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Author: Hrikita Shrestha

An avid reader, chef, and dancer, Hrikita (not Hritika!) is organized, meticulous and eager to learn any new task she sets herself upon.

A Beginner’s Guide to Paid Promotions in 2019

Posted on by Hrikita Shrestha

Effective Content Marketing is as important as creating quality content. After all, if you aren’t able to deliver your content to the right audience, it will not deliver any value.

Previously we discussed free ways you can market your content, but when that’s not an option or isn’t enough, you have to rely on Paid Content Marketing techniques.

After all, while Organic content marketing helps retain value over a long period of time, Paid Promotions are quite effective for gaining engagements in a short period of time (or based on your requirements).

Paid promotion includes a variety of techniques, from display ads, paid social marketing and paid searches, to content distribution networks through which you can promote your content.

Paid Promotions on Social Media

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram is a hub of content where users spend the majority of their time everyday. This usually makes Paid content marketing on social media more effective than other sources.

Social media advertising platforms also give you the option to customize your target audience, which is beneficial because social media platforms actively track user behavior. This lets you show your ads to the right audience, and even customize your ads based on your target audience.

For example, if you have recently searched for baby products, prepare to see an ad on Facebook featuring baby products!

Furthermore, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter let you create campaigns based on your business’ goals, whether it is to create awareness of your brand or product, drive traffic to a website, or increase sales. The respective ad platforms also let you monitor and analyze data on the go, so that you can react to changes and optimize your campaigns accordingly.

Remember that when designing your ad creatives, you should include images or videos that appeal to your target to get the most engagement from users. If you have a decent sized budget allocated for your campaign, run more than one ad in each campaign, testing different creative elements and call-to-action methods.

Most users also get confused about which social media platform to run paid promotions on – the answer to this is simple. First figure where most of your audience is, and accordingly divide your budget. Facebook is the easiest choice for most businesses, while more corporate services may be more appropriate to run on LinkedIn.

Paid Search

Paid search (also called Search Engine Marketing) includes putting your ads on a search engine’s result pages. This technique comes in handy when you want to get your content in front of customers when they are about to make a purchase decision.

Two of the most common tools that are used in Paid Promotions for search engines are Google Ads and Microsoft’s Bing Ads.

SEM functions better as a responsive advertising mechanism as it goes beyond simply linking users to a site, but also encourages them to take specific actions, such as signing up for a trial version or downloading a PDF document.

The first step for SEM is building a keyword list relevant to your business. When prospective customers are searching for these keywords, your ads will be shown to them. Several tools like Wordstream’s Free Keyword Tool and chrome extensions like Keywords Everywhere are useful for researching relevant keywords.

As per your ad budget, you can choose the kind of ads you want to run. For example, an Exact Match ad is one in which the user’s query must exactly match the keywords you run your ads for. This type of ad provides strict targeting at a low cost per click (CPC) and lower traffic volumes. A Broad Match ad brings more traffic volume, but has a higher CPC and looser targeting. While it does generate more traffic, it might not be the kind you are looking for.

The next step is to create compelling ad copy that is as specific as it can possibly be, as users show intent by searching for very specific search items.

If you are providing gated content (content which requires a step as an initiation from readers eg: asking them for their email addresses), let that be known in your ad text. However, make sure you emphasize that they will be getting exclusive and informative content that others will not.

Lastly, once you have engaged with your prospective customer and convinced them to click on your ad, you need to drive traffic to a relevant landing page. Make sure you deliver what you promised on your ad. Do not redirect them to a generic homepage as this will cause a majority to lose interest and leave.

Display Ads

Display advertising is defined by banner ads that appear in specifically designated areas of a website or social media platforms. While plaintext ads can be run, you can get much more out of your campaigns if you use images, videos, or animations that grab the attention of users.

Paid promotions here are in the form of banner ads are distributed across the web using an ad server like Google Display Networks, which shows ads from Google. Display ads are often used for retargeting, where a user who has previously visited your site will see ads for your site while they are surfing elsewhere on the web.

For example, if you have looked at a specific microwave oven in Daraz, you might come across related ads while you are reading a blog, an online news portal, or even in email newsletters, depending on how the ad server is working with several other sites.

There are various ways in which you can retarget, an audience. It can be based on time period, frequency, or even specificity. Retargeting, like paid searches, is used to get direct responses or actions from your audience. So, it can be used to generate highly qualified leads.

