The state of Oregon instituted “Honorary Artists of Oregon Day”, also known as “Oregon Art Day” in 2015, designated to celebrate art and artists, to promote art education in Oregon and to encourage engagement in artistic endeavors.

Cannon Beach Arts Association (CBAA) honored the day by providing a variety of art workshops for students at Seaside High school on April 14th and the students at Cannon Beach Academy on April 28th. More than 400 students were able to participate in these Oregon Art Day events sponsored by the Cannon Beach Arts Association.

Summer Peterson, CBAA’s Marketing and Educational Director organized and coordinated the 2-day event. Honorary artists participating at Seaside High School included Sharon Amber, Cynthia Wolf, Monica Hanlin, Betty Gearen, Jakub Kukla, Ben Rosenberg, Marchi Wierson, Olivia Joy Carroll, Anna Hoye, Mary Lyn Gough, Michelle Valigura, Karen Weiss, Lori LaBissoniere O’Neil, Tara Spires-Bell, Jen Hoff and John Hoff.

Workshops offered at Seaside High School ranged from monotypes and printmaking, cyanotypes, graphite drawing, T-shirt design, auditioning techniques, poetry writing, sugar skull collage, pastel ink resist, paper making, and more.

Honorary artists Summer Peterson and Ashley Foster-French instructed students at Cannon Beach Academy in an ink resist workshop along with a workshop on acrylic color mixing and floral painting.

Seaside High School principal Jeff Roberts said that “Art Day is really a special event that very few students throughout the state will have an opportunity to take part in”. CBAA’S Arts Educational Director Summer Peterson added “I believe an event like Oregon Art Day is integral to self-expression and self-discovery, which benefits mental and emotional health, builds confidence, and supports students who are in the process of creating their own futures.”  

Students will have another opportunity this summer to participate in amazing art events as Cannon Beach Arts Association celebrates its 21st year hosting the annual Summer Art Camp. Camp is scheduled for July 17-21, 2023 at the Cannon Beach Community Church.

Visit the CBAA’s website for detailed information on course content and registration for Summer Art Camp at https://www.cannonbeacharts.org/artcamp2023. Scholarships will be available.  

The community is also encouraged to “Sponsor a Student” for Summer Art Camp, and other donation opportunities are available. This enables the organization to offer more scholarship opportunities, while keeping costs low for parents by allowing CBAA to provide all necessary materials and healthy snacks during the week. Visit the CBAA’s Summer Art Camp link for more information.

Cannon Beach Arts Association, a 501(3)(c) nonprofit organization, funds and enhances the arts, and supports artists in Cannon Beach and the region through education, events and exhibits, while providing opportunities for over 200 artists each year. For more information, please visit the Cannon Beach Arts Association website https://www.cannonbeacharts.org/  or call 503-436-0744. CBAA’s Gallery is located at 1064 S. Hemlock St. Cannon Beach, OR 97110, and is open Wednesday through Sunday from 11 AM to 4 PM.

Hair and skincare specialist DS Laboratories has seen its sales in China soar over the last two years after partnering with Alibaba Group, according to brand executives. 

The Miami-based dermatological brand teamed up with Alibaba’s cross-border B2C marketplace Tmall Global in 2021 to reach Chinese consumers.

By 2025, China’s haircare sector will be worth over $8.6 billion, according to market research firm Mintel. This presents a massive opportunity for foreign brands – if they can navigate its complexities.

“We tried entering the Chinese market without any success until we met Alibaba,” said DS Laboratories CEO Fernando Tamez.

Tmall Global guided DS Laboratories through every step of the process as they prepared to launch in China. Now, the country is on track to become the brand’s second-largest market after the U.S..

Alizila spoke with Tamez and Pablo Palatnik, Vice President of E-commerce and Digital Strategy at DS Laboratories, to learn more about the brand’s growth.

Below is a transcript of this video, edited for clarity and brevity

Fernando Tamez: The mission of DS Labs is to offer cutting-edge technology products. We work like a pharmaceutical company. All our equipment is pharmaceutical grade. All of our facilities are state-of-the-art automatized. We do clinical trials on every single active ingredient that we have in our formulas.

My dad was bald when he was 30, and every single cousin and uncle I had was bald. So I was going to do everything to not be bald and not lose my hair. I think it feels great to help other people with the same problems that I had and offer them real results and products that actually deliver the results.

Pablo Palatnik: The success of our products anywhere in the world comes from our uniqueness. They really are, bar none, the best quality products in the marketplace. As a global company, China was extremely important to break into for us. It’s the second biggest economy in the world.

