#this is what people mean when they complain about the site being America-centric

[aussie-bookworm]

Im not normally bitchy so allow me a moment of bitchiness.

If I get one more message about how my poll is bad because I don’t have a “Show results” option, I’m going to start biting and start sending anons with links to the Wikipedia page on skewness

[hardboiledfollower]

We gotta talk...

So, I kinda debated making this post. But, I think that I’m just gonna say it. Tumblr has a “xenophobia” problem.

I say that to mean two things: 1. People here rarely talk about subtle xenophobia and/or tend to accidentally dismiss it as “not as bad as other forms of oppression” and 2. People here have a tendency to actually be subtly xenophobic, mostly by accident, when talk about “immigrant demographics” as a whole; groups that people associate with immigration, Latin, Asian, etc.

So what do I mean? Well, here’s a few things that I’ve seen on here.*

Non-Americans try to explain their experiences with “racism” (really xenophobia, they’re using the wrong term) and be haughtily told that what they’ve experienced is xenophobia (which is true but don’t have an attitude about it) and them keep being punched down. Why do I think this xenophobic? Because, by being so rude and dismissive about it, you’re making the implication that xenophobia is not as important as racism or whatever they got confused with and the person experiencing it should sit down and shut up.

Non-American complain that Tumblr, the web in general, political attention, anything is so American-centric and their issues are never addressed because of that. Only to be haughtily told that they have no right to complain because this is an American site or whatever so they should sit down and shut up and not complain so much (do you see a pattern here?) Why is this xenophobic? Because people forget that the sites they complain about; Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, etc. are also used by people from all our the world and are in different languages. They are not just “American”. We could go to our “own sites” but we wouldn’t Reach out to so many different people if we did. You wouldn’t say the same thing if it was something like TikToc.

Venezuelans talk about their awful experiences living in Venezuela to spread awareness only to be told that there are some ultra rich conservative from Florida. Or told that there not really Venezuelan because why would they be typing in such good English. Or be Americansplained why America is really the ones at fault and how Maudro is just some poor victim who was fairly elected and not a human rights abuser and dictator who’s been rigging elections in Hugo Chavez’s favor (until he died) since 2005. That they should sit down, shut up and let us educated Americans stand up for them against the big, bad American invasion that is totally happening. I really don’t think I should explain why this is grossly xenophobic. It’s incredibly white savior-y (even the guy doing it isn’t white), incredibly ignorant of global politics, American-centric, is clearly just using a foreign country’s struggle for American political gains (because I’ve not seen an of y’all talk about Venezuela’s struggles after it went out of style)

People automatically assuming that just because you’re from not American or painting a entire different culture or religion as some sort of ignorant conservative or racist or homophobic or sexist, etc. Why is this xenophobic? Because, obviously, not everyone from a specific culture is like that. Because you are associating an entire people with an awful thing; something that they are also the victims of. Implying that we are ignorant foreigners who need to be enlightened by the more cultured westerners. Just because most Latin Americans cultures have racist pasts and elements don’t mean that all Latin people are not aware of this and don’t try to fight against it. You shouldn’t be waiting for somebody to slip up; just assuming the worse of them because you think the worse of their people and culture.

This is probably the most frustrating but it piggybacks off my last point. Which is Americans using the same xenophobic talking points that actual bigots use against a group when talking about important issues. I.E. talking about chronic anti-blackness in the Latin community ( a very, very important talking point that I agree with and should be talked about more honestly ) but bringing up violent MS-13 gangs and complaining that we’re moving into their neighborhoods. Or saying we need more Latin representation in movies but saying that this one doesn’t count because she’s lightly olive-skinned and dose not show off her culture enough so she’s “white”. Or saying that we don’t have our own social movements and are lazy and wait for others to create them for us.