To start paid promotions with display ads, figure out your target audience first. For example, one way to start promoting new content would be to use Pixel-based retargeting, which is a way to re-display your material to any anonymous site visitors.

Once you track your audience, offer them ads promoting relevant and unique content. When you design an ad, creative assets are very important. Make sure you ads stands out from the crowd and has a clear call-to-action. In display ads, it is important to use colors that pop out, or images that will stand out to get more engagement from the users.

Email Marketing

In content marketing, you need to offer your audience a way to get regular updates about your content to make sure they keep coming back which helps to accelerate your brand building process.

One way to do this is by collecting email addresses via a specific CTA. You can then send regular newsletters to people who have expressed an interest in your content, with new content as well as summarising recent highlights.

FeedPress is one such platform used for email marketing. It offers basic analytics so you can track your subscribers and the progress of your work. It also provides a customizable newsletter template that you can use to make your emails fit your brand.

If you are regularly producing content with the same format, you can also set up an RSS (Rich Site Summary) feed that will allow your readers to subscribe to your updates automatically.

In order to avoid legal complications, make sure that your subscribers opt in for your newsletter voluntarily.

While Email Marketing isn’t technically a paid promotion technique, most platforms aren’t free or only offer limited capabilities for free users.

Content Distribution Networks

Content distribution networks (CDN) are quickly becoming powerful tools for engaging new audiences and expanding the reach of creative content.

This method of online advertising provides content that is within the context of a user’s experience, making the native advertising feel less intrusive and more like part of a discovery process, while also increasing the odds of users clicking through to your site.

If you see recommendations like “If you like this, then read” or “You might also enjoy”, then these are paid placements from content distribution networks such as Taboola and Outbrain.

For content creators, this Paid Promotion method is effective for improving the end user’s experience, increasing ad impressions, improving conversion rates, and strengthening customer loyalty.

Looking for ways to promote your brand using Paid Promotions?

Call us or fill out this form today to book a free 1 hour consultation with our Content Marketing Experts! We can help you figure your entire strategy and help you build your brand using both organic and paid promotions.

5 Free Ways to Market Your Content in 2019

Posted on by Hrikita Shrestha

We always focus on content creation as the most important part of marketing our products and services online. However, most companies fail at content marketing due to a lack of appropriate strategies. Content marketing isn’t only about creating useful content and posting it online.

According to Hubspot Academy, “content marketing is a strategic marketing and business process focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience, and ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

Internet is a very crowded place, and while you might have amazing content, there is still a lot of content that is already available. You need to put a great deal of effort from day one.

In this blog, we will reflect upon some free techniques that you can use to market your content to your audience in an effective and efficient way.

Building an audience

When you create content for your audience, you go through brainstorming and prioritization phases. If you have sorted your content and segregated its target audience, you’re already off to a good start.

Some of the key tools that might help you market your content better are:

Influencer marketing

Influencers are industry experts who are experienced in generating and nurturing large audiences, and have the clout to influence those audiences. They are the ones who are listened to closely by your target audience. Networking with influencers is an effective way for marketers to gain brand recognition.

For influencers, both high social authority and a high number of followers are good. However, social authority can be more beneficial than large amounts of followers. It indicates that the influencer has an engaged audience rather than a passive one.

You can reach out to specific influencers through a tool called Buzzstream. Once you fill in your information with specific keywords, it generates contact information for people related to those niches. This will help you connect with the influencers and ask for suggestions, advice, or even quotes to include in your writings.

You can add the influencers’ websites and social media account links to your blog as payback and request them to share your content once it is published. This will increase your market exposure and increase the credibility and reputation of your content and brand.

Comment marketing

Have you observed irrelevant or promotional links commented under blogs and social media videos? These tactics are mostly ineffective and the comment usually gets zero recognition. In extreme cases, it can even get you banned from sites that keep an eye on posted comments.

This is why you need to focus more on effective ways of being visible. Instead of being too obvious and posting links everywhere, search for people who are writing interesting things correlated to your content. Converse with them in the comment section, but do not mention your product, services, or your content.

The key purpose of comment marketing is to establish yourself as someone who is interested & knowledgeable in a certain topic. This will build your reputation and will help you gain followers in the long term.

Guest Posting

For content marketing, it is not necessary for your content to be visible only on your website. Through guest posting, you can create content for other websites with similar target audience but with higher reach. Guest posting is useful when you want to gain authority, qualified traffic to your site, relevant links, motivated leads, and their conversions.