Fernando Tamez: We’ve tried entering the Chinese market without any success until we met Alibaba. When they launched our flagship store on Tmall Global, we were very surprised with the quality, marketing materials, images, and pictures. They were able to communicate all our values, and that’s why we had explosive growth.

Pablo Palatnik: Since we launched on Tmall Global, we’ve had [sales growth] 50% over expectations.

Fernando Tamez: We went from not selling a single unit in China to being recognized by Vogue Business as one of the top ten companies to watch.

Pablo Palatnik:  Tmall Global and China exposure gives the brand more credibility as a global brand, which is our vision for the future, being a true global leader in the hair loss and thinning hair space. 

Fernando Tamez: We’re expanding our facilities by 30%. We had to buy other filling tanks and stations. We’re going to launch several other products, and we’re going to solidify our position as one of the market leaders. We’re very happy and very thankful for Alibaba. 

Discover how Alibaba’s platforms are empowering other small businesses

Additional reporting by Yashan Zhao

Alanna Arabian, Special Event Planner Intern, Dee’s Wood Fired Pizza + Kitchen (New York)

Gray Aust, Assistant Director for Athletic Communications, Elon University (Elon, North Carolina)

Kendall Battles, Marketing Consultant Professional AdFellow, AdCouncil (New York)

Annemarie Bonner, Jayne Miller Investigative Fellow, WBAL-TV (Baltimore)

Ellis Chandler, News Producer, WYFF News 4 (Greenville, South Carolina)

Wellsley Cohen, B-Launch Sales Associate, Bloomberg Industry Group (Arlington, Virginia)

Molly Craig, Associate Brand Manager, Stanley Black & Decker (Baltimore)

Megan Curling, Year of Service Fellow at Alamance Regional Medical Center, Elon University/Cone Health (Elon, North Carolina)

Elizabeth Driggers, Data Analyst, Webconnex (Austin, Texas)

Genevieve Emerson, Summer Assistant Director, Apogee Adventures (Brunswick, Maine)

Katie Everitt, Integrate Marketing Intern for Healthcare Team, Lippe Taylor (New York)

Miranda Ferrante, Graduate Student, New York University Magazine & Digital Storytelling (New York)

Lindsay Gelman, Intern, Squared Communications (Washington, D.C.)

Lauren Gibbons-Neff, Health Team Intern, Porter Novelli (Washington, D.C.)

Madison Gilgo, Year of Service Fellow for the Harwood Institute/Impact Alamance, Elon University/Cone Health (Elon, North Carolina)

Megan Gillogly, Ignite Coordinator, George P. Johnson (Boston)

Clare Grant, Pulliam Photojournalism Fellow, IndyStar (Indianapolis)

Addie Holden, Design Specialist, Flywheel Digital (Baltimore)

Anelisa Holder, Associate in Rotational Associate’s Program, Ogilvy (Washington, D.C.)

Carter Horan, Partnerships Manager, Equativ (New York)

Sarah Hyde, Account Coordinator, Pep Promotions (Boston)

Luke Johnson, Photojournalism Intern, The Seattle Times (Seattle)

Jessica Kliman, Project Management Fellowship, Spectrum Science

Brooke Little, Public Relations Graduate Internship, Golin (Chicago)

Ian Myers, Junior Art Director, Gelia (Raleigh, North Carolina)

Olivia Parks, Junior Packaging Designer, AS Beauty Group (New York)

Jonathan Pensiero, Director of Media, Gerenwich Polo Club (Greenwich Connecticut); Graduate Student, University of Southern California Communication Management (Los Angeles)

Nyah Phengsitthy, Reporter, Bloomberg Law (Washington, D.C.)

Emily Prins, Digital Content Intern, PBS North Carolina (Research Triangle Park, North Carolina)

Ridley Randolph, Graduate Student, Columbia University Writing for Film & TV (New York)

Maria Rossi, Insights Analyst, Sales Factory (Greensboro, North Carolina)

Skylar Rubin, Public Relations Policy Analyst, BGR Group (Washington, D.C.)

Kendall Saulsby, Editor, Blue Ox Films (Portland, Oregon)

Alexandra Schneider, Editorial Associate, Hearst (New York)

Leah Schultz, Executive Associate of Marketing and Communications Research, The Wildcard Alliance

Kennedy Smith, Press Intern, The Brand Guild (Washington, D.C.)