Why is this xenophobic? Because they’re using the same rhetoric against us. Latins are not taking over your jobs and bringing violence. They’re taking over our neighborhoods and ignore their violent gangs that terrorize us; ignoring that we are very aware of these gangs because they mostly target other latins. Not all latins look the same. But they better in movies and they better be flaunting it constantly because how will I know that they’re Latin; even though her actress is Latina and acts using an accent and no other characters is told to flaunt their culture 24/7 for it to count. Latins aren’t lazy and mooching. Except they are because they steal our ideas. Ignoring things like the Chicano movement of the 60s, Ceasar Chavez, Filipino activist; Larry Itliong and the Delano grape strikes, the immigrant rights movement of the past few decades, #undocumented and unafraid. Ignoring that we do fight for ourselves, that’s it kinda hard to unite a community made of various and completely different countries and cultures, that we might have different priorities as a community at the moment, etc.

My point isn’t to punish people or make you feel bad. It’s to make you aware. So that people can learn to be better. So that true internationally can be possible. So that xenophobia is more well known. Because it’s not just cartoon bigotry. It’s not just complaining about illegals and locking kids in cages and building a wall and demanding someone speak English. It’s silencing immigrants and non-Americans. It’s assuming the worse of us and making assumptions. It’s saying that mean “you’re from a bad culture. I shouldn’t trust you.” And I know the people who say these things care sabot our causes. That they want to help. But, this is not the way to do it.

* Note: Most of the issues I’ve talked about concerned the Latin American community for one reason. I’m Latin American and I don’t feel comfortable talking about how this affects other cultures because I’m not exactly sure how this affect every single culture. Still, please note that this does affect other groups as a whole.

[kacydeneen]

'Yelp for Sex': Review Boards That Rate Women Flourish After Crackdown on Ad Sites

On review boards for commercial sex, buyers denigrate the women they rate and spin fantasies about sex acts. They use forums on the sites to warn one another about anti-trafficking busts and to answer each other’s questions about the “hobby.”

“We now live in 'Yelp' for sex,” said Lt. Christopher Sharpe, who leads the New York City Police Department’s citywide human trafficking case team.

NY Bill Introduced That Would Broadly Legalize Sex Work

Rarely do these men wonder aloud about whether the woman or girl they're reviewing is a consensual sex worker or coerced, despite evidence that at least some of the providers are victims of sex trafficking. Nor do they seem to consider the humanity of the other person, who is often boiled down to her physical attributes and objectified. 

In one post, a buyer applauded a “great pump and dump.” In another, a reviewer complained that a woman just laid there, avoiding eye contact, and he couldn't stay aroused. 

Hobby boards, as they're often called, have become integral to the U.S. sex trade in recent years, following an awareness campaign and subsequent crackdown on other types of sites where women used to advertise their services. Trafficking task forces rely on the boards for enforcement activities. And for some of the women who depend on commercial sex for income and who have nowhere else to go, the sites are a resource to find clients — despite being havens for misogynistic content. 

On the boards, women are compared to beaten down dogs and free-range chickens, their breast sizes among a list of physical descriptors available to the public.

“You can pretty much do or say anything as a client, and because you’re a man and you’re looking for a prostitute, it’s okay,” said Laura LeMoon, a sex worker and sex workers’ rights activist based in Seattle. 

The Internet has long been a marketplace for the sex trade, where now defunct websites such as Backpage and Craigslist personals were demonized as hotbeds for illegal activity, including human trafficking. Hobby boards aren't new either — one of the most infamous boards, which is no longer accessible in the United States, launched 20 years ago.   

“You could rate a woman before you could rate a restaurant,” said Rob Spectre, an anti-trafficking expert and founder and CEO of childsafe.ai, a software startup that combats human trafficking. “As a consequence, this part of the Internet is one of the most mature online ecosystems that exists.”

In 2018, Backpage was seized by the government after the company was widely blamed for facilitating sex trafficking. That same year, Craigslist shut down its personals section when Congress passed a new law that could hold websites responsible for hosting illegal activities, including sex trafficking. 

Since those popular sites shuttered, hobby boards have emerged as a greater hub for buyers, and in turn, for trafficking, according to Spectre. 