You need to search for websites that have good page authority and domain authority and start commenting on their posts to build a relationship with them. Pitch the editors of those websites with exciting blog post ideas that are relevant to their sites.

If you want to try guest posting, find websites with credibility and relevance to you. Publish unique, relevant, and interesting content that will make readers seek you out.

Outreach / PR

Another avenue for promoting your content is Outreach and Public Relations, whose foundation lies in relationship building. In both of these cases, you find out what the writer or reporter is actually interested in and carefully tailor your pitches to make sure you send relevant information to them. This will encourage them to write good things about you in return.

When networking, Twitter is the most reliable source for finding people you want to target. For Twitter, Followerwonk is a great tool to search for influencers, journalists, writers, or even hashtags related to what you are writing about.

Once you know who you need to target, you need to work on your pitch.

Journalists and writers want to touch subjects that are new and exciting, rather than something cliche and reposts. They will appreciate you valuing their time and putting some thought into the transaction and what they will be getting out of it.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing includes more relationship building than just straightforward promotional activity. Content and social media teams work together to create relevant and interesting content they can readily share.

When promoting your content on social media, you need to choose the right channel for your product/services. Some content will market readily with Twitter, however, some will go perfectly with Facebook. You should know your audience well enough to know where they would want to see certain content.

Post your content at the right times with social media management tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Buffer. These tools work with the built-in analytics in social media to give information on what day(s) and the time your target audience is active.

Although hashtags are overused nowadays in social media posts, it can be one way to get eyes on your content. Follow hashtags that might be relevant for your industry and include them in your posts.

These are the ways in which you can market your content by building an audience for which you do not require money. Besides these, there are also paid resources which can promote your content on social channels.

Hopefully, you now have all the information you need to get your content out into the world to the widest audience possible.

Need more tips and tricks to promote your content?

Call us or fill out this form today to book a free 1 hour consultation with our experts.

How to Devise an Effective Content Strategy for your Business

Posted on by Hrikita Shrestha

There is no debate about the importance of content marketing for your business – good content is the lifeline of most successful digital marketing campaigns.

But what makes content “good”?

Simply put, focus on what your audience is searching for and create relevant content, because haphazard content without proper planning might result in loss of credibility & quality traffic.

What is Content Strategy?

Content strategy focuses on planning, creation, delivery, and governance of content. The goal of any business’ content strategy should be to create meaningful, cohesive, engaging, and sustainable content.

Some people might confuse Content Strategy with Content Marketing Strategy. Content marketing strategy is a strategic approach, which also includes content strategies. A content marketing strategy encompasses your resources, limitations and gives a sense of direction to your communicative approaches.

How to set up a successful Content Strategy for your business?

Identify Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure effectiveness of content

When formulating a strategy for your business, you need to first identify your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

A KPI quantifies the success of a goal or other qualitative measures you would want to track. E.g. you want people to sign up for an event by filling up a form. In this case, the number of forms filled up in a specific time period would be a relevant KPI.

When setting up your performance indicators, remember to follow the principles of simplicity, relevance, timeliness, and instant usefulness.

Keep in mind that performance indicators may also vary from business to business, or even change with time within the same business as well.

Follow this simple exercise when choosing your KPIs:

  1. Write down 5 major short term goals for your business.
  2. Write down 5 major long term goals for your business.
  3. Write down 10 actions you want your audience to take as a result of your content.
  4. Evaluate each of the actions against your goals.
  5. Choose actions that most directly support your goal and identify metrics that measure each of these actions.

With the metrics in hand, you are now ready to start measuring your content’s effectiveness.

Understand the audience consuming your content

Now that you know what you want from your audience, try to understand your audience. One way to do this is to create and analyze buyer personas for your target market.

According to HubSpot, “Buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customers based on market research and real data based on your current customers.”

The goal of this exercise is to figure out how you can connect with your customers by focusing on the content they are being delivered, and how they perceive those messages.

Analyze the content your competitors are putting up

Now that you have an understanding about your customers, the next step would be to closely analyze your competitors.

A thorough analysis involves reviewing your competitor’s target market, products, market shares, and strategies. The most common tool for this analysis is SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats).

In this digital age, this can be done easily by mapping their web pages and social media presence. There are also various instruments through which we can assess the performance of our webpages.

An indicator of how well your content is doing amongst competitors is your SERP (Search Engine Ranking Pages) ranking. Although some amount of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is required to achieve a higher ranking, ultimately it is dependent on your content.

