develop their elevator pitch — that quick description of your agency that answers the question, “What does your firm do?

We work with the enterprises in the financial services business to implement workforce methods that help them source expertise with the talents they need so they can remain innovative and aggressive. MOBIS Resources is a community of SAP specialists providing consulting companies for SAP merchandise and options and ERP software program utilized throughout the enterprise. We expertly vet and match premium talent to enterprise shopper tasks. Find consulting alternatives — onsite and remote consulting jobs.

Your M&A strategy should be a logical extension of your development technique, and must be primarily based on a disciplined and repeatable mannequin that helps frequent, ever bigger offers. We assist CFOs and finance leaders boost shareholder returns, grasp capital markets, construct superior end-to-end M&A capabilities, and more. Your new product, service & experience from an outside-in perspective. Our strategy-first, customer-first & digital-first view on the New Model for Building Brands has transformed businesses and moved people all over the world. There are a number of answers to this question, relying on the type of service business that is into account.

That can be Lee, our managing partner, who suits up in a pair of cowboy boots every day and drives technique and analysis for our clients. With a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology, Lee is a former researcher and tenured professor at Virginia Tech, where he grew to become a nationwide authority on organizational habits administration and marketing. He left academia to start up and run three high-growth firms, including an $80 million runaway success story. You might announce a brand new brand in the center of an hour – however actual results take time. Your brand might want to work within the marketplace organically and throughout many channels, which is to say that people will have to encounter it via your website, social media, and their common experience of you. Here’s a easy truth of life in administration consulting – every firm creates a model.

Once it achieves a measurement that makes regional and/or nationwide advertising economically possible, a service enterprise can use promoting as a aggressive weapon to construct and maintain market share. Simpson’s ads for Hertz are an apparent example, but other firms corresponding to Orkin, John Hancock, and FinanceAmerica also use advertising effectively. Smaller companies merely do not have the capital required to mount a competitive promoting marketing campaign. Berma & Co is a gaggle of skilled progress entrepreneurs who've experience validating and scaling 7 determine + brands. For the last three years, they’ve combined their expertise to help deliver exceptional companies to fast-growing startups and fortune 500 firms. Their capacity to concentrate on proving early traction, produce clear outcomes, and generate advertising ROI, separates them from different consulting firms.

Deliver The Model Identity

“We help CEOs succeed” is an example of role-focused positioning — focusing on a particular operate in the group. Instead of specializing in a specific business or service, you goal a cohort of individuals. These buyers will understand you as more tuned in to their wants and anticipate that you simply supply particular information or expertise that may make their job easier.

Learn in regards to the self employed benefits for small enterprise homeowners together with retirement, medical well being insurance, life insurance, errors and omission insurance, employees compensation and more. MBO is at all times looking forward to where the independent market is moving, discovering new methods that can assist you get additional, quicker. Technological advances are pushed by group composition, agility, executional and operational bandwidth. Therefore, hiring is essential to maintaining pace with rapid advances in innovation.

We assist develop a powerful model promise so that customers choose the corporate beyond the product.

Platform Thinking drives creativity that thrives in today’s customer-driven and always-on advertising panorama.A brand’s function, its positioning and its id must be created together with your Interaction Field in mind.

He left academia to begin up and run three high-growth firms, including an $80 million runaway success story.

A good brand strategist is someone who can imagine the company’s future state and knows the means to make the most of enterprise branding to reach it efficiently.

In people-based service businesses, the acquisition is more risky as a result of individuals and their skills are the most important purchase merchandise.

We help develop a robust model promise so that clients choose the company beyond the product. We also help the creation of consumer demand for the product as an alternative of pushing merchandise via sales channels. Having a differentiated model technique just isn't sufficient to maintain up long-term sustainability. To make a brand stronger than ever and to maintain sustainable brand values, corporations have to build up a well-defined model management construction as well. In this model audit stage, we also conduct a full evaluation of the present situation of your brand id, clarifying how it might be altered to higher align with goals transferring forward.

It usually involves interviews with present purchasers, prospects and referral sources. It also contains an evaluation of your competitors — what they're saying about themselves and the way your audience perceives them. This is a popular and sometimes efficient method to position knowledgeable providers agency. It is one other form of specialized experience, and it lets you tightly focus your marketing and evolve your services as your market adjustments. The implication of trade specialization is that your firm has deep expertise working with comparable companies. If your business experiences financial decline, your fortunes may comply with.

In reality, management consulting companies tend to spend the next share of revenue on advertising than corporations in other skilled services industries, like accounting and AEC. Since you’re usually promoting expertise and recommendation, it’s important that you just help your audiences understand precisely what sort of advice and experience you supply. Our online id consultants have years of expertise working with a broad variety of shoppers in numerous fields.

The predominant mental image about “the way issues work” in business is a product-based picture. This picture results in a product-oriented language, and the language in flip constrains communication in such a means that one can not develop actually revolutionary approaches to managing the service enterprise. Consulting to help with the optimization and implementation of name growth methods.

• Like Go Compare, they will break things that must be broken. Saying so, they may continually re-think strategies and worth propositions to maintain your brand relevant. (Especially now since conventional approaches to "development and innovation" are turning incumbents into laggards). Ultimately, all seven of those branding ideas work collectively and reinforce one another for amassed effects – visibility and growth. Through strategic and deliberate branding, you'll be able to assist your agency stand apart and get ahead. Every single one of these advertising channels needs to befundamentallyaligned with your branding concepts.

