Refusing to Watch the 4 Leaked Episodes of Game of Thrones' Season 5

As of last night, the first four episodes of the new Game of Thrones season, nearly half of the ten total episodes, have been leaked online to various torrent sites. After appearing online yesterday afternoon, the episodes have already been downloaded almost 800,000 times. This is bad news for HBO, which is attempting to marry the recent debut of their HBO Now streaming service with season 5 of Game of Thrones. They are relying on the new season to push their $15 a month, standalone HBO Now service. HBO Now will allow people whom are not subscribed to HBO on their cable devices to have the chance to stream HBO shows and movies at a monthly cost. But now pirates who may have been considering making the switch to a legal means of consumption can now watch the first four episodes of the show right this moment, so it may negate their motivation to try out Now. How this happened isn’t a mystery. The press has had their hands on four episodes worth of press screeners for a while now, so someone that was trusted with those review materials clearly should not have been. CEO Jeff Bewkes stated, “Our experience is [piracy] leads to more penetration, more paying subs, more health for HBO, less reliance on having to do paid advertising… If you go around the world, I think you’re right, Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world. Well, you know, that’s better than an Emmy.”

For anyone who calls themselves a true fan, watching four episodes of the show right now and waiting a month for the others is an awful way to experience the show.  Game of Thrones is one of the last true “event” shows where it’s something you want to talk about Sunday night or Monday morning with friends and strangers alike. It’s a core part of the experience.

Next iOS Update Ends Emoji Racism

Well its about damn time. Last month Apple actually announced an update that might make a majority of its users happy. (Not that updates aren't good, but they're normally not that exciting). Well if you enjoy using emojis on your iPhone, then you may be happy to hear that 300 more have been added to the keyboard in iOS 8.3. The current set of emojis include an Asian man wearing a gua pi mao cap and an Indian man wearing a turban, but there are no black people represented. This will change when Apple devices are updated with iOS 8.3 because several of the tiny cartoon emojis will be available in six new skin tones.

Apple is also adding many more relationship- and gadget-related emojis. For example, same-sex relationship emojis like families with two mothers and two fathers will be added. Emojis for 32 more country flags will be added as well (maybe even rainbow flag to match the new couples). iOS 8.3 is available for developers now and should be released to the public within the next few months. 

This new update will be anticipated by millions of Apple users. However, I am still anticipating the day that Apple's emoji creators release more diverse food (i.e. tacos and bacon), the middle finger, a Bacardi bottle (hmmm, maybe brands could get involved in emoji marketing, i.e. Taco Bell, Red Bull, Starbucks, etc.), Beyonce wearing a crown, a Netflix emoji, a guitar, better looking clothing (this isn't the 60s), an all-nighter emoji, white wine (don't get me wrong, love red wine, sometimes the hangover is just too bad though), ginger emojis, a puking emoji, a cannabis leaf, and just more animals in general (because they are so awesome).

What are some emojis you would like to see? 

Can't Get No Satisfaction: Rolling Stones summer 2015 tour announcement delayed

About 2 weeks ago on March 13th, the Rolling Stones tweeted the hashtag #SatisfactionThursday. The same day billboards featuring the iconic Rolling Stones logo began popping up in cities all over North America. The only text on the billboards was a name of a song and underneath it "Thursday" or "#SatisfactionThursday". The last time the Stones used this marketing tactic a tour was announced that following week, and a performance was played in each one of the cities a billboard was placed in. Fans went crazy; the Stones haven't toured in North American in 3 years, and at their age no one knows what tour will be their final go around. This viral buzz marketing suggested a full tour announcement was coming soon that following Thursday, March 19. Among the strategically placed billboards, there was one placed in Atlanta. This is great news for Stones fans within the state and neighboring states, since the Stones have not come through Georgia in 9 years. 

During the last Stones tour in 2012, the average cost of a ticket went for around the small price of $600. Even though many Stones fans cannot afford to dish out this dough, including myself, it is still exciting to see if they might be making it through Atlanta this summer. Hmm graduation present? Maybe try to enter into a contest? Maybe try to third wheel it with mom and dad if they decide to go? My parents went to the last Atlanta show in 2006, but I was too young. I will not put it past myself to scheme my way with them this summer. 