You can analyze your competitor’s website by answering questions like:

  • How long did it take for the site to load?
  • How active are their CTAs? How responsive is their customer service?
  • What are they offering? Do some of their offerings coincide with yours?
  • What are their prices?
  • What are the main messages and tones that they are using in their content?
  • What strategy do they follow while structuring their content?

Once you have answered the above questions, ask the same questions for your website as well. It will give you a decent reflection on where you stand in regards to your competitors.

This analysis is not about imitating your competitors. It is about finding out what they have been doing, where they lack and what you can do better.

If you think your competitors are doing better than you, it’s time to ask yourself some really serious questions, like:

  • What is my ultimate goal with this channel?
  • What does my audience want to do when they use this channel?
  • Is my target audience active on the channel I use?
  • Am I using the right CTAs?
  • Am I pushing my brand offering too much?
  • Am I talking about interesting ideas?

Understand your business and the kind of content right for you

When creating content for your business, it is necessary to set a guideline for the voice and tone. The choices that you make in order to portray your ideas might affect how your brand communicates to its audiences now, and also in the future.

For identifying the tone and voice of your content, you can do an exercise where you list some statements on how you want your customers to perceive your brand, or what the intention of the brand that you have created is. After that, suggest a word that will best complete the following sentences.

You can start with statements like:

  • My brand makes people feel…
  • If my customers described my brand they would say…
  • I want my brand to be…

Segregate the words generated and choose unique or similar ones. Now, you have a smaller pile of words that you actually want people to list when they come across your brands.

Your brand’s voice is one of the key factors that will differentiate you from your competitors. Having a distinct tone and voice in your content makes it easier to retain customer attention, and sets you apart from other business entities who only focus on product sales.

Companies also need to be consistent with what they deliver. E.g. if you are formal and highly descriptive in your product catalog but casual in your customer service, customers might lose trust in your brand.

Consistency is the key in content strategy. Being consistent will not only establish your brand identity, but also supports brand awareness and increases the trust in your brand.

Ideate & Prioritize your content

Now that you know how you should be delivering your content, the next step should focus on what you deliver. Plan out your content. You can do this in various ways, like keyword research, competition research, or even a simple walk-and-think session. There is no set way to ideate, since it is very subjective in nature.

If you have the luxury of having more brains than one, plan a brainstorming session. Sit down with others, and discuss ideas and avenues of content you can explore. You will be amazed at how well brainstorming sessions work, provided they are done properly, of course.

A successful brainstorming session requires trust, respect, encouragement, and equality.

After you’ve brainstormed, sort through the ideas and implement the best ones. All good ideas need not be implemented. Prioritization is important. Rank your ideas in order of pursuing ability and importance.

Now you have content ideas that are not only relevant and valuable to your audience, but also supports your business goals.

The aforementioned tips will help you boost the quality of content you put online or even offline. Remember that these are just basic exercises, and there are many other things you can do to really bring out the best in your content strategy.

Have more queries on formulating your content strategy?

Give us a call at 9801136042 or mail us at info@act360.com.np for a free one-hour consultation with our experts.

Assessing the Game of Thrones Trend in Nepal – Part 2

Posted on by Hrikita Shrestha

Last week, we released a list of brands who came up with ideas to market their products with the theme of Game of Thrones. Little did we know, it was only the beginning! After the blog went out, we saw a lot of brands that were also in the race.

We are delighted that you liked our list and gave us feedback to take out another list.

So here we are, again, with more advertisements by Nepali brands that show us that Winter is Here!

Foodmario

Concept: Foodmario came up with their own modification to address the season premiere way before it aired. The idea is that Foodmario asks us if we have ‘GOT’ our food, also implying that we have ‘GOT’ their food as well.

What we like: The advertisement is minimalistic yet the idea is very creative. The use of the line GOT y(our) food? is very amusing.

Fallacies: A little more effects could have been added to make the iron throne more visually appealing. However, we applaud the designer for not resorting to copied images from the internet.

Engagements/ shares: 66 likes, 3 comments, and 4 shares in a span of two weeks.

Foodmandu

Concept: Before the airing of the second episode of the season, Foodmandu came up with yet another twist to wiggle their way into the Game of Memes. They pitched their services by taking the strongest accusation from the first episode, in which Sansa questions Jon they were to feed all the additional soldiers in Winterfell.