Our Branding Case Studies

As the healthcare industry expands, they're shifting to implement contingent workforce programs that increase their reach and provide sustainable growth. We help these efforts through workforce management packages that provide the seamless integration of skilled independents into their ecosystem. We fuse an analytical strategy with creativity to grow stronger manufacturers and businesses. Lush's branding strategy is simple and genuine, precisely why the corporate has an enormous brand following.

Virtually all product-oriented corporations have some form of research and growth effort that's responsible for designing and testing new merchandise and/or modifications to present products. The R&D task in service-oriented firms is totally different as a outcome of it is complicated by the shortage of a physical product. A service, especially in people-based businesses, could be a little bit different every time it is rendered.

They are made attainable by the reality that the production, distribution, and sale of the product may be uncoupled, usually being achieved by different firms. The conventional picture of the service enterprise is that the service is “invariably and undeviatingly private, as something performed by people for other people.”2 This perspective is erroneous. Automatic automobile washes, automated banking services, and pc time-sharing are simply three of the many examples of service companies in which the service is supplied by automated gear.

To provide you with concepts that make you go whoopee, the strategist will research your brand, study what your idea is and what you would possibly be offering in terms of worth to your customers. As part of the job, strategists will also keep an eagle's eye on the competitors. They will observe competitors, examine brands just like yours, have a glance at their communication and maybe the strategic approaches to position your brand to become THE BRAND.

This often entails conducting surveys, together with competitor analysis to understand the voids in the market that your brand can fill. Get methods, ideas, and instruments for growing your firm’s model with Hinge’sBrand Building Guide for Professional Services Firms. Finally, you'll use your positioning statement as inspiration for headlines and persuasive language on your website and in advertising collateral. To learn more about uncovering your differentiators, try our free Differentiation Guide for Professional Services Firms. Also, I recommend you learn this weblog post on aggressive differentiation.

The complete process of creating such providers deals with ideas rather than bodily objects. The testing course of varies depending on whether or not the service is equipment-based or people-based, but in both case it's tough to do check marketing or different kinds of market analysis on the model new service. Customers should be enticed into experiencing the service, and this usually requires major marketing efforts. Thus the worth of introducing a successful new service may be fairly high as a result of it is difficult to predict what service concepts might be understandable and engaging to the shopper. Probably less is understood about the usage of price as a strategic weapon in service companies than about any of the opposite strategic variables.

The finest logos actually look compelling, they’re aesthetically pleasing, and they’re memorable. They shouldn’t be overly advanced and must be simple to decipher visually. But more than all of this, one of the best logos speak to the brand itself. One essential component to that is the artwork and science that both go into logo design. Your emblem is more than your name, it says one thing about who you're, and it represents you when folks come into contact with it.

Establishing your self as athought leaderis one of the effective marketing instruments for impartial contractors. Blogging via your individual web site or via a channel corresponding to LinkedIn is a creative outlet that permits you to share your experience and attain an viewers you may not join with through traditional advertising strategies. Speaking opportunities are one other method to promote your name and voice. Reach out to skilled organizations, conferences, and local media and provide to share your expertise. Looking to grow your business by way of new merchandise and services?

[boratanical]

graphics guide

a guide filled with basic info, tips, and answers to common questions that i hope helps people who want to start making graphics

*this was made based on my experiences of making graphics and is what i thought was important to cover but everyone has different ways and approaches so dont feel the need to follow everything on here

what is a graphic?

a graphic (also known as ‘gfx’) is a image edit that incorporates various elements (textures, filters, text, etc) in order to visualize a idea or to create a aesthetic composition 

unlike making gifs, there is no right or proper way to make a graphic so dont get too caught up in the idea that a graphic should look a certain way - just stick with your style and what you think looks good 

anatomy

image/subject

usually the main focus of the whole graphic

you should always try to use a sharp hd picture - getting it from the original source is always the best option 

make sure the source of the picture allows editing - pictures from public sources like a company or the news can be edited while fansite pics and scans need to have permission asked (and if they give you permission make sure you link them when you post your graphic!)

coloring 

often referred as ‘psd’ because that is the format they are in (i.e. pink psd pack)

comprise of multiple layers that can alter the images look 

a lot of people make their own colorings since the outcome of the look also depends on the image’s original coloring 

textures

smaller cut out images that are often used to decorate the graphic

can also refer to a image that can be use as a background of a graphic

can be found in the form of a png (copy + paste into graphic) or a brush (”painted” on to the graphic) 

avoid using any textures that does not state the original poster made them - you could unintentionally be using someone’s work that was not made to be used [read more about it here + resources that you can actually use]

text

text can be used to tell information or just for decoration

try to choose fonts and colors that are legible

faq 

what software can i use to make graphics

most people use some version of photoshop (i currently use photoshop cc 2018) and a lot people have it cracked but if you cant afford photoshop, find a cracked version or a patcher (i used adobe zii 3.0.4 for mac), or are uncomfortable with getting a cracked version then there are other softwares that are just as good!

i can only vouch for gimp since i used it when i first started making gfxs. it is very similar to photoshop and shares most of the same tools and has a similar look to photoshop. it is also probably the most popular photoshop alternative and would totally recommend it if you cant get photoshop!