Even though the odds are very high that I will not make it to a Stones show in my life, I waited patiently, along with thousands of other fans, last Thursday to see the final verdict. Nothing. Next day, nothing. There was delayed satisfaction. A Nashville TV station reported  "an issue with the nationwide promoter's ticketing" was the cause of the delay. Looks like fans won't be getting what they need for awhile.  

As a marketer I thought this was a great, simple way to get the buzz going. They did a great job teasing the fans with just enough information that they would start stalking the  Rolling Stones website and ticket companies. However, the delay of expected information was a mistake on their part. I don't care how big of a music conglomerate the band is, or how much ungodly amount of money they are worth, I consider this a very bad marketing flaw. Fans were lied to and left with no official statement or apology from the band or their management. To tease such a large market of consumers and loyal fans, it is extremely unprofessional for the Rolling Stones Records, their label, to leave their fans hanging. Additionally, there is no reassurance that the tour will ever officially be announced. 

6 Things I Learned Without Having a Cell Phone for a Week: Spring Break Edition

This past spring break I boarded the Explorer of the Seas cruise ship for a 5 day journey across the Caribbean with 900 other UGA students. I soon learned that running out of tequila would not be my only concern, immediately after boarding the ship I realized that I was going to have to experience what it would be like to not have any phone service or wifi for close to a week--basically no phone at all. Honestly, I do not know how our parents made it through the majority of their lives with only landlines. However, being without a phone for a week teaches you a lot about yourself and is somewhat of a breath of fresh air. 

Here are a few of my take-aways:

1. Travel with friends you really, really like. You will be spending a great deal of time during a cruise stuck as a group of people because no one wants to lose each other, or get left behind. And if someone is kinda picking at your nerves, there is no escape. Therefore, you will either all become closer or all hate each other. Fortunately, our group managed to depart from our whirl wind of a trip with only one broken mirror, thanks to the boys we decided to bring along. A few couples were in the group of friends we traveled with and they managed to make it out alive as well, so I guess a broken mirror is better than any broken hearts. At least money can fix one of the two. In the end, all of us did actually all end up closer than ever, and that gave me a comforting reassurance that I have chosen some great people to surround myself with. 

2. BOYS TAKE FOREVER TO GET READY. They always give girls so much crap for taking a long time, especially Brad Paisley during "Waiting on a Woman." I spent 18 years living with my younger brother, we are only two years apart. He would always take so long to get out of bed, get his stuff together, BS around, get dressed, etc, etc. Even though I have traveled with other guy friends every spring break since freshman year, this was the first spring break we were not just able to text the boys where we were for dinner or to meet up with us later. This year we had set dinner times every night and set excursion times two of the days. We had no way to communicate to them, so we would literally have to go physically check up on them and make sure they were awake/ bathed (note to self: don't have kids). You would have thought getting 4 boys to a dinner table on time was pulling teeth...us 4 girls had to tell them we were meeting at their room on the dot at 7:30pm in order for us to make it to our 8:30pm dinner (normally 20 minutes late). I swear, I don't know what boys do with their time, but ignorance can be bliss I supose. . 

3. Lack of social media can be refreshing. It was nice not to have to check pointless Facebook notifications of events I don't care to attend, or post the regular photo to Instagram to remind people I am alive, or even coming up with a caption for that matter. I don't Tweet, but I can imagine if I did, it would have been nice to go without hearing about the rest of the world's life for a few days. No bad news, no bragging, no fuss. 

4. Being social towards strangers is normal and we should all try it more often. Talk to someone new, meet a new friend, make the first move. Don't sit on your phone waiting for the world to approach you, if you choose that path, you'll be walking an empty road and the world will be far ahead. You may think the world is at your fingertips on your phone screen, but the world of people that actually matter will pass you by. 

5. No cell phones made people more polite. I don't know if exuberant politeness is normal on a cruise or if it was just a coincidence (this was my first cruise), but everyone was extremely polite on this trip. I have never experienced strangers being as polite, or seen my own friends even be as polite as they were on the boat. I really noticed these nice gestures when ordering food and drinks. I swear it must have been because all of our faces weren't buried in our phones worrying about worlds that were beyond our reach. We were able to live in the present, and focus on where we were at that moment, and the person serving us. It was quiet nice to see that we all have the ability to be functional, well-mannered, young adults. 

