From the blog: Stats & Strats

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Branding in the Internet age - The Case of the Cheerios Ad

Cheerios, a family-friendly brand usually more wholesome than controversial, sparked a national debate over family, race, and advertising this spring. An advertisement featuring an earnest mom, a concerned kid, and a confused dad might seem pretty inoffensive. But the dad was black, the mom was white, and the kid was biracial -- and that made all the difference. The company posted the ad on YouTube, where racists disparaged the clip so badly that cereal executives made the rare move of asking the video site to turn off the comments section. Haters lambasted the clip for showing a mixed marriage, in...

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Older Employees in the Workplace

Older workers might be viewed as having one foot in retirement, but in today’s economy senior citizens are working longer – and can provide business-enhancing skills that younger, less experienced employees cannot. In our series examining non-traditional work arrangements, we looked at telecommuting and job-sharing options. But it’s not just what your employees do, but who they are, that can break the boundaries of what is typically viewed as “traditional” work arrangements – and help your company break into a higher level of service. Studies show that older workers tend to take twice as long to find new employment as...

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Social Media Alert: Are you excited about being able to tag brands on Instagram?

Instagram added a new Facebook-like tagging feature on Thursday that could give brands higher visibility on the youth-oriented photo-based platform. Called "Photos of You," the feature allows any Instagram user to tag any other Instagram account in their photos. This means that the Instagram accounts of businesses and products can tag regular users. So if, for example, H&M were to tag Beyoncé, she could choose to add the photo to her stream, exposing the ad to her 3.6 million followers. Beyoncé (and everyone else) can curate the photos tagged with her name, choosing which to showcase on her profile. Instagram...