“This is where the entire demand is going to shift," he said. "There’s never going to be another Backpage. It’s never gonna look like that. It’s gonna look like this."

Unlike with Backpage or Craigslist, review boards' moderators are “highly unlikely” to cooperate with law enforcement, said Kim Mehlman-Orozco, a human trafficking expert witness and author of "Hidden in Plain Sight: America's Slaves of the New Millennium." Many of the review boards are run overseas and less known than Backpage and its peers were, which means there's less social pressure to shut them down, she added.  

The platforms are relatively anonymous, but most of the reviewers, who refer to themselves as hobbyists or mongers, are presumed to be men. The providers they’re reviewing tend to work as cisgender women, with transgender sex workers less welcome on many of the forums.

The power dynamics at play make these boards misogynistic by definition, Spectre said. On a thread about what to text a girl, for example, one member called women a demeaning slur and jumped straight to asking how much a specific sex act would cost. 

“There’s an anonymity which they have, and that anonymity gives them a false sense of bravado,” said Sharpe. “They feel quite comfortable talking about anything.”

Different boards enjoy regional popularity, and how women are treated depends on the site and its administrators. Chuck, a buyer who started looking at boards around 2012 and asked to use only his first name because he’s admitting to criminal activity, said some of the sites don't give women a chance to respond to what's being said about them.

In fact, one of the most popular boards creates profiles for providers without permission, said a sex worker based out of Orlando, who goes by Sasha Benjamin.

“Unless you look yourself up, you won’t even know,” Benjamin said. “And they don’t ask for permission. They literally just steal your information from wherever they’re getting it from and they make you a profile.”

NBC has chosen not to name the boards to avoid driving traffic to them, as many of the sites are not yet widely known. They pop up on search engines, and much of the information they contain — such as contacts, prices and descriptions for a provider — is available to all visitors.

“This isn’t dark web,” said Spectre. “This is all public, surface, Googleable Internet. All available without login. You don’t even have to sign up for an account. You can see a lot — certainly everything you would need to transact.”

Boards tend to offer premium memberships that cost a fee. These days, Spectre said, operating a review board is likely more profitable than running an ad site.

“I don’t like that the site administrators are making hundreds of dollars per person,” said LeMoon. “I don’t like the general idea of a Yelp for sex workers. We’re not commodities, we’re not objects. That’s just icky to me.”

It's impossible to know how many people listed on the boards are consenting sex workers or who is being trafficked, said the NYPD's Sharpe. That’s partly because the buyer-oriented community is unlikely to question how a girl or woman entered the sex trade; they’re just exchanging information about which providers are hot and malleable, said Taina Bien-Aimé, executive director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women.

“We can say with quantitative confidence the buyers do not care about the consensual or non-consensual status of the provider,” said Spectre. He warned that reviews in commercial sex are inevitable right now, including for trafficking victims. 

Police and researchers rely on the sites as a tool, looking for signs of potential sex trafficking victims. The NYPD has two officers who are dedicated to undercover operations, including monitoring hobby boards.

“We can use a small amount of resources to move into a very big market and make a very big difference very quickly,” said Sharpe. 

When Mehlman-Orozco was working on her book, "Hidden in Plain Sight," she saw a post on one of the boards about a woman with an apparent developmental disability whose description sounded like a trafficking case. Mehlman-Orozco alerted police, who found the victim and freed her.

“My kids were asleep. I’m in suburban Virginia lounging around writing my book from bed (on) my laptop, and I was able to catalyze a rescue,” she said.

Meanwhile, disdain for buyer-centric review boards runs rampant among consenting sex workers. They say the level of entitlement is higher among hobbyists, which can lead to dangerous situations.

Angela, a sex worker and social justice advocate based in Vancouver, Canada, who asked NBC only to identify her nickname, said manipulative clients can come from anywhere — but there are more of them on boards. She does not advertise on them and refuses to see clients from them.

“I don’t want to be graded on my performance. It’s really degrading, I think,” Angela said. “I’m not a piece of meat, I’m a human being. Right?”