6. A fog was lifted. I was finally able to live in the moment and enjoy the ones around me, and the memories that we were making together. Most of us are graduating in May, and some of us don't know when we will get to spend more than a week together again, it might never happen. So on the cruise, with no phone, it was nice to have all my friends' undivided attention. We could all just live in the moment, with no distractions, and fully absorb each other's love and presence. 

School Lunches form Around the World

More than 1/3 of American children are obese or overweight, and that number continues to rise each year. Parents could model better eating habits and stock their fridges with fresh fruit and vegetables, but the best starter solution might begin at lunchtime. Sweetgreen, a healthy quick-serve restaurant that values local and organic ingredients, clarified disparity between American student lunches and those of other countries by photographing typical school lunches from around the world. The visuals are astounding. More than 32 million students daily are served a meal regulated by the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), as pictured below. The quality of these lunches must somehow correlate to the health of America's youth.

*Note: ketchup is considered a vegetable serving according to the NSLP, be aware that one quarter of a serving of regular Heinz ketchup is plain sugar. In no way shape of form should ketchup be allowed to pass as a vegetable to an already overweight nation. 

Now lets do some comparing, shown below are a wide variety of the typical school lunches served in various countries. These countries around the globe seem to be nourishing their students with fresher, greener and more nutrient-rich foods that are very much brain foods. 

American politics acknowledge that our nation's children should not go hungry, but there's less of an emphasis on what exactly our children are being fed. With the great risks associated with being overweight and news that diet may be just as important to mental health as it is to physical health, the state of students' nutrition should be all it takes to improve the quality of the lunch tray--more fresh, less fried. Even though measures have been taken, such as the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, America still has some work to do. 

Pharmaceutical Marketing: Ask Your Doctor if It's Right for You

I was catching up on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and an interesting topic arose...pharmaceutical marketing and the unethical money that goes behind it. Overall, about 70% of Americans take at least one prescription drug, and 50% take two prescription drugs. Over 4 billion prescriptions were written in 2011 and prescription drug spending raised by 3% last year to $330 billion ($1,000 per person in the US).

It is impossible to escape pharmaceutical ads. You can't turn on the TV without being subjected to an endless stream of sleeping juice moths, old men getting erections while varnishing chairs, and cartoon bladders leading around their owners. However, drugs aren't like most other products because you need someone else's permission to buy them. All drug ads end with the same catchy phrase, "Ask your doctor if ____ is right for you." Drug companies know that doctors hold all the real power in the prescription drug business. While these companies spend over $4 billion annually marketing to us, they spend $24 billion annually marketing to doctors. According to BBC, 9 out of 10 Big Pharma companies spend more on marketing than on research and development. And according to John Oliver, "Drug companies are like high school boyfriends, they are more concerned being inside of you than they are being effective." Drug companies will tell the public they are there to educate doctors, but behind closed doors it can be a little bit different.

The problem comes when the reps don't understand the effects of the drug they're pushing though. A former pharmaceutical sale rep, Shahram Ahari stated, "I was in a room with twenty-one classmates and two trainers and I was the only one with a science background. In fact on the first day of training I taught my class and my instructors the very basic process by which two brain cells communicate." So basically pharmaceutical reps are like the cast of Grey Anatomy, they're young, they're hot, and they have virtually no medical training what-so-ever. It is alarming that drug reps are even allowed in doctors offices at all, but they don't come empty handed. They come bearing free lunches and free samples. Jamie Reidy stated that some offices even advertise in the job description that there is free lunch everyday, not on the office's expense, but from the pharmaceutical sales reps. Between delicious lunches and free samples, the reps know this remedy works almost every time on a doctor. Additionally, pharmaceutical reps monitor how many prescriptions the doctors that signed with them are prescribing of their drugs, and how many prescriptions they are writing for the competitor's drug. If they are supporting the competitor too much, these perks will be taken away. Leaving the doctor with less incentive to prescribe what is actually in the best interest of the patient.

