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What's the News Around the Valley? Stardew Valley and the Success of Earned Media

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Have you ever been asked to rate how likely you are to recommend a product to others? I’ve always found that to be one of the more ridiculous questions on customer satisfaction surveys. “How likely are you to rate Brand’s Paper to your friends or coworkers?” Honestly, not likely at all, since ‘preferred brand of printer paper' is not something I often discuss. To me, questions like that generally don’t work as an indicator of the quality of the product or service. However, when Steam (a PC gaming platform) asked me how likely I was to recommend Stardew Valley ? I had to be honest – I was very likely to recommend it to others. In fact, I had already done so several times. Stardew Valley is a farming simulator game with a pixelated art style, developed entirely by one man, Eric Barone, better known as @ConcernedApe on Twitter . It’s also one of the most popular indie games of the last decade, with over 15 million downloads. And it has gained such massive popularity almost entirely t

A "Note"-Worthy Ad: Oreo's Continuing Support of the LGBTQ+ Community

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Coming out isn’t a one-time thing. It’s the process of a lifetime and ranges from terrifying to mundane. When I first came out to my parents, I knew I would be experiencing those same emotions every time I told a stranger, coworker, or friend about my personal life. Oreo’s new short film, “The Note” , directed by lesbian filmmaker Alice Wu, explores the struggle of needing to come out again and again to family members.  “The Note” is the latest in a series of partnerships between Oreo and PFLAG , one of the oldest and largest organizations providing resources for both young members of the LGBTQ+ community and their families. In it, Wu depicts what appears to be the classic coming out story, with a twist. The central focus of the ad is a young adult man writing a note in order to help him come out to his grandmother. Oreo chose to depict this, rather than a more ‘traditional’ coming-out story, as a direct follow up to their 2020 “Proud Parent” ad. In an article by Jeff Beer on Fast

About Me

 Hello! My name is Dale Cummings and I'm an Accounting Technology major at LBCC, and am taking this class as a required course for that degree. While I'm not interested in marketing as a profession I am taking this course to better learn how to market myself in a professional setting. Outside of school, I enjoy listening to and making music -- pre-pandemic my primary passion was singing in choirs. I also enjoy crochet, cosplay, and Dungeons and Dragons in my free time.