What we like: Foodmandu cleverly used the meme to show its services, as well as make people laugh. The meme served its purpose and was timed perfectly. It is simple yet funny.

Fallacies: The quality of the images used are low.

Engagements/ shares: 561 likes, 86 comments and 21 shares in a span of 4 days.

Huawei Nepal

Concept: In this high definition advertisement, we see Huawei P30 Series phone taking a very detailed picture of the Night King. The idea of the design is that the technology is so surreal that you can view impeccable details of the object being shot through your lens. The 50 times superzoom camera will help you see what even three-eyed ravens can not.

What we like: The background image, brand color and text on the image looks good. The overall design is visually appealing and delivers its message smoothly.

Fallacies: The image of the Night King has been copied directly from the internet, and might raise copyright issues.

Engagements/ shares: 427 likes and 10 comments on the Instagram post in a span of two days.

Falfull


Concept: Falfull, brings the best of nature with its fruit juice range in this advertisement. It subtly hints at drinking Falfull while watching or reading your favorite show/book.

What we like: The design as a whole is aesthetically pleasing. The juice bottle looks good and appealing.

Fallacies: The books are nice additions to the shot, however, the picture could have been better without it. The caption used in the original post is very vague and feels incomplete.

Engagements/ shares: 10 likes in a span of 4 days.

Falfull


Concept: A basic representation of a fan watching Game of Thrones while sipping into a Falfull juice with a book showcased by his side. It a simple advertisement with an indirect message for viewers to have a Falfull juice in our hands while we watch the next episode.

What we like: The setup and sound effects used are good.

Fallacies: The opening credits used for the video might be subjected to copyright claims. The book placed beside the laptop looks out of place and feels forced.

Engagements/ shares: None in a span of 7 hours.

Icecream Live Nepal

 

 
 
 
 
 
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A post shared by Ice Cream Live (@icecreamlivenepal) on

Concept: Icecream Live Nepal is nailing it with their ‘Summer is Coming’ theme with this gif on their Instagram. The gif has the dragon release its breath to form ice cream on the Throne of Spoons.

What we like: We really liked the idea of creating a replica of the Iron Throne from spoons for an ice cream advertisement. The sound effect of the dragon is amazing and gives us just the right chill. The fonts and background used to complement the design. And, let’s not forget our little Drogon there.

Fallacies: Although, the design looks good as it is, the Spoon of Thrones might have been made a little bigger to better accommodate the ice cream.

Engagements/ shares: 32887 views, and 13 comments in a span of 18 days.

Icecream Life Nepal

Concept: Guess who sits on the iron throne at the end? Icecream Live! This advertisement actually came a week before the animation from the same brand. Icecream Live here is presented as the king of ice creams, sitting on the Iron Throne made from spoons.

What we like: The texture of spoons match the texture of the swords of the Iron Throne, which makes the design fascinating. The use of minimalistic fonts and color of text complements the advertisement.

Fallacies: Similar to the previous design, the ice cream cup looks too big in comparison with the throne.

Engagements/ shares: 114 likes in a span of one month.

Ebeema

Concept: The concept is a simple as it gets for this advertisement by Ebeema. The dead don’t require life insurance, however, we do. Hence, get one from Ebeema.

What we like: With the premiere of Game of Thrones, many life insurance companies put forward the idea of mortality of humans, and how perishable life is. We really like the simplicity of this advertisement and the message it delivers.

Fallacies: The quality of the picture is low, and it has directly been copied from the internet. This ad could have been a little more creative. There is a lot of room for improvement.

Engagements/ shares: 2 likes and 1 share in a span of 19 hours.

Mero Surakhshya

Concept: Mero Surakshya followed the trend, just like other insurance companies, and are leveraging the death of everyone’s favorite characters for getting mobile insurance.

What we like: Mero Surakshya used the characters that we wished were not dead and put it on the layout of a phone. The design is simple and the message is clear.

Fallacies: The text on the image would have looked better if the fonts were uniform.

Engagements/shares: 453 likes, 1 comment, and 6 shares in a span of 5 days.

Did we miss out on anything again? Please forward them to us if we have. We are open for feedback and your views on our list too.

Thinking about running your next campaign on digital media?

Call us at 9801136042 to book an appointment. Doing awesome things is our specialty! 😀

Assessing the Game of Thrones Trend in Nepal – Part 1

Posted on by Hrikita Shrestha

The start of the Nepali New Year 2076 was extra special this year, after all, our favorite show, Game of Thrones, was returning for its season finale after making its viewers wait for two years. The hype that the season finale created even before it premiered was amazing and companies were quick to cash in this craze with innovative ideas to market their products.