Crossing the line even more, reps even pay doctors to talk to other doctors about their drugs over expensive steak dinners paid for by the reps. The pharmaceutical reps convince the doctors to participate in this unethical practice by saying, "Our company has identified you as a thought-leader, would you like to be a thought-leader for our company?" At this point, many doctors cannot refuse an paid dinner and an ego-booting title such as a "thought-leader." However, they are not a thought-leaders at all because they are merely reading off of a script given to them by the reps. Lawsuits have even been filed against pharmaceutical companies for treating doctors lavishly in exchange for the promise of prescribing their drugs. Hiring doctors as paid spokesmen is a conflict of interest and it is alarming how common this practice is. Multiple pharmaceutical reports have shown that the doctors that prescribe the most of a certain prescription drug are often getting finically compensated by the corresponding pharmaceutical drug company. Which is alarming, because we trust doctors. When we see a regular ad for a product, we take into account that the person in the ad is getting paid to be there; we don't see doctors the same way when they are recommending a certain drug, and we shouldn't have to.

There recently has been a new new clause placed in the Affordable Care Act that for the first time allows average citizens to research a federal website to see all of the perks given to physicians given to them by pharmaceutical companies. You can visit this site at OpenPaymentsData.CMS.gov. The first numbers are now online covering the first half of 2013. If drug companies are really going to be able to regain our trust, they are going to need to let us know the effect that their money has on doctors.

Do advertisers think we're stupid?

During each Grammy commercial break, I didn't flip the channel or go into my kitchen looking for unclaimed bottles of wine I could steal a glass from (okay maybe once), I was fully committed to uniquely viewing each commercial. Each would be judged by every detail, however after the most recent games and award shows I have noticed one thing: if you're a celebrity featured in an ad, the one commercial or print ad you're featured in is not all that's expected from you. Yes, we all are very used to seeing a celeb wearing/using the products they are endorsing, this is nothing new. I'm talking about enduring further than this.

I saw this practice taken to a new level yesterday at the Grammy's with Katy Perry, E! Entertainment, and CoverGirl. Katy Perry was featured in CoverGirl's mascara commercial during almost every E! Entertainment commercial break. During the time she was getting ready for the Grammy's, Katy posted a picture to Instagram of her makeup artist using CoverGirl's newest mascara on her lashes. This is a marketing ploy we have all seen happen before, we all know Katy's makeup artist might have used two swipes of CoverGirl's mascara for the picture, and turned back to a more expensive, higher quality mascara. Not throwing CoverGirl under the bus, just saying there's better mascara out there in the makeup world. Furthermore, I am 95% positive Katy's lashes are fake; like many of her costumes and wigs, every thing is about high drama and full effect, rather than reality.

The moment CoverGirl really took me for a spin was when Katy Perry stepped up to talk to Ryan Seacrest on camera during the E! red carpet segment. Seacrest had previously been interviewing artists about their outfits, recent success, what they're looking forward to about that night, wishing them luck, and sending them on their way. But when Katy stepped up, he asked a few of the basic questions, then made a note to mention how Katy had Instagrammed a picture of her getting ready for the Grammy's, clearly talking about the one CoverGirl was featured in because that was the only picture she posted while getting ready. He then told E! to pull it up, at the blink of an eye the Instagram picture popped up on the TV screen. Next, there was a commercial break, and the first commercial that aired was CoverGirl's with Katy.

Coincidence? I think not. CoverGirl clearly not only had an ad aired on the exact channel that would be interviewing Katy Perry AND with an artist nominated/featured in a Grammy performance, they had Katy Instagram a picture of her markup artist using the product, and topped it off by having Ryan Seacrest casually bring up the picture on screen when he was live interviewing Katy. Do they think we're stupid? Also, Seacrest not once talked to any of the artists about their makeup or Instagram pictures, and it was clearly a marketing ploy strategical set up.

Not sure if anyone else caught on, but I did. CoverGirl, you can't fool me. It's amazing how much more integrated marketers have to be to try and convince consumers to use their products. I don't watch much cable TV, maybe this type of marketing is very common, it's just the first time I have been exposed to it and it really caught me off guard.

Here is a link to the commercial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoZhr5MfQLo