Chantal Spendiff, Public Relations Coordinator, Dunn Pellier Media Inc. (Los Angeles)

Anna Terry, Digital Marketing Associate, Three Ships (Charlotte, North Carolina)

Connor Thomas, Senior Content Technical Director, Accenture (Washington, D.C.)

Taylor Truitt, Associate UX/UI Designer, Pillar4 Media (Charlotte, North Carolina)

Jake Twer, Fellow, Venture for America

Amaya Waddy, Graduate Student, Elon University Interactive Media (Elon, North Carolina

A team of undergraduate students in the UNM Anderson School of Management’s advertising campaigns course took first place and a $5,000 prize in a national fintech marketing competition sponsored by EdVenture Partners.

The team’s challenge was to identify the right branding, messaging, marketing channels, and product strategy for an all-in-one financial app aimed at helping young adults take control of their finances. To address the challenge, students in the class developed a campaign (The smart way to spend, save and invest your money) which included digital video and social media activations across multiple platforms.

Students who were part of the team included Justin Abel, Nicholas Havens, Mateo Iliohan, Carlos Lopez, Kieron Magee, David Martinez, Noah McDonald, Kai Nakamura, Jennifer Nguyen, Dominique Ortega, Cassandra Ruiz, Zachary Weiss and Devin Wolfel. 

Photo of McKinnon Building

The $5,000 cash prize will support the Rick and Debbie Johnson Marketing Lab, a state-of-the-art learning studio for students enrolled in advertising campaigns and social media marketing courses at the Anderson School.

Professor John Benavidez states that student success begins in the classroom. “Our classes prioritize hands-on experience with marketing research, strategy development and creative execution, giving our students a competitive edge. Numerous judges have commended our students for developing highly effective messaging strategies and creative that are data-driven.” 

The win builds upon UNM’s long history of excellence in competition-based learning. Since 2005, the marketing program has earned eleven first-place honors, five second-place finishes and two honorable mentions in national collegiate marketing competitions. 

“The number one thing is we have always received outstanding support from UNM in order to succeed,” said Benavidez in crediting the success to UNM’s investment in the Rick and Debbie Johnson Marketing Lab. “The Marketing Lab gives students access to the same tools used by blue-chip multinational corporations, advertising agencies and media companies to conduct in-depth analysis of markets and develop integrated marketing communication campaigns.”

The Rick and Debbie Johnson Marketing Lab reflects the hands-on experiences available in this state-of-the-art facility that fosters learning valuable business skills like negotiation, persuasion, motivation and more. Rick and Debbie Johnson were owners of the state’s best-known and longest-lasting advertising agency, Rick Johnson and Company founded in 1977. 

The name comes from the fact that out-of-the-box ideas and thoughts can be concocted in a lab. Benefactor Debbie Johnson says the Marketing Lab is modeled after a conference room in the Johnson ad agency called the “creative kitchen,” wherein the creative staff “cooked” strategies and ideas.

For more information, visit Rick and Debbie Johnson Marketing Lab.

Events

May 22, 2023, 04:58 PM EDT

‘Video continues to explode,’ says Adelaide Reilly, global SVP of customer digital experience for The Channel Company. ‘I was reading a study online recently that said people are now consuming about 17 hours of video a week. We know from the CRN readership survey that 53 percent of our audience love to consume video.’

In a crowded space to market and sell solutions in, vendors are getting creative and thinking ahead about how to capture their audience’s attention.

“Vendors are thinking of creative ways to collaborate with their partners. Traditionally vendors would interact with them via shows and emails. With these new ecosystem lines of business applications, which is a partner-first tool, vendors are now able to meet them where they work,” said Christine Ululati, VP of vendor partnerships for Glasshive.

Ululati along with Alex Stanton, senior director of partner marketing at Arctic Wolf and Elisa Esposito, director of marketing programs at Konica Minolta spoke on a panel at CRN parent company The Channel Company’s Women of the Channel Summit West event in Palm Springs, Calif. last week to discuss channel marketing trends. The panel was moderated by Adelaide Reilly, global SVP of customer digital experience for The Channel Company.

“Video continues to explode,” said Reilly. “I was reading a study online recently that said people are now consuming about 17 hours of video a week. We know from the CRN readership survey that 53 percent of our audience love to consume video.”

Esposito said Konica Minolta has learned to narrow down its marketing videos to get to the meat of the message to capture the audience.

“Try to put the content in there, make it easy for them to just quickly get it and think about what will really resonate with the customer and not trying to think that you’ve got to put the whole kitchen sink in there,” she said.