In Nepal, Winter came for many companies and brands as they tried to participate in this social media game of getting into the hype. We at ACT360 could not help but applaud the creative ideas and share it with you.

Listed below are 14 advertisements by Nepali brands related to Game of Thrones that were noteworthy, and our thoughts on them.

Sanima Life Insurance

Concept: It plays on the nature of the TV series where the loss of life is as common as eating food. A constant reminder for how fragile life is, be it in Westeros, Essos, or Nepal! 😀

What we like: The concept was very well played with what the show stands for. Furthermore, by associating themselves with a show that emphasizes on the collapse of whole families when the head dies, it portrays how managing finances for your loved one even when you are not there is important.
All we can say is: well played Sanima Life 🙂

Fallacies: We believe the graphics on this could be a lot better – in fact, the image has been copied from another site and brands as big as Sanima Life Insurance should ideally avoid indulging in blatant copyright violations.

Engagement /shares in this post: 61 likes, 10 comments and 11 shares in a span of 24 hours.

Khalisisi

Concept: Khalisisi, one of Nepal’s leading waste management companies, has reflected the concept of waste coming to an end in this post. They have even played with their caption highlighting how often they get mistaken with the name Khaleesi.
What we like: The pile of waste turning to shape itself like the glorious iron throne is brilliant. Kudos to the creative team for that. And the message they put forward, revolving around the topic of the Game of Thrones coming to an end, and waste coming to an end is great.
Fallacies: We can’t think of any.
Engagement /shares in this post: 298 likes, 11 comments and 10 shares in a span of 48 hours.

Twisting Scoops

Concept: As an international brand about to open in Nepal, Twisting Scoops capitalized on the famous quote from Game of Thrones – “Winter is coming.” The idea here is to make people aware of their opening in Nepal on 24th April.
What we like: The use of background imagery and the throne is perfect. The fonts used match the actual fonts in Game of Thrones. In a time when everyone was using “Summer is Coming” as their tagline, Twisting Scoops upped their game with their arrival to Nepal.
Fallacies: We think the graphics in this image could have been enhanced to make the ice cream look more appetizing. The downward hanging ice-cream also looks a bit out of place. We also get a whiff of copyright violations for the images used.
Engagement /shares in this post: 43 likes, 4 comments and 15 shares in a span of  5 days.

Foodmandu


Concept: This GIF from Foodmandu revolves in the idea that with every order in Foodmandu you will end up with a taste of yumminess and happiness.
What we like: The relation that Foodmandu made with people getting happier with their orders from them looks good. The use of a hashtag like #GOTFoodmandu also reflects they are following the trend too.
Fallacies: The taglines do not exactly link with each other as the first stanza talks about success and failure however the second stanza seems to talk about ordering something and getting happiness out of it. The design is minimalistic and the GIF could probably have been more interesting. We also could not really understand the relevance to GOT here.
Engagement /shares in this post: 5 likes and 1 comment in a span of 24 hours

Laxmi Bank

Concept: The main idea is to focus on new interest rates that Laxmi Bank is providing for their fixed deposits. This makes more sense, because historically Laxmi Bank announces changes to its fixed deposit rates as weather updates.
What we like: The advertisements of interest rates with the concept of ‘Winter is Gone’ and ‘Summer has Come’ is brilliant. Hats off to whoever thought of this idea. Furthermore, playing around the words like “DON’T LOSE THE GAME OF RATES” is interesting, and the fonts and color used look amazing.
Fallacies: The effects on the background could have been enhanced more to match the color of the fonts.
Engagement /shares in this post: 339 likes, 15 comments and 145 shares in a span of 4 days.

KFC Nepal

Concept: A reference to the smokiness of the chicken at KFC being prepared by one of the dragons of Game of Thrones. However, the international KFC page did it one step better, making the dragon breathe out fried chicken as a testament to it’s Hot & Crispy Chicken. Now this is one dragon that would be loved, not feared! 😀
What we like: The representation of the product (Smoky Grilled Chicken) is very good and its placement to reflect the idea it is being grilled by dragon’s breath is incredible.
Fallacies: The dragon would have looked more visually appealing if it was more realistic rather than animated, but kudos to the design team for their consideration of copyright issues.
Engagement /shares in this post: 2.5K likes, 54 comments and 17 shares in a span of 18 days.