[visit + download gimp here]

where do you get your pictures from

official sources such as teasers companies release, photos released by press, photos from idol’s instagram - basically photos that are made for the public to see are whats best to use for a gfx. you should download the photos straight from the source so you get it at its highest quality 

some phrases you can use to search for pictures on google: - [group name] photoshoot - [idol name] press  - [group name] showcase  - [idol name] teaser

remember the more specific you are in your search the better! also when you search through google make sure you check your source!

avoid getting photos from reposting websites like we heart it and pinterest  avoid using fansite pictures and scans unless you are granted permission

i don’t know where to start/i’m overwhelmed and i don’t know what to do/ where should i begin

figure out what you want to make or a theme you want to follow - do you want to make a simple graphic or a infographic? do you want it to center around a certain theme like a comeback or a photoshoot? once you determine what you want to do it becomes easier getting ideas and finding stuff you will need for the gfx

example thought process: “i want to make a loona graphic” →  do you want it to be the whole group or a certain member or unit? will it just be a simple gfx or a AU gfx or based on a event that the group is doing? “i’ve decided on doing a kim lip one” → do you want it to have a certain theme like kim lip smiling or kim lip with blonde hair? is there a certain frame of time in which you want the graphic to represent like during eclipse era or hi high era?  “i want it to be from max and match era with her teasers” → from here you can start finding pictures to use and thinking of colors and textures that would fit your theme

where do you get ideas/inspiration from

i mean it’s different for everyone but for me i literally just think of stuff and i’m like wow i want to make that happen asdfsdfj but mostly when i see pictures or watch something thats where i suddenly get a idea 

but tumblr is full of graphic makers!!! ive seen so many amazing graphics from various fandoms like kpop, anime, marvel, etc. 

some amazing graphic editors i know myself include: primirene, ireone, nctjaemin, celo-mar, 1hyungseo, jeongahn, haechxnie, sonxiumin, syua, lulumelody, dinomite, lovelyeo, joohys, whatchatalkabout, yveu, maerinah, mihyon, lorbits, cherryjennie, thatporcelain, monoka, ifbin, 7ww

some other places you can look at are behance (dont go on behance if you have a cracked ver of ps - it might trigger a ingenue software alert that is a huge pain to deal with), pinterest, deviantart, dribble, and probably any social media platform if you just look up #graphicdesign

remember if you take inspiration from someone’s work then you should cite them in your caption - if you are afraid that you might’ve accidentally copied someone when you were trying to take inspiration from them its best to either try to remake the gfx again or just to ask the creator permission if its fine if certain details are similar/same

my stuff sucks how do i get better

literally just keep on making stuff aka practice. you can’t improve if you don’t bother putting effort. 

ways i’ve forced myself into practicing making gfxs is by: 1) starting a gfxs series - its self paced and is based on what you want to make (i.e. introducing my biases gfx series, my favorite outfits gfx series, etc) 2) taking in requests - people who would request from you probably like your stuff so its a win win situation (i.e. send me a idol + era, send me your bias + palette, send me a group and i’ll make a gfx of my fav member, etc)

tips

only sharpen your pictures after you are done resizing them, if you sharpen and then resize it might result in a more blurry or grainy picture 

always save your graphic every 5-10 mins in case photoshop crashes 

 have two copies of your image cutout: one will be the original and the other one will be the one you edit with - in case you mess up like over erasing or over sharpening your image you have a back up you can use

stick with a color palette so you don’t get overwhelmed when having to color everything and it makes all the graphic panels you have look more cohesive 

on photoshop you can favorite fonts!!! take advantage of it!!! your computer has a lot of fonts saved on it and it takes forever to look through a whole list of fonts so by favoring fonts you can see all of the fonts that you like to use for graphics

combine a png pack to one psd → when you open a png pack you will probably get a lot of png files and it gets annoying having a lot of tabs open in photoshop when most of them are just textures so by putting all of those pngs into one psd you can cut down the files you open and can easily see all of your options 

make folders dedicated to colorings and textures that way you can easily access them instead of looking through your computer for a certain file

name your layers... i dont do it because its easy for me to tell what layer is what but when you are working with a lot of layers its best just to name them it’ll make life easier

lock your main image/subject so that when you play with texts’ and textures’ location you don’t accidentally move your main image

use curves to help get a photo back to its original coloring! like if you have a photo that has a weird filter on it just use curves and it’ll help the picture look more natural! [tutorial]

try warping your text to make it stand out more! you can access it by pressing the icon on the top text bar that has a T with a curved line under it. i use flag and wave the most

alter a particular color by using a selective color layer

rather than changing the actual color of an image/texture you can: create new layer → select the image/texture and color it on the new layer instead of on top of the image/texture → change the opacity or the mode of the layer so that the color is put on the image/texture while keeping its detailing and not affecting the actual image/texture

resources

colorings: can be found on deviantart or tumblr just look up ‘psd coloring’ or ‘[color] psd’ 

textures: can be found on deviantart (check to see if its og content or stolen) simply just search what you are trying to find or ‘png pack’ or ‘texture pack’ common textures you can try to find: vintage flowers, memphis shapes, organic shapes, doodles other wesbites: pngtree, creative market, lost and taken, spoongraphics

fonts: if you are looking for a certain font then you can just do a google search but if you are browsing then dafont and font squirrel are really good websites too some of my favorite fonts: abril fatface, agfatumc, antonellie calligraphy, arcadeclassic, bebas neue, century gothic, couture, daily news 1915, dark larch, hondurhas, kotori rose, krinkles, risingstar, sant joan despi, studly, zing rust

color palettes: i made one myself which you can find here, color hunt, and honestly a quick google search will give you tons of options

if you have any questions, other stuff you want me to cover, or want to add more resources and tips then please dm or send an ask! i hope this helps!

[ojooostar-blog]

Three Easy Ways To Make More Money With AdSense

For many publishers, Google AdSense is a major source of revenue. But most don’t put a whole lot of thought into the details of this revenue source, taking a “set it and forget it” approach to display advertising.

Tweak #1: Set Your Text vs. Image Preference

There are two primary ad types that fall under the display advertising umbrella: 1) image / rich media ads and 2) text ads. The difference is pretty obvious, but below are a couple screenshots of these two ad types in action.