When Benjamin has read reviews written about her on some of the sites, she said she has felt “like a sex doll." On one of the boards, she believes reviewers “do not consider escorts humans.”

“They rate women as if they were dishes in a restaurant,” echoed Bien-Aimé, the anti-trafficking activist.

Maggie McNeill, a sex worker, activist and author who goes by her stage name, said that reviewers are trying to concoct an exciting story or fantasy, not an accurate appraisal. The sex worker they review then has to explain to clients that she doesn’t provide a service, even if her reviews say she does.

“We interview a lot of the johns that we end up picking up, and they’re looking in certain cases to buy a date because the things that they cannot do at home they think they’re going to be able to do with this individual,” said Sharpe. “That might be [to] assault them, or some perverse type of sexual act.”

Leveraging the boards’ buyer-run economy, clients will sometimes threaten negative reviews as punishment after their propositions are denied, sex workers said. When Benjamin received an offer from a former political candidate, she took issue with some of his requests and declined the meeting. He became hostile, she said, so she went on social media to warn the sex work community that she felt he could be dangerous.

He tweeted that she was “a malevolent shrew” and threatened to write a negative review about her on what was the most popular board at the time.

“I panicked,” Benjamin said.

Despite all the negatives, some sex workers say they or their colleagues have to advertise on boards because there are fewer alternatives for them now. “What the review boards are doing is basically capitalizing on people’s desperation,” said LeMoon.

When Backpage and other ad sites vanished, many sex workers who relied on the online marketplace lost their main platforms for earning income. Women were funneled into more dangerous situations, such as working on the street or with pimps, and reported facing physical violence, including rape, at the hands of their clients. Partially because of this urgency, the sex workers' rights movement has gained traction in the U.S., attracting political support and culminating in state bills to decriminalize sex work (although Nevada remains the only state where prostitution is legal in some parts). 

“At the end of the day, as long as this activity is criminalized and treated as a criminal behavior, we’re going to have to operate at a substandard way,” said Vee Chattie, a sex worker who goes by her performance name and uses the pronoun “they.” “That’s just the facts." 

Chattie advertised on Backpage before it was seized and now posts ads on hobby boards.

“When there’s less places to advertise, that just means that you get less work and less money to live on,” they said. “Which means that a lot of people take more risks.”

Photo Credit: Nina Lin, Yuqing Liu/NBC This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. 'Yelp for Sex': Review Boards That Rate Women Flourish After Crackdown on Ad Sites published first on Miami News

[dorothydelgadillo]

Facebook's Worst Outage Ever Reminds Businesses of the Risks and Rewards of Social Media Marketing

Wednesday, March 13, started like any other Wednesday.

We had our team meeting until 10:00 am CST and then I finished uploading my video podcast, The IMPACT Show, to Facebook.

My list of tasks to knock out today included updating our company Facebook page, setting up a contest in our community which members could enter using Facebook, setting up the Facebook page for our annual event, checking our Facebook ads and any engagement on them, and posting some new content to Facebook and Instagram.

You’re probably sensing a trend here -- all of these things included Facebook.

That’s why, when I realized Facebook was down, again, my day came to a screeching halt.

At first, I didn’t panic. I refreshed a few times, checked my connection, the usual stuff. Eventually, I consulted our team Slack channel and, sure enough, I wasn’t the only one experiencing this outage.

IMPACT's breaking news Slack channel

I checked downdetector.com and saw the red spots popping up around the world and the reports pouring in by the second.

Outage reports via downdetector.com

Yup, it was happening again.

Facebook was down along with Instagram and WhatsApp, which are both owned by Facebook.

Sure enough, I couldn’t see or share anything on Instagram. I couldn’t post or engage with posts on Facebook as myself or as IMPACT. I couldn’t access our page notifications via the browser, Facebook app, or Pages Manager app.

Since Facebook has had multiple outages in the past few months, I wasn’t exactly surprised and figured it wouldn’t last long. (Spoiler: I was wrong.)