From video to automation to personalization, here are five channel marketing trends vendors can use to drive revenue and scale their businesses.

Personalization

Esposito: Konica Minolta recently launched a program for its dealer channel, where there are different levels of dealers. There was one program where the dealers really needed more hand holding to get them to the next level.

The only way to do that was to look at the data, take the data, scrub it and build a program that we felt would be achievable for them. All of it was based on building dashboards. It’s all about their revenue. We’re showing total revenue, production revenue, hardware revenue…so don’t just have one product. We sell over 600 different products to our dealers so we have to combine it all and make sense of it.

And then it’s how do they know where they are. Leaving it up to our managers doesn’t always necessarily work, because they have maybe multiple dealers to get to. By using the dashboard, creating calculators, it’s all online, it’s live and automated. It’s been working great and we’ve seen such an incline in their tiers.

Stanton: As consumers, we expect the personalized experience. It’s different for our partners. We are in the cybersecurity space which is an increasing concern for all businesses. Because of that, the space is very noisy. As a solution, we need to make sure that our partners are getting the information when they need it, how they need it, how they want it and at the time that’s right for them. It’s got to cut through the noise, so not only do you need this unicorn solution for cybersecurity you need to provide an experience that keeps you top of mind and gains the mind share needed to drive the loyalty. It’s increasingly important to not take the one-size-fits-all approach.

Video

Ululati: Video is playing an important role now more than ever. What’s happening is the channel is being flooded with so many different solutions for partners to sell. First it was networking, now it’s cloud, it’s cybersecurity and hyper automation. Their solutions stack is growing and it’s getting harder to sell. The great thing about video is it never gets tired of perfectly presenting the perfect solution 24/7. In this day and age of AI and ChatGPT I think it’s a great way to retain your authenticity because AI can’t produce its own video…yet.

Esposito: I’ve learned that product videos don’t do as well as case study videos. What we did is go out and get case studies from our customers, but the rates would drop. So I said, ‘Let’s do little snippets.’ Because if I can’t catch you in the first three seconds, you’re not going to watch this video. We have to look at where is the actual meat of the video, pull it out, do that little snippet, make it about us, make it about them and all of a sudden the rates just kept going up.

It was really rethinking that you don’t have to tell the entire story in the video. Try to put the content in there, make it easy for them to just quickly get it and think about what will really resonates with the customer and not trying to think that you’ve got to put the whole kitchen sink in there.

Marketing Efforts Catered To Mid-Tier Partners

Stanton: When Arctic Wolf looks at its tiered programs, partners keep growing because they are getting the resources they need to climb. The middle tier easily gets left behind. We need to look at what benefits and resources we’re giving that mid-to-lower tier in order to get them to the next level.

We have a program that has point-based incentives where our partners can earn points on things like training and closing business. If we only make it applicable to top tier, they’re going to keep growing but we have to be mindful of, ‘Do we throttle certain things?’ Maybe it’s not for everything, they can’t earn for every click and every engagement but we have to get them to take action. So if we offer them something at the lower tier that gets them excited and motivated to go to the next tier, and giving them the training in order to do so, that’s where we have to look at the sweet spot in enabling our partners.

Esposito: Part of a program that we’re putting together is we try to add a benefit to it. I want to reward those for good behavior. However, it’s not always about what I can give them but what other vendors, and what they offer, that I think is going to benefit my dealers. I could work with them and see what the pricing is like, I will offer and subsidize a certain amount for you if you hit this revenue. It’s a give and take, and I do that with a few different vendors.

Automation

Stanton: When a partner applies, what type of information are you getting to get them ramped as a partner. There are some things we can do in our points-based platform as well. We can get them excited and keep us top of mind. What I’m most excited about is we’re looking at partner behavior scoring systems, similar to what we find with prospect scoring. It’s based on how a partner engages with us, how they produce for us and what they’re selling for Arctic Wolf. And then how do we throttle different programs, engagement, experiences and incentives to get them from high engagement to high producing. So it’s really looking at that scoring system to help us learn how to structure our marketing strategy instead of just [casting] a wide net.

The other things is partner pedigree, we require this now for our gold and silver partners. It’s really obtaining information about what products and solutions they sell and what spaces and segments they sell into. It’s for us to understand if we’re emailing a partner who sells their own incident response solution, we shouldn’t be emailing them talking about that solution because we’re in direct competition with them.