Within AdSense, you have the option to choose whether your ad units will display:

Text ads only

Image/rich media ads only

Text & image/rich media ads

In our experience, text-based ads will generate more clicks and therefore more revenue for your site than image ads. But of course each site is unique; for some, image ads may deliver the superior performance. So if you have any of your ad units set to “Image/Rich Media Only” there might be an opportunity to boost revenue by bringing text ads into the mix. (The trade-off is that text ads often look less “clean” and can lower the quality impression your site makes.)

The best approach is to give Google the most flexibility to optimize your earnings for you; let it serve both text and image ads, and you’ll get the highest performing ads regardless of appearance.

How To Get There: AdSense Home >> My Ads >> [Click on Ad Unit Name] >> Select “Ad type” Dropdown

Tweak #2: Experiment With Font & Colors

If you do include text ads in your display advertising efforts, you’ll want to spend some time experimenting with the color scheme you use. The default colors you set when you set up your account are just the beginning; you can (and should) experiment with countless settings for your ad appearance.

Each site is different; often, a color scheme that blends your ad units into the rest of the site will deliver the best results. But in many cases a sharp contrast–for example, red links on a site with a green color scheme–will result in a big jump in the CTR and earnings.

How To Get There: AdSense Home >> Ad Units >> [Click on Ad Unit Name] >> Find “Ad style” Field >> Select Desired Setting

Tweak #2a: Create Some Custom Layouts

Above we showed you the path to several options for your text ad appearance. But the options AdSense provides you with are really just the tip of the iceberg; with the custom settings option you have the ability to assemble endless variations on your ad unit. Specifically, you’ll have the ability to customize:

Border color

Link color

Background color

Text color

URL color

Font type

Font size

Corner styling

Again, experiment liberally here by including both combinations that you find visually appealing and others that offer more contrast while perhaps being less aesthetically pleasing. Simply changing color schemes is of course no guarantee to boost revenue, but if you experiment enough the odds are that you’ll come across a winning combination.

How To Get There: AdSense Home >> Ad Units >> [Click on Ad Unit Name] >> Find “Ad style” Field >> Click “Use custom settings” >> Experiment!

Tweak #3: Pick Your Targets

Google is always striving to serve ads on your site that are most likely to generate clicks and earn you (and them) revenue in the process. And it generally does a pretty good job of matching up ads with publisher websites.

But there are ways for you to help out by narrowing down the types of ads that can appear on your site.

As a rule of thumb, the greater the overlap between content (the original material on your site) and creative (the ads) the greater the CTR and the higher your earnings. So Google will generally serve ads for products and services that are at least tangentially related to the topic of your site. You can lend a hand in this process by telling Google to avoid certain types of ads that might be irrelevant (or undesirable for the image of your site).

How To Get There: AdSense Home >> Allow & block ads >> General Categories

Note that you can get incredibly detailed here, diving into the specific sub-categories. For example, within the Apparel category you can drill down to Jerseys and Knit Shirts:

If you get into this, be sure to keep an eye on a couple of extremely helpful stats that AdSense provides. Comparing the % Ad Impressions and % Earnings fields tells you a lot about what’s working: if the former (% Ad Impressions) is much smaller than the latter (% Earnings), those types of ads are performing very well.

There are a few variations of this process that might be productive as well:

Banning Specific Advertisers. By selecting “Advertiser URLs” you’ll have the option to make sure certain undesirable (or competitive) ads don’t show up on your site.

Banning “Sensitive” Categories. Be sure to check out the “Sensitive categories” option; this dashboard lets you approve or disable certain types of ads with which many publishers may be uncomfortable (for example, “get rich quick” ads or pharmaceutical ads).

[bagelpyjama19]