The Timeline and Impact of Facebook’s Massive Global Outage

At 12:49 pm CST Facebook tweeted that they were aware of the situation and were working to resolve the situation.

We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing the Facebook family of apps. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

— Facebook (@facebook) March 13, 2019

Considering their lack of updates during their last few outages, I was at least pleased to see something from them even if it was on Twitter and not an official status page (that came later).

At 2:03 pm CST they followed up with more information...sort of. They confirmed it was not caused by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack which is “a malicious attempt to disrupt normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic.”

We're focused on working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, but can confirm that the issue is not related to a DDoS attack.

— Facebook (@facebook) March 13, 2019

However, the vague responses and lack of other updates have left many users skeptical.

“Facebook [has] flat out denied that their outage could be caused by a distributed denial of service attack but I’m yet to be convinced – especially given their very vague explanations,” said Edward Whittingham -- a former police officer and qualified solicitor, who is now the MD of The Defence Works, in an article by Forbes.

Whatever the cause, hours went by and we still had no answers -- and no service.

At this point, my patience was growing thin and many social media marketers with clients were flat out panicking. As any good social media marketer would, I went to Twitter to voice my discontent and see what others had to say about the situation.

me attempting to do my very facebook-centric job when facebook is down... #facebookdown pic.twitter.com/YsHn5FXu3R

— Stephanie Baiocchi (@stephbaiocchi) March 13, 2019

Clearly, I was not the only one who felt the pain.

While users of the Facebook family of apps were growing more frustrated as time went on, businesses who rely on Facebook for advertising and to do business had even more cause for concern. Even I couldn’t do most of the work I intended to do, nor could I communicate with our community in IMPACT Elite.

my clients are like... uhh what do you mean they are just taking my money and burning it?

— Andrew Ernst (@AndrewErnst9) March 13, 2019

Just before midnight central time on Wednesday, Instagram posted that the platform was back up and running.

Anddddd... we're back. pic.twitter.com/5E8UdlcsPJ

— Instagram (@instagram) March 14, 2019

As I write this, it is now more than 24 hours since the outage and the Facebook family of apps are still having issues. Plus, I still haven’t made a dent in my to-do list.

Via developers.facebook.com

During previous Facebook outages, it was still fun and funny to watch GIF-filled, panicked reactions flow into the #Facebookdown feed on Twitter. But not anymore.

The Most Severe Outage in Facebook History

It turns out, this is the most severe outage in Facebook’s history.

“The last time Facebook had a disruption of this magnitude was in 2008, when the site had 150m users - compared to around 2.3bn monthly users today.” -- Dave Lee, North America technology reporter for BBC.com

This outage also affected Facebook’s internal business communication service, Facebook Workplace. This meant that large companies who use Facebook to communicate during the workday were unable to use the platform and had to turn to a different channel.

With an outage of this magnitude, people start to wonder if their personal data is safe. In fact, a criminal investigation is underway, looking into data deals between Facebook and some of the world’s largest tech companies. Ever since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, many are considering deleting their Facebook accounts completely.

What We Can Learn from Facebook’s Outage

Significant outages like this one are problematic for marketers who rely on Facebook’s platforms to do business. Whether you’re advertising on Facebook and Instagram, hosting a live stream on your company page, or engaging with your online community, massive service interruptions cause a lot of issues.

I spoke with Ali Parmelee, IMPACT’s facebook strategist, who said jokingly, “Thanks for the forced break to meditate, Facebook.”

But things weren’t funny for long. Ali went on to say “Full disclosure—it was not the ideal time for this to happen for many of our clients with big events, news, and promos going on. One client was on HBO Vice News, CBS Evening News, CNN, and more yesterday and I was getting frantic texts from them while they were on set waiting to film. They wanted to be posting to their social accounts but there was just nothing we could do.”

I asked her how she deals with these outages when so many clients are depending on Facebook. She said, “Unfortunately, this is going to happen in a digital world. Sometimes you just have to roll with it -- the show must go on! For us, we took it as a perfect opportunity to take the 'quiet time' to keep planning out Q2 to clients and build out strategies for new clients.”

