Category: Old Posts

As December came to a close, we were excited to sponsor a gathering  in downtown Vancouver of some of the most influential people in the global resource sector, brought together to honour New York Times bestselling author Marin Katusa and his book The Colder War: How the Global Energy Trade Slipped from America’s Grasp.

The event featured a panel of some of the biggest names in the industry, including GoldCorp Chairman Ian Telfer, Copper Mountain CEO Jim O’Rourke, Casey Research CEO Oliver Garret, and Uranium Energy Corporation President and CEO Amir Adnani. Each speaker shared his insights about the industry, poked fun at Marin’s success, and praised the new book. The panel was emceed by our very own Blender president Arash Adnani.

Each member on the panel spoke of Katusa’s fresh new ideas and meteoric rise. “He’s bringing an intellectual intensity to our business and it’s going to serve him very well,” says GoldCorp’s Ian Telfer.

In a special segment before the panel, the attendees got to hear from former U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham via video conference. Abraham shared his thoughts on oil’s price drop and on The Colder War.

The event yielded a great turnout; friends, colleagues, and industry leaders attended to support Katusa and celebrate his great success. We’re happy all could make it!

Check out a video recap of the event below!

Some more photos from the event:

Airbnb, the popular online website and community for renting lodging, made a bit of an unlikely move and announced in a press release on November 17th that it was going to steer it’s brand in a new direction: that of print media.

Their new quarterly print magazine will be called Pineapple (fun fact: aptly named because pineapples were a traditional symbol of hospitality in colonial New England). According to the press release, ‘Pineapple will cover a wide variety of topics-such as culture, art, food and style-from a local’s perspective with neighborhood guides, insider tips, and unique, personal stories.’

Business Insider jokingly calls it a ‘glossy coffee table production’, and others wonder about the necessity of the high quality and advertisement-free endeavor. But a big, glossy magazine full of personal stories and travel recommendations might be exactly what travelers want to see when checking into their temporary home: a connection between their original online experience and the end result. Airbnb’s head of brand creative, Andrew Schapiro, said,

A couple of years ago we mapped out the user journey of the experience of Airbnb hosts, guests and travellers…the realization is the majority of experience [after booking online] is offline in people’s homes or neighbourhoods around the world. So it was a natural transition to tell stories in a printed format.”

 If you’re curious, here’s what it’s going to look like:

As with many unexpected moves, there have been mixed reactions after the announcement of the publication. FastCompnay reminded readers,

Whereas Lyft is known for its pink mustaches and even hotel chains like Days Inn have nationally recognizable logos, it’s worth noting that Airbnb has never had such a consistent offline presence. When you arrive at Airbnb, your interaction with the brand itself essentially ends with the app; there’s no Airbnb flag outside the door welcoming you when you check in like there is at, say, a Hilton. That’s finally changing. 

“Airbnb’s new magazine isn’t the company’s first effort to bring its brand into the offline world…the company also announced [this summer] a partnership with Zazzle to create Airbnb-branded merchandise…the magazine is another step toward getting consumers to see the Airbnb experience as a lifestyle”

The New York Times quoted travel analyst Henry Harteveldt saying the he believed the magazine effort was misguided. “Investing in sound advertising and customer and host communications, as well as improving its digital channels’ usefulness, ‘are all far more important.'”

A peek inside the first issue:

According to their press release, Airbnb will begin distributing the first Pineapple issue during their Airbnb Open Conference on November 21st, and will then begin issuing 18,000 copies of Pineapple for free to its global hosts. A limited number of copies will be for sale ‘in specialty bookstores, newsstands and boutiques across North America and Europe’.

Only two hours into trading on its first day on the market, and the e-commerce giant Alibaba has lived up to all the hype.

This morning in New York, live-blogs scrambled and the media stood by when, at 12:00 noon, shares still hadn’t begun trading. Bloomberg Businessweek quoted NYSE Group president Tom Farley saying “the auction could take two to three hours to settle on a price before trading begins.” Extra precautions were taken before such a huge stock went public, including an “extra-long auction process this morning to settle on a price… making sure the exchange’s electronic matching engine is ready to handle the demand.”