Apple Revenue Approach for Next Season

Apple is considered to be the most innovative business enterprise in the globe now. It is the company to which nearly all others search for direction. When Apple reveals an innovative new design language or launches a fresh product, it generates ripples throughout the market. Quickly, the entire industry is manufacturing items in Apple’s image. However to state Apple is merely a trend-setter undermines the business’s position as probably the figurehead of creativity in consumer technology. Apple isn’t simply setting technology tendencies; Apple’s vision models precedents and begins actions that allow the styles to exist in the first place. As great as it must feel to be Apple in this scenario - and as humbling since it must experience to be the many businesses copying Apple at every change - it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Most people can claw your way to the very best of a mountain, but there’s not a lot of stable ground up there. One incorrect step and your toppling back off the mountain, undoing years of the hard work needed to get up there. We do not want to discount Apple’s successes in 2018: Apple Pencil program for iPad was a good addition; iOS 12 has given new life to iPhones as aged as the 5S; Apple Watch Series 4 is literally conserving lives; and that’s simply a few highlights. Looking back again, though, 2018 was a pretty tough year for Apple as certain missteps finished up impacting the company’s important thing. Between Apple’s most questionable movements in 2018, there’s one I wanted to focus on for an essential purpose: Without second-generation iPhone SE in sight, it seems Apple has exited the spending budget flagship market. The fact is, I’ll consider it one step further: I am certain Apple would not be delivering any more budget iPhones, and here’s why. Apple’s product portfolio is usually varied. The company generates revenue from providers like iTunes and Apple Music to accessories like AirPods and the Magic Key pad, from home entertainment devices like Apple TV 4K to personal processing devices like the MacBook Pro. However product sales for the majority of these aren’t that impressive (though Apple’s profit margins absolutely are). It’s in fact the iPhone that accounts for the majority of Apple’s revenue. Since its debut in 2007, iPhone has pushed Apple’s earnings to such amazing heights that the business is just about the first trillion-dollar firm ever sold. With so much of Apple’s revenue riding on the game-changing gadget, you can wager there would be a significant drop in Apple’s revenue if people beginning buying less iPhones. And that is exactly what we are witnessing. Following a moderate fourth quarter, income for Q12019 - which, to be clear, is comprised of October, November, and December, encompassing the holiday shopping season - was lower than Apple originally expected. With the price of brand-new iPhones rising, revenue would’ve increased also if unit sales experienced only remained regular, but there have been fewer iPhone units sold during the period. The implication is normally that demand has waned, or it’s possible there wasn’t much demand for Apple’s expensive new iPhones to begin with. The initial hint of problems was in 2017, the entire year iPhone X premiered. At a starting cost 50 percent greater than the previous year’s baseline model, iPhone X unit product sales were reportedly flat although Apple’s income increased. Just how? Because even though Apple sold roughly the same number of units as the year before, the average cost of an iPhone had elevated. When you sell the same quantity of products but mark up the price, you still see a bump in product sales. Of course, it’s not only the iPhone that is gotten more expensive. Apple has elevated selling prices across virtually all of the enterprise’s stock portfolio. But with the iPhone driving profits, the implication can be this: Whenever iPhone product sales continue to be smooth or start to fall, Apple will need to keep raising the price of the iPhone each year to maintain year-over-year income gains. As you can plainly see, it’s not really a coincidence Apple has decided to stop reporting iPhone unit sales publicly. Also if 2017 was an outlier, the release of new iPhones in the fall is meant to give Apple a go of revenue adrenaline in the ultimate stretch out, enabling for a strong finish as the company crosses the fiscal finish line. But for the second calendar year in a row, that did not come up. Doesn’t it appear plausible, if not likely, that increasing the costs for fresh iPhones has led to lower demand? About a week ago, Apple CEO delivered a document to shareholders. You can read the letter for yourself on Apple’s website, but it warns investors that Apple’s 1Q2019 income will end up being $9 billion less than was originally projected. The letter mainly blames China’s industry for almost all the year-over-year iPhone income decline even while also indicating that individuals are still adapting to the extinction of carrier subsidies. In a recent interview Cook explained most of the same reasons to clarify lower-than-anticipated iPhone revenue. Besides slowed growth in developing marketplaces and having less subsidized prices through service providers, Cook suggested to iOS 12 and the $29 battery replacement plan seeing that having encouraged users to hold their current iPhones rather than looking for new ones. As you might remember, Apple started the battery alternative program in late 2017 in wish of hiding the smell of the battery hot debate, which had earned concerns of planned obsolescence. As outlined by Cook, many with older iPhones decided not to upgrade since they could get fresh batteries for inexpensive. This would remove the efficiency caps that Apple had imposed to them, repairing their iPhones with their former glory, specially when paired with iOS 12. In fact, Apple visited lengths to make sure that iOS 12 would make older iPhones faster, so Make is probably right in assuming the battery substitute program and iOS 12 factored into the weaker sales of 2018 iPhones. On the other hand, Cook declared that challenging trade relations between the US and China was ultimately the largest factor. China represents a ton of untapped sales prospect of Apple, so there’s most likely some truth compared to that, too. You can observe the full interview in the video below if you want to hear more of what Make must say about it. Meanwhile, critics and analysts have suggested poor iPhone sales certainly are a indication of market saturation; at this stage, most people who want an iPhone curently have one, and that’s a hard hurdle to overcome, specifically with customers stepping up less frequently. It is also truly feasible that Apple priced the 2018 iPhones out of the developing markets the business claims to be targeting. After all, if you reside in China and need it a new cell phone, will you buy an iPhone XS for $1,000 (¥6800) or even more, or are you going to get the most recent Vivo or Xiaomi Android mobile phone that’s manufactured locally and may do pretty much whatever iPhone XS can do at a portion of the price? Not surprisingly, Cook mainly sidestepped the topic of ballooning iPhone prices - a concern that we’ve noticed across most of Apple’s products for that matter - which has been one of the main criticisms of latest iPhones. Latest Price Increases Price increases for the iPhone used to end up being pretty rare. Actually, after carriers stopped providing subsidized prices on mobile phones, forcing us to start paying complete MSRP if we wanted to buy fresh iPhones, we could at least depend on a constant starting price from season to year. That starting price used to be $649. With the launch of iPhone 8 in 2017, it jumped to $699, a disappointing gain, but it wasn’t too surprising. It was only a $50 boost after generations of a constant price, so many people gave Apple a pass. And, also at the higher price, iPhone 8 seemed definitely inexpensive when compared to $999 price tag on the new iPhone X. However apparently, the price increase for iPhone 7 set a precedent because in 2018, the purchase price jumped again. Matching the increase from iPhone 7 to iPhone 8, the 2018 iPhone line-up started at $749 for iPhone XR. You would argue that iPhone XR is a much better device than iPhone 7 and justifies the extra $100, but value is subjective. Although some might say iPhone XR will probably be worth its $749 starting