So what’s a social media marketer to do? During the last major outage, Ali reminded us to make sure you have clear lines of communication to keep clients or key stakeholders in the loop when an issue occurs.

She also shared the importance of having a multi-channel approach so that if an issue does arise, you have other channels in place.

What to Do When You Can't Post Your Content

We host live broadcasts, like our Website Throwdowns, on Facebook quite often. Luckily, we didn’t have one today but many other social media marketers did. 

Same! We always go Facebook Live on Wednesday nights and now I’m worried we won’t be able to! 😬😬😬

— Lindsay (@lindsayhall5285) March 13, 2019

Now that I can actually see our company feed again, I see the social posts we had scheduled in HubSpot, our marketing automation system, did not publish to our page. I went into HubSpot and sure enough, our scheduled posts were in the “unsuccessful” folder. This means I’ll have to recreate these posts tomorrow.

For many social media managers who have hundreds of posts scheduled across multiple accounts, there will be a lot of catch up to do once everything is back up and running.

“I ended up having to work from 10:00 pm to 2:00 am to make up for all the planning and posting to get the social out,” said IMPACT’s Ali Parmelee.

And she wasn't alone.

Right there with you. I'm doing everything else on my task list atm to fill time...but that means a possibly late night tonight catching up on the FB stuff.

— Susan Poisson, Tech VA & OBM (@SupSvcMI) March 13, 2019

Finally, the big one -- our community. IMPACT Elite, our community of over 4,500 inbound professionals, lives on Facebook.

There are definitely risks to consider when you build something so vital to your business in a rented space. I’m currently working on a guide to creating online communities that will include a complete breakdown of the options for community building and what to consider.

The tl;dr of it is that for many organizations, IMPACT included, the benefits of being able to build a community on a free platform outweighs the risks. Building a custom-owned community would require a decent investment of resources and time.

When we started IMPACT Elite, we weren’t sure if a community would bring us and the members any value. We’ve since learned that it does but we had to start somewhere, right?

We also knew that the barrier to getting people into our community was pretty low on Facebook since most of our audience already spent a fair amount of time on the social network.

Some things we’ve done to bridge the gap between rented and owned space include encouraging our members to subscribe to our email newsletter, THE LATEST, and launching our advocate community, IMPACT Insiders.

The Customer Service Lesson from Facebook

The other lesson to be learned from Facebook’s outage is one in social customer care.

When something like this happens, people take to social media. It’s not not just to complain though. We’re also looking for answers.

Facebook does tend to update its users via Twitter when an outage occurs. Take this example from November of 2018:

Social platforms have become an amazing tool for customer service, allowing organizations to troubleshoot app issues, rebook canceled flights, and more without requiring users to wait on hold on the phone (ugh, the worst).

Social media is also an efficient communication tool for organizations to keep their followers updated when issues arise. The challenge is keeping your followers updated and responding to mounting concerns. During this outage, users began to speculate that the issues could be caused by hackers or a malicious attack of some sort and Facebook did update followers when they confirmed it was not a DDoS attack.

I've been hoping for a full update from Facebook like this one from their outage in 2010, but after more than 24 hours we got this wonderfully vague tweet:

Yesterday, as a result of a server configuration change, many people had trouble accessing our apps and services. We've now resolved the issues and our systems are recovering. We’re very sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate everyone’s patience.

— Facebook (@facebook) March 14, 2019

Is dealing with Facebook frustrating and risky? Sure. Is it worth it? You tell me.

In fact, now that Facebook is back up, you can tell me in IMPACT Elite! 