Ululati: Not only are vendors using these tools to automate their workflows but partners are using them as well. Vendors are able to do their marketing in the same ecosystem as their partners. It shortens the timeframe for partners to get to market and they’re able to drive revenue a lot faster. We’re also seeing channel marketers get a lot more mileage out of the content that they are creating, so if you combine that with platforms with AI where partners don’t have to sit there and create their own content, they’re able to automate their email marketing plans and sales processes. They’re able to create an aggressive marketing strategy that’s scalable.

Esposito: It’s end to end. We’re looking at how do we automate any lead that’s coming into the system. We have to facilitate whether it’s dealer or direct and make sure we get them into our CRM system. That’s all personalization there, but then again it’s your campaigns. How are you automating them and making sure the campaigns are hitting the right personas, the right people. It’s all about how the lead is coming in.

Future Technologies and Upcoming Trends

Ululati: Big data, AI and ecosystems are something channel marketers need to look out for. Big data, if we can look at the channel’s daily activities [we can determine] when’s the best time to send an email, what email campaign am I sending has the best open rate or what piece of collateral am I sending that has the best click-through rate. I can use this information through big data to feed into platforms with AI. Then partners make better decisions if they have information on that.

Stanton: We’re in cybersecurity so we have to think about if we’re putting information into this system, what’s being done with it. Is it safe? I also think there’s this lost art around internal enablement. With channel marketing, our audience is our partners, salespeople, technical reps and marketers. We have to make sure we’re staying top of mind for them. That also means training our internal teams to push the right programs and to push the right content to enable their partners.

On personalization:

Ululati said vendors are thinking of creative ways to collaborate with their partners. Traditionally vendors would interact with them via shows and emails. With these new ecosystem lines of business applications, which is a partner-first tool, vendors are now able to meet them where they work. They don’t have to disrupt their workflow. Vendors meetings partners in these ecosystems gives them visibility into what they’re doing with their sales processes, so they get access into that.

Stanton: We have a five-day period of six webinars that cover everything from a different solution type to new routes to market. Depending on their role within the company, they’ve a solution focus they can look at, they can look at their stage in the partner journey and we also enable our sellers in the field to go out with sales plays that are specific to the partner and where there at.

From that, being able to take the data from which webinar they attended to know which resources they’re interested in allows us to deliver a more personalized follow up.

CJ Fairfield

CJ Fairfield is an associate editor at CRN covering solution providers, MSPs and distributors. Prior to joining CRN, she worked at daily newspapers, including The Press of Atlantic City in New Jersey and The Frederick News-Post in Maryland. She can be reached at cfairfield@thechannelcompany.com.

During a visit to the Zürich arboretum, Jonas Frei came across a nut species rarely found in Europe. The Juglans cinerea, or white walnut, is native to the U.S. and Canada and has a ribbed, oblong shell that once cracked, reveals a sweet, fleshy innard. Its presence in the Swiss enclave dates back to 1887, when the botanist Carl Joseph Schröter planted a tree that eventually produced the non-native fruits and sparked Frei’s enduring interest in the plant genus.

Based in Schaffhausen, Frei is a naturalist, illustrator, and landscape architect whose interest in botany has taken him to gardens, arboretums, and parks throughout Europe and North America. He recently spent time in Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum after being awarded the James R. Jewett Prize, which allowed him to expand his research on the walnut and explore how it’s migrated over centuries. Much of his work is focused on making science easily digestible and visually intriguing to a general audience. “Research itself really is my goal,” he tells Colossal. “I want to understand the subject and make the knowledge accessible through my writing and the aesthetical presentation of the diversity of species and cultivars.”

Shared through illustrations and flat-lay photos, Frei’s studies have recently culminated in a book devoted to walnuts and hickories, which brings together the cultural, historical, and botanical importance of these diverse plants. “I was driven not only by my scientific interest in Juglandaceae but also by my enthusiasm for the aesthetics of their habits, leaves, and fruits. The readers of my book should be able to make their own journey of discovery through the walnut family, on the tracks I have uncovered with my research,” he says.

The expanded edition of Frei’s book, which includes updates from his studies at Arnold Arboretum, is available along with posters, prints, and a similar volume focused on hazelnuts on his site. Follow his latest research on Instagram.

Juglans sinesis

Juglans nigra

Junglandaceae

Corylus

Walnusshaelften

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Flat-Lays of Halved Walnuts and Other Shells Study the Diversity of the Botanical Fruits appeared first on Colossal.

Generative A.I. is already changing how games are made, with Blizzard Entertainment training an image generator on assets from World of Warcraft, Diablo and Overwatch.