price, especially compared to Apple’s more high quality versions, many customers will fixate on how each new era of iPhone is more costly than the one before. And at this time, can you blame them? To create matters worse yet, as iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR were getting unveiled in stage during Apple’s fall 2018 event, iPhone SE was being discontinued. So not only are iPhones getting a lot more expensive, but Apple has now eliminated the only spending budget option we had. So if you’re looking to get a new iPhone in 2019, there’s not much choice anymore. Purchasers are effectively having to accept Apple’s higher beginning price in the lack of a true budget iPhone. Naturally, customers and critics as well are receiving more vocal in their calls for an iPhone SE successor. Significant Unexpected Value Apple revealed the iPhone SE , which stands for Particular Edition, in March 2016 in a special spring event. Both for customers and the industry most importantly, iPhone SE was a very un-Apple device for Apple to release. The iPhone 6 had just jumped in size and received a completely new design from the prior generation. Then iPhone SE was released, having a smaller, compact type with its design virtually indistinguishable from the previous-generation iPhone 5. Even more surprising was the actual fact that iPhone SE remarkably featured most of Apple’s up-to-date, flagship-level engineering regardless of the low starting price; for $399, you got the same custom made A9 processor as iPhone 6S in addition to a 12 MP camera with 4K video recording and a bigger electric battery. The fact is, the only significant short-cuts were the lack of 3D Touch and the use of first-generation TouchID instead of the faster second generation. But, again, taking into consideration its low starting cost (which ultimately settled to $349), the iPhone SE provided uncharacteristically great worth for a product made by Apple. The challenge was that iPhone SE did not become a top-selling iPhone. Throughout its life-span, its defining characteristic was that it provided an inexpensive point of entry to the iOS ecosystem though it eventually gained relatively of a cult following among certain Apple fans. Obviously, after iPhone SE had been the baseline of the iPhone lineup for a couple of years, consumers were ready for the obligatory refresh. While iPhone SE offered an excellent cost-to-performance rate in 2016, a refresh could bridge the efficiency gap that grew as iPhone SE’s A9 processor was succeeded and changed, first by the A10 Fusion chip in iPhone 7, then again by the A11 Bionic in the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X . Patiently Looking forward to Apple's Latest Product launches Affirmed, we heard through the grapevine that Apple was focusing on a new version of the spending budget iPhone. Details varied, however the iPhone SE successor - alleged to be named either iPhone SE 2 or iPhone X SE (with suffix and modifiers meticulously arranged)- seemed to have the same purpose as the original, which was to be a compact, low-cost iPhone offering great efficiency and most of the latest features. A lot of the difference surrounding the naming theme for the iPhone SE 2 was because of unclear accounts concerning whether the gadget will keep its iPhone 5-era style or whether it would embrace the new iPhone X visual. Some customers insisted (or possibly hoped?) iPhone SE 2 would appear to be an iPhone X from leading with a almost bezel-less, edge-to-edge screen. These accounts were mainly informed by supposed designs for screen protectors and cases; if reputable, the implication was that iPhone SE 2 could have a bezel-much less, notched display identical to iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. Of program, the notch would become among the defining features for 2018 mobile phones overall as its was imitated by almost every smartphone manufacturer after the iPhone X debuted in late 2017; nevertheless, for Apple’s purposes, the notch only exists to house biometric sensors for Apple’s proprietary FaceID. So the implication was that iPhone SE 2 would feature FaceID although the high cost of FaceID components managed to get an unlikely inclusion in any budget iPhone. Following these reports, renders were designed to show the way the device might look if it turned out to be real. Assuming the case designs and resulting renders had been accurate, iPhone SE 2 would’ve been a truly fascinating gadget, the lovechild of the bygone iPhone 5 and the more futuristic iPhone X. Provided Apple could keep production costs and, by extension, the MSRP straight down, iPhone SE 2 could’ve easily outsold the original iPhone SE, possibly learning to be a top seller just like the original iPhone SE never could. These weren’t just the pipe dreams of iPhone SE fans and anyone who wanted cheaper iPhones; reports from Apple’s personal suppliers all but verified programs for iPhone SE 2, giving estimates for possible production schedules and ship dates. In early August 2017, Wistron Corp. - a low-volume manufacturer located in Taiwan that Apple recruits when iPhone demand is definitely high - was working on expanding its creation base to accommodate a new compact Apple smartphone, which many presumed to become an updated iPhone SE. After that came a tentative ship day: In late November 2017, Economic Daily Information in Taiwan reported Apple had been eyeing a release time in the first half of 2018 for the iPhone SE 2, which would’ve been consistent with the spring release of the initial iPhone SE. January 2018 brought another report of iPhone SE 2 launching in 2018. Shortly thereafter, there is a rumor iPhone SE 2 would include a glass rear panel, suggesting the addition of the wireless charging capabilities that the iPhone has already established since 2017. Just simply because rumors pointed to Apple gearing up for the release of a next-generation iPhone SE, Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst with KGI Securities who is known for predicting Apple’s products with uncanny accuracy, planted one of the initial seeds of doubt. In late January 2018, Kuo reported iPhone SE 2 had hardly any chance of being released because Apple had exhausted its assets on the three flagship models to be released in 2018. Of training course, those three models finished up being iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR. However, rumors persisted - though at a slower pace - in spite of Kuo’s question. For instance, there have been specifications and other details of the iPhone SE 2 reported in April 2018. According to these leaks, Apple designed to keep production costs (and, by extension, the eventual retail price) down by omitting the 3.5mm headphone jack and using iPhone 7’s A10 Fusion chip instead of the A11 Bionic chip used in iPhone 8 and iPhone X. For all intents and reasons, the axe was decisively dropped in July 2018 as BlueFin Research told MacRumors that Apple had nixed all plans to proceed with iPhone SE 2. We’ll probably never find out for certain whether iPhone SE 2 was ever actually in the offing; however, even if it was planned originally, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever get an iPhone SE 2 at all. It’s been four a few months since the start of the 2018 iPhones, an event that coincided with iPhone SE being taken off Apple’s lineup, which, in and of itself, allegedly happened because Apple retired its A9 processor chip. So aside from Apple quickly unloading the last iPhone SE products at a discounted $249 price, which took only a day, iPhone SE is gone from Apple’s catalog, and anyone looking forward to a next-generation iPhone SE has little cause for hope. In the event that you ask me, the writing is on the wall: Apple won’t be building another budget iPhone. No More Budget iPhone? Spending budget smartphones, or smartphones that price roughly $300 or less, are pretty common today. In some instances, these budget devices present great value for your money. Some of the more recent notable for example the Moto G6 for $240, LG Stylo 4 for $250, Huawei Mate 20 Lite for $290, and, of course, the amazing Pocophone F1 for $299. For those who have a tad more to invest, you can find a used or refurbished Samsung Galaxy S8 for barely over $300. Or you may get the brand new Nokia 7.1, an Android One device with the design and nearly all of the features that top-shelf Android flagships possess for the bargain price of $350. I’m not sure where