Yellow Pomelo

Concept: Yellow Pomelo is hosting a screening of the premiere of Game of Thrones on April 15.
What we like: The invitations for screening wins with the perfect opportunity for people who were unable to watch Game of Thrones due to their schedule. With the tagline of “All men must attend”, they’ve used the famous quote from GoT with modifications, which is great.
Fallacies: The design as a whole is minimalistic although the color, type, and sizes of the font could have been more attractive.
Engagement /shares in this post: 21 likes, 18 comments and 4 shares in a span of 4 days.

UG Cakes

Concept: UG Cakes is a renowned and growing brand among cake lovers through their customized and innovative flavor in the cake industry. The above designs were put forward by UG Cakes to play on the Game of Thrones craze.
What we like: The cake looks so good that it is a dilemma whether it should be eaten or preserved for ages. The details are impeccable in the cake and resemble the iron throne. No matter how well-thought out the marketing campaign is, you simply can’t beat coming up with commemorative products!
Fallacies: Use of effects and appropriate background images could have been done to focus more on the cake. Also, there was no caption in the posts.
Engagement /shares in this post: 3 and 2 likes respectively in the posts.

MIC for Youths

Concept: MIC for youths is a platform for individuals to enhance their interpersonal skills. In this ad, they suggest getting a ticket for career growth training where they use the word “GOT” as a reference to the show.
What we like: It is a typical ad for MIC that includes a summary of their services as well as linking it with some aspects of the show.
Fallacies: The design is very simple and looks like it was done with minimum effort. The font used could have been made uniform and use of a different color could have been done. The word GOT could have been used only once.
Engagement /shares in this post: 14 likes and 4 shares in a span of 19 hours.

Kwality

Concept: Kwality showcases its ice cream sundae with the hint of it being as cold as the breath of the White Walker dragon.
What we like: The concept of using a White Walker dragon’s breath to depict the idea of freezing ice cream.
Fallacies: The graphics could have been made more visually appealing with effects and more realistic images. The color of the font would look good if it contrasted with the background.
Engagement /shares in this post: 8 likes in a span of 2 days.

Karja Bazaar

Concept: Karja Bazar has GOT your back, literally, in the game of taking loans, just like the Iron Bank of Braavos.
What we like: The background and the image of the throne complement each other.
Fallacies: The used image is copied from the Internet, which might lead to some repercussions for Karja Bazaar. The tagline “We GOT Your Back” also sounds incorrect – “We’ve GOT Your Back” would be more correct.
Engagement /shares in this post: 28 likes and 6 shares in a span of 48 hours.

Octave Kathmandu

Concept: In the premiere screening event of Game of Thrones, a replica of the Iron Throne was placed in Octave Kathmandu. Many visitors posed and took pictures as they claimed the throne in the event.
What we like: The experience of sitting on the Iron Throne (even though it’s fake) is gloriou! Kudos to the idea of using the prop and efforts put in its creation. The whole screening event along with the throne looks amazing and visitors also seem really engaged in the pictures published.
Fallacies: The use of colorful fumes around the throne just doesn’t provide the feels for the one looking at the picture. Additionally, more detailing could have been done to the throne and props like swords could probably have been included.
Engagement /shares in this post: 5K likes, 33 comments, and 5 shares. This would also have resulted in a lot of posts from visitors which is great as well.

Ratnapark Blues

Concept: Portrayal of our unstable Nepali government by Ratnapark Blues. Cartoon image of KP Oli signifies how Oli is responsible for watching over Nepal just like Jon Snow is leading the night’s watch.
What we like: A comedic relief with a deeper message of how inevitable the game of thrones is in Nepali politics. Use of Nepali language makes the message even more relatable for us.
Fallacies: The cartoon could have been more detailed. The addition of a few more characters could also have made this better.
Engagement /shares in this post: 473 likes, 19 comments, and 116 shares as of 16 April 2019.

Bajaj Pulsar

Concept: The tagline has been refined from the famous quote of Game of Thrones, “All men must die”. The ad focuses on the necessity for all men to ride in house Pulsar.
What we like: The use of dark theme looks perfect for the ad and relating the famous quote of “All men must die” to their brand tagline is stunning.
Fallacies: All women can ride too 🙂
Engagements/shares in this post: 1.3K likes, 14 comments and 10 shares in a span of 18 hours.

Hopefully, we’ve mentioned all your favorite Game of Thrones related advertisements from Nepal. Write to us if we have missed some and we will remember to include it in our next list!