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/facebooks-worst-outage-ever-risks-and-rewards-of-social-media-marketing

[glenmenlow]

Cutting Too Deep Puts Brands At Risk

When price wars flare up, staying competitive sometimes means cutting costs. In these situations savvy brands will maintain quality and reduce quantity, as is sometimes seen in the food industry. For example Breyer’s Ice Cream reduced their carton size to compete without sacrificing ingredient quality. Some brands take the ill-advised route of reducing their quality, which becomes dangerous for a company like Alaska Airlines with a long-established reputation for customer service. 2017 wasn’t a great year for the airline industry in terms of customer service performance, and Alaska is not exempt. In addition to a decline in customer service, Alaska’s challenging merger with Virgin America and operational difficulties at subsidiary Horizon Air left many employees dissatisfied.

Let’s take a closer look.

A recent Seattle Times article sheds some light on what’s been happening that puts the brand at risk. Disgruntled pilots unhappy with management’s handling of contract negotiations last Fall are purposefully slowing Alaska’s traffic in minor but perceptible ways. The article continues, “in December, flight attendants rose up against the latest small cost-shaving measure that had been planned for January — taking away the free Biscoff cookies on flights leaving after 10 a.m., a move that would supposedly save $3 million per year.”

Apparently, employees dubbed this Cookiegate, and though the airline rescinded the measure after flight attendants complained it would upset passengers, the article shares that management insisted the cabin crew still try to save money by handing them out only if requested. As one flight attendant said, “Man, it’s a race to the bottom. I feel that we are devaluing our own product.”

Price Wars Aren’t Won By Weakening Your Strengths

When competition is on the rise and price wars are setting in, there’s real danger in gambling with brand value. Alaska’s merger with Virgin America allowed it to expand and link, becoming a dominant west coast network, preventing rival Jet Blue from doing the same. But Delta has also established a major presence in Alaska’s hometown of Seattle offering 53 routes out of Seattle that overlap with Alaska. And because they’re a major carrier, they can do things like introduce their premium transcontinental product, Delta One, on the Seattle-New York route as well as offer service on major international routes.

Mark Di Somma outlines 38 ways brands generate “badwill”, and it’s sad to see many of what Mark cites happening over at Alaska. But there’s hope. Despite the difficulties, CEO Brad Tilden says, “I’ve been with Alaska for nearly 27 years, and in virtually all of those years, we’ve been fighting for our future. The next few quarters might be tough, but I have no doubt that we will come out on top.” He also acknowledges the problems happening internally and writes, “It never feels right when the people part of our business is not running smoothly.”

Brands Are Built From The Inside-Out

Alaska provides a real-time case study of brand expansion intersecting with market volatility and mounting competition. While not every brand is expanding, nearly all brands have to cope with market volatility and competitive threats while providing shareholders with the best returns. Here’s what we can learn from this:

When your internal team isn’t happy, they can easily air their grievances with the rest of the world. There are no secrets anymore, but that’s not a negative. Being transparent with a plan of action and results regularly shared can help empower teams to move forward with the brand instead of against it.

Sometimes a powerful differentiator can be small. Alaska’s customers aren’t necessarily looking for the brand to be a major airline, or compete with lie-flat first class pods. They appreciate small, unique elements that distinguish Alaska from both the majors and the low-fare brands. Even fast food chain Chick-fil-A is differentiating by training workers to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

Make sure your leadership team is spending time ‘on the ground’ with the people who make up your brand and customers. The TV show Undercover Boss showed us how executives who may be distanced from their brands can learn a great deal by getting at their employees’ or customers’ level. To prove this works, look at Amazon. As part of a training session each year, Jeff Bezos asks thousands of Amazon managers, including himself, to attend two days of call-center training. The thinking is that it’s easier to understand customers when you actually listen to them. In general, too many brands delegate this kind of work to online surveys that pester site visitors and app users with incessant requests for feedback that’s never properly analyzed for insight.

The Blake Project Can Help: Please email us for more about our purpose, mission, vision and values and brand culture workshops.

Build A Human Centric Brand At Marketing’s Most Powerful Event: The Un-Conference: 360 Degrees of Brand Strategy for a Changing World, May 14-16, 2018 in San Diego, California. A fun, competitive-learning experience reserved for 50 marketing oriented leaders and professionals.

Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education

FREE Publications And Resources For Marketers

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2018/01/11/cutting-too-deep-puts-brands-at-risk/ via IFTTT

[markjsousa]

Cutting Too Deep Puts Brands At Risk

When price wars flare up, staying competitive sometimes means cutting costs. In these situations savvy brands will maintain quality and reduce quantity, as is sometimes seen in the food industry. For example Breyer’s Ice Cream reduced their carton size to compete without sacrificing ingredient quality. Some brands take the ill-advised route of reducing their quality, which becomes dangerous for a company like Alaska Airlines with a long-established reputation for customer service. 2017 wasn’t a great year for the airline industry in terms of customer service performance, and Alaska is not exempt. In addition to a decline in customer service, Alaska’s challenging merger with Virgin America and operational difficulties at subsidiary Horizon Air left many employees dissatisfied.

Let’s take a closer look.

A recent Seattle Times article sheds some light on what’s been happening that puts the brand at risk. Disgruntled pilots unhappy with management’s handling of contract negotiations last Fall are purposefully slowing Alaska’s traffic in minor but perceptible ways. The article continues, “in December, flight attendants rose up against the latest small cost-shaving measure that had been planned for January — taking away the free Biscoff cookies on flights leaving after 10 a.m., a move that would supposedly save $3 million per year.”

Apparently, employees dubbed this Cookiegate, and though the airline rescinded the measure after flight attendants complained it would upset passengers, the article shares that management insisted the cabin crew still try to save money by handing them out only if requested. As one flight attendant said, “Man, it’s a race to the bottom. I feel that we are devaluing our own product.”

Price Wars Aren’t Won By Weakening Your Strengths

When competition is on the rise and price wars are setting in, there’s real danger in gambling with brand value. Alaska’s merger with Virgin America allowed it to expand and link, becoming a dominant west coast network, preventing rival Jet Blue from doing the same. But Delta has also established a major presence in Alaska’s hometown of Seattle offering 53 routes out of Seattle that overlap with Alaska. And because they’re a major carrier, they can do things like introduce their premium transcontinental product, Delta One, on the Seattle-New York route as well as offer service on major international routes.

Mark Di Somma outlines 38 ways brands generate “badwill”, and it’s sad to see many of what Mark cites happening over at Alaska. But there’s hope. Despite the difficulties, CEO Brad Tilden says, “I’ve been with Alaska for nearly 27 years, and in virtually all of those years, we’ve been fighting for our future. The next few quarters might be tough, but I have no doubt that we will come out on top.” He also acknowledges the problems happening internally and writes, “It never feels right when the people part of our business is not running smoothly.”

Brands Are Built From The Inside-Out

Alaska provides a real-time case study of brand expansion intersecting with market volatility and mounting competition. While not every brand is expanding, nearly all brands have to cope with market volatility and competitive threats while providing shareholders with the best returns. Here’s what we can learn from this:

When your internal team isn’t happy, they can easily air their grievances with the rest of the world. There are no secrets anymore, but that’s not a negative. Being transparent with a plan of action and results regularly shared can help empower teams to move forward with the brand instead of against it.

Sometimes a powerful differentiator can be small. Alaska’s customers aren’t necessarily looking for the brand to be a major airline, or compete with lie-flat first class pods. They appreciate small, unique elements that distinguish Alaska from both the majors and the low-fare brands. Even fast food chain Chick-fil-A is differentiating by training workers to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.

Make sure your leadership team is spending time ‘on the ground’ with the people who make up your brand and customers. The TV show Undercover Boss showed us how executives who may be distanced from their brands can learn a great deal by getting at their employees’ or customers’ level. To prove this works, look at Amazon. As part of a training session each year, Jeff Bezos asks thousands of Amazon managers, including himself, to attend two days of call-center training. The thinking is that it’s easier to understand customers when you actually listen to them. In general, too many brands delegate this kind of work to online surveys that pester site visitors and app users with incessant requests for feedback that’s never properly analyzed for insight.

The Blake Project Can Help: Please email us for more about our purpose, mission, vision and values and brand culture workshops.

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