the term originated, but I completely agree: “Good cell phones are getting cheap, and cheap phones are getting good.” Of training course, you might’ve noticed that the smartphones mentioned previously are Android smartphones. What about iPhones? When carriers did aside with subsidizing smartphones, we had to begin paying full retail cost for new smartphones. Therefore Apple’s decision to create the iPhone SE was very timely: Instead of paying $649 or even more, you could buy an iPhone for under $400 without making a huge amount of compromises. Suddenly, people who preferred iOS to Android had their personal Pocophone. From September 2016 to its discontinuation in September 2018, iPhone SE was never a top-selling iPhones. Also at its peak, iPhone SE under no circumstances accounted for more than 11 percent of iPhone sales as the third-best-selling iPhone, and just by a slender margin. Meanwhile, both iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus almost tripled the product sales of iPhone SE during that period, accounting for 28.5 percent and 29.5 percent of iPhone sales, respectively. After September 2017, iPhone SE sales dropped substantially, remaining somewhere between 5.5 percent and 8 percent until the device was taken in fall 2018. Suppose you’re Tim Cook looking at these amounts. Everybody has been requesting a second-generation budget iPhone, but sales numbers present that when a lower-cost option is available, the majority of customers keep purchasing the more expensive iPhones. If customers are willing to pay even more for high-end iPhones, does it seem sensible to produce a cheaper device that, at best, no more than one in ten customers would be interested in buying? With some context, positioning the iPhone more as a luxury item starts to make sense. Like voting on a ballot, Apple’s customers have been casting their votes on higher-end iPhones, therefore we can’t really blame Apple for moving away from budget smartphones that don’t sell well. If you’re miffed about the loss of life of iPhone SE 2, there are, in fact, cheaper iPhones obtainable for people on a budget. But you’re not going to find them in shops. Current Market Conditions Apple gave customers the lower-cost iPhone they’d always been asking for, but most of them decided not to buy it. Therefore if you’re Apple, do you create a second generation knowing the first generation didn’t sell well, or perform you ditch the budget-iPhone idea altogether? It seems Apple find the latter. Nevertheless, it doesn’t take away from the fact that spending budget iPhones are already available, not forgetting plentiful. Specifically, I’m discussing used iPhones in the marketplace. The gray market identifies the buying and selling of used iPhones on the secondhand market. It’s comprised of the many people selling their used gadgets after upgrading, which essentially creates an unofficial marketplace of budget iPhones. Therefore those listings for iPhone 6S, iPhone 7, and iPhone 8 on eBay, the Amazon Marketplace, providers like Swappa, and yard-sale apps like LetGo will be the gray market for iPhones. Apple doesn’t need to invest in R&D, sourcing parts, production, and distribution for a budget iPhone because we already have access to all the discounted iPhones we could ever need in the secondhand marketplace. And each year when brand-new iPhones are released, millions even more iPhones will revitalize the secondhand market as users who upgrade to new iPhones sell their older ones. Plus, any post-2016 iPhone models in the gray market will have better specifications than iPhone SE, and some of these used iPhones will be cheaper than buying a new iPhone SE from Apple for $349. Put simply, Apple doesn’t need to sell a budget iPhone because the current-generation iPhones purchased at full retail cost today become budget iPhones as consumers use them and eventually sell them to on the gray market when they upgrade. And even more devices are shown on the gray marketplace every day, in order long as Apple is offering smartphones, the gray marketplace is a renewable resource for budget iPhones. Of program, the gray marketplace isn’t the only way to get an iPhone on the cheap. Depending about how you consider it, Apple actually offers new budget iPhone options each year. With the official unveiling of new iPhones each year, the MSRP of every preceding generation still in creation is decreased. For instance, when iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X were announced in nov 2017, iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus became previous-generation products, which warranted cost cuts. The iPhone SE was still in production when iPhone 7 got its lessen price, if you wanted a new iPhone but didn’t want to spend $699 or even more for iPhone 8 or iPhone X, you could choose iPhone SE from $349, iPhone 6S from $449, or iPhone 7 from $549. Though $349 isn’t specifically chump transformation, it’s certainly even more palatable than iPhone X’s thousand-dollar starting cost. With iPhone SE discontinued, the least expensive iPhone available is iPhone 7 for $449, meaning the cheapest iPhone available today is $100 a lot more than last year. To be fair, iPhone 7 was an excellent device at launch, and it’s still a compelling option today, especially for the price. Though it had been divisive as Apple’s initial iPhone without the apparently requisite 3.5mm headphone jack, iPhone 7 is in any other case a full-presented flagship. But if you’re searching for a fresh iPhone on a spending budget, which would you rather purchase: a 2016 iPhone for $449 or an iPhone SE 2 with the latest A12 Bionic processor chip for $100 less? Regarding iPhone SE 2 not materializing, maybe understanding what could’ve been is normally what makes this thus disappointing for some. Even though the data suggests a limited audience for budget iPhones, there will always be situations where a low-cost iPhone with current-generation efficiency hits the sweet spot. Where Should Apple Go From Here? It’s an enjoyable experience to be a lover of tech, particularly cell tech as budget and mid-range flagships are slaying in the Android smartphone market. Though priced greater than a $349 iPhone, the OnePlus 6T is certainly a primary example of how to offer flagship-level specs, design, and efficiency at a lower life expectancy cost. For better or worse, Apple seems to have evacuated the budget smartphone sector after just one single attempt. Granted, Apple hasn't really catered to budget-minded consumers with almost all the company’s equipment starting at $1,000 or even more and a shrinking amount of products, like iPods and iPads, priced lower than that. That is why it was so unusual for Apple to produce a budget iPhone to begin with. The problem is that it appears Apple is currently trying to close a door that probably the business never should’ve opened to begin with. In the end, when you’re offering this inexpensive iPhone on the lineup, all the flagship iPhones appear that much more expensive by comparison. Whether there’s a new iPhone SE in the future, the prices mounted on Apple’s items are climbing. In many markets, Apple is coming dangerously near to pricing the iPhone as well as the majority of Apple’s other products out of reach. For customers who can’t (or don’t need to) pay out such exorbitant prices, the actual fact that Apple offered inexpensive options during the past but no longer offers those options now will undoubtedly leave a bad taste in people’s mouths, almost like biting into a rotten apple. Honestly, I am hoping I’m wrong about this, but if Apple really wants to curb the decline in iPhone demand and for product sales to resume an upward trajectory, one of two things will have to happen, and sooner rather than later. Apple needs to either lower the margins on iPhones to create them more affordable (or even just less costly), or there needs to be a fresh budget option so consumers in least have the illusion of preference. Because as the numbers show, most buyers go for the premium iPhones in any case, but if Apple puts a budget model on the table, at least they won’t feel like they’re being forced to pay the ever-growing Apple tax. Apple’s current pricing structure gives consumers only high- and higher-priced models to pick from. But it seems buyers are beginning to understand there’s still an added option, which can be to save themselves the difficulty, and possibly some buyer’s remorse, by not buying brand-new iPhones at all.