At 11:54 am EDT, it opened, with the first share trading at $92.70, well above the IPO price of $68.  At 12:04 pm, Forbes announced on their liveblog that 100 million shares of Alibaba had been traded in the first 10 minutes. With a market cap now around $228 billion, Alibaba has shot past Facebook. Forbes Media included this Market Cap chart to help break things down:

Early this morning, NYSE tweeted a picture of Alibaba founder Jack Ma, with the Executive Vice-Chairman and CEO on the trade floor.

httpss://twitter.com/nyse/status/512958703960879106

However, when it came time to ring the opening bell, Jack Ma watched from below, instead electing for a group of Alibaba customers to mark the historic moment, echoing his sentiments that “Customers must come first.”

httpss://twitter.com/alibabagroup/status/512969196053864448

At the day’s end, The New York Times reported that the company with the largest ever U.S. listed IPO,  “closed the day at $93.89 share on the New York Stock Exchange, up 38 percent from its initial public offering price in a strong trading debut.”

BONUS:

You gotta love Jack Ma’s face right before trading opened:

The Truth Behind Opt-In Campaigns

So you’ve kept your list (and nose) clean and your opt-in process is now compliant. You’ve even gone through the effort of contacting everyone who signed up before July 1^st to ask if they would like to reconfirm opt-in. How nice is that? This is nearly 3 years before the deadline of June 30, 2017.

So you should get a gold star right? Maybe a medal for compliance above and beyond the call of duty?

Except that it’s been a couple of weeks now and you’re seeing only about 10 to 20 percent of your existing list confirm opt in.

Don’t they like you anymore?

Well, first, there are a number of factors that should be considered when determining the success of a mailing campaign to confirm opt in (a.k.a., a subscription retention campaign).

Frankly, in the lead-up to the compliance deadline of July 1^st, a lot of people were inundated by similar requests. Your average subscriber likely received multiple requests per day or per hour if they’re analysts/brokers. You can’t really blame them if they start to ignore the emails after confirming subscriptions for 10 to 12 lists before their morning coffee.

Of course, when subscribers evaluate and prioritize their lists, they’re probably considering basic questions:

1. How important is it that I hear from so-and-so?
2. How often is so-and-so going to email me?
3. Does so-and-so actually send me useful information?
4. Can I get this information elsewhere?
5. Is this relationship going anywhere?

All fair questions and the answers may help you evaluate your own level of engagement with your subscribers.

1. How important is it that I email my subscribers?
2. How often should I email my subscribers? (How often have I emailed them in the past?)
3. Is the information I am sending relevant to my subscribers? (Are they even reading my emails?)
4. Can I simplify the communication process or content (ie., direct them to our website instead of sending them a complete technical/financial summary within the body of an email)?
5. Is this relationship going anywhere?

As sad as it may seem, losing subscribers is not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you don’t see the possibility of the relationship furthering to the point of conversion. If anything, the implementation of Canada’s anti-spam legislation serves as a useful wake-up call, allowing us to re-evaluate our relationship with  subscribers as well as the effectiveness of our communication strategies.

As an interactive agency, building investor awareness is what we do best. We influence people to think, talk, act and react! Our mission not only includes inspiring investor confidence, but also inspiring change in our community. The Hope Recovery Project is a project that is doing exactly that – inspiring change!

The Hope Recovery Project is a partnership between the Vancouver mining sector (that’s where we come in!) and the Union Gospel Mission (UGM). The project is raising funds to sponsor men through UGM’s intensive 6 month Alcohol and Drug Recovery program. The program rediscovers the forgotten and powerful – hope – for individuals in Metro Vancouver. Through this life-changing experience, men break free from addictive lifestyles and recover their best chance to succeed.

The collaborative efforts of Arash Adnani (Blender Media), Amir Adnani (Uranium Energy Corp.), Neil Adshead, Darryl Cardey (Millrock Resources), the Vancouver mining sector and UGM have been successful in creating a brighter future for people in our community. Last year, the project helped 12 men take part in this life-changing program.

This year is off to a great start. We’ve raised $92,310.00 and hope to raise another $17,690.00 to reach this year’s goal. This will help 10 more men get their lives back on the right track through UGM’s transformative 6 month program!

Will you consider a gift to help make this hope possible? Read some of the success stories at https://www.hoperecoveryproject.com to learn more about  how these funds make a difference in the lives of men in need.

We are passionate about making a difference in the lives of people in need, not only in investor’s confidence! We are excited to keep on thinking, talking, acting, and reacting to issues in our community! Join us and learn more about what you can do to spread hope and second chances @BlenderMedia and @UGM.