Thinking about running your next campaign on digital media?

Call us at 9801136042 to book an appointment. Doing awesome things is our specialty! 😀

Let’s Talk About Menstrual Leave

Posted on by Hrikita Shrestha

It’s that time of the month again… time to eat more, procrastinate, feel every emotion more intensely, and also, have a valid reason for it.

All women can relate to the above fully or partially thanks to their monthly periods.

Menstruation is a natural phenomenon that women go through every month in order to ensure that they have a healthy reproductive system.

While periods may look like a simple biological process caused by hormonal changes, for almost 80% of women, periods are equivalent to nightmares because of the gut-wrenching cramps, nausea, bloating of body parts, weakness and sometimes, even migraines.

Pain medication? Yes, but they don’t work for everyone, nor are they a perfect solution.

What is menstruation and how do women deal with menstrual cramps?

Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) occurs one or two weeks before periods and tends to have an adverse effect on moods and body functions.

Menstrual cramps occur due to contractions in the uterus, which is a muscle. If the contractions are too strong, it can press against nearby blood vessels. This will briefly cut off the supply of oxygen to the uterus. Hence, this lack of oxygen is what causes the pain and cramps during your menstrual cycle.

Periods can affect a woman’s physical as well as mental abilities. Women often suffer from irritation, crankiness, fluctuating appetite, weakness, and allergies.

There is no avoiding menstruation or the cramps that follow and the most common way to deal with them is pain medication or resting, and other forms of pain management such as using hot water bags (these vary from person to person).

A woman on her periods is still considered a social stigma in parts of society. Thus, talking freely about periods is often forbidden. Girls, first of all, taking period leaves won’t make you look weak. Men and women are biologically different. Even women are different, with some having a harder time than others during their period.

What is menstrual leave?

Menstrual leave policies must provide the possibility of taking a leave from work for women undergoing menstruation. Whether the leave is paid or unpaid, or whether it is for 1 day or more is up to the company to decide. Menstrual leaves should also be optional.

Another alternative to menstrual leave is to provide employees the option to work from home, although this may not be suitable for all types of professions. Furthermore, some women may also not be able to work from home if the pain is too bad.

The most important component of any menstrual leave policy is to provide support and understanding, whatever form it is in.

Is menstrual leave really necessary?

Menstrual leave is NOT sick leave, and should not be considered as such. Menstruation is not a sickness; it is a regular and natural process that occurs in women.

Now there is no avoiding menstruation, however, there are some things that make it more manageable, one of which is taking leave from work.

Being able to take a day off from the office relieves the pressure on women as they don’t have to worry about their work. Some women also opt not to take pain medication (if the pain is less) in exchange for a full day’s rest (again, this differs from person to person).

How effective is menstrual leave?

Each woman experiences their periods differently. Some women have painful period cramps and are sick in bed, while others barely even know they are having their period. So we can’t generalize period pain for all women. Women make up about 40% of the composition of global workforce, and 20% of women suffer from intense menstrual cramps, a condition called dysmenorrhea.

In mid 2013, The Waratah Project was conducted and documented the experiences, central issues, stigma, and negativity around the topic of menstruation & menopause. An online survey of 3,400 people (across Australia and globally) was done in this project, which included women from all walks of life.

This survey showed that 58 percent of respondents felt that a day off to rest would make their period a better experience every month.

Taking period leave helps women deal with their period cramps in the comfort of their home. It helps them be less dependent on pain medications that are harmful for them in long run.

Do companies provide menstrual leave?

All companies provide sick leave (in Nepal this is around 12 sick leaves per year as mandated by the Nepali government as of 2019). However there are very few companies locally who provide menstrual leave.

The situation isn’t different around the world either, and only a .

Interestingly in Bihar, India, female government employees get two days off every month for “biological reasons” on top of their regular leaves.

Menstrual leave at ACT360

ACT360 has recently implemented a policy allowing 1 period leave (paid) every month. This leave application process has been added to our regular leave process and is confidential.

Why?

Because we don’t like seeing our family of superstars who are normally cool and collected, being cranky and irritated, or doubling over on their desk with unbearable pain due to cramps. They need rest and deserve to take leave without worrying about the number of sick leaves they have left.

We are hopeful this initiative will promote a positive attitude of women towards their periods and help them be more energized and prepared for work after their leave. As our core purpose says, we are, have been and always will Do Awesome Things.