[letsnurtureca]

Digital Marketing Company in Truro, Nova Scotia

Digital media is the strength of the early stages and marketing by digital platforms is a best and economical way to touch out to this crucial component of society. Now a day’s social media has passed away the dominion of merely the youth and infiltrated to every segment of society.

Search Engine Optimization is necessary to progress for any business on certain days. A powerful SEO Consultant in Truro, Nova Scotia can render you a managed activity plan for your website & increase your website rankings orders. Usually ranked as one of the top digital marketing companies and SEO companies in Truro Nova Scotia, Let’s Nurture has the best SEO specialists.

We at Let’s Nurture are specialists in Digital Marketing and we can accomplish a campaign according to your demand! We have various digital marketing bundles depending on your requirement. We will recommend to you the most appropriate digital marketing services to reach the highest outcome on your online market. We also give professional service with many options/packages on Search Engine Optimization or Social Media Marketing for your website!

What You Get?

Concentrating on this, our strategists follow all digital principles of online marketing. From SEO-friendly website design, to search engine marketing, paid marketing, email marketing, and social media marketing facilities, we offer an extensive range of online promotional services to our consumers.

Search Engine Optimization

Social Media Marketing and Management

Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Data-driven and custom strategy

Higher Traffic, Higher Sales

Targeted Content Writing & Exclusive Graphics Designs.

Why Choose Us For Your Digital Marketing In Nova Scotia?

Would you like to shape a brand that is more than just online? Let’s Nurture can help with our united campaigns. A prominent Nova Scotia digital marketing agency, they are dedicated to delivering effective tactics that drive results for their customers’ businesses. Using innovative expertise and creative solutions to create a bond among them & their target audience through integrated campaigns.

We are the answer to all of your branding requirements. We create an online existence and integrated campaigns that will help you stand out from opponents and streamline communication between subdivisions for maximum productivity.

We’re artistic and think outside the box. With years of experience shaping modern yet timeless stories, help us make your exclusive product or service shine by letting our creativity guide you through this procedure! Each project is custom-made for each client so that they can give them their utmost gratification with a stunningly told story from start to finish.

With so many people trying to take benefit of social media opportunities, it’s time for you and your business to maximize.

The global marketplace is progressively competitive, but this doesn’t mean you can give up on your rivalry. Don’t let anyone else take what is yours! Whether an innovative website design or an SEO campaign, we have an artistic and expert team of web designers and SEO specialists who can help you with everything. The best way to make sure that no one has an advantage over them? Hire us!

We’re waiting to hear from you, so please get in touch with us at +1 902 620 9098, and let’s find out how our service area can help you in your business.

HOW WE CAN HELP

We evaluate your current Online Presence.

We create a Tactic based on your specific Business objectives.

We will generate great content and/or edit your current content, to upsurge your online presence on Google.

Our service will match you up with clients searching for exactly what you offer.

We level the live field for minor businesses to contest with larger companies.

INBOUND SERVICES

Stop fighting for your client’s attention and start building confidence from your customers by generating content designed to resolve a problem and need that they are facing.

ATTRACT

Ads, Video, Blogging, Social Media, Content Approach

ENGAGE

Leads Flows, Email Marketing

DELIGHT

Smart Content, Email Marketing, Surveys, Reporting, Marketing Automation

We also provide SEO Consulting Services Simply put, SEO Advisors are usually brought into a project to resolve a variety of problems such as loss of ranking, traffic loss, conversion questions, and technical problems. If you believe your SEO Strategy would profit from our proficiency, simply call us at +1 902 620 9098 or schedule a free consultation.