Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity is the world’s biggest event for the creative, marketing, entertainment, design and tech industries. Held every year in the South of France, the five-day festival includes talks, workshops, networking events, classes and also incorporates the awarding of the ‘Lions Awards’. The Lions are the most prestigious and established awards in the creative and marketing communications industries – a trophy is the ultimate achievement and puts winners among the world’s elite.

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Today is #InternationalWomensDay, a day dedicated to celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievement of women. In honor of this, we have compiled a list of inspiring, female-built brands that are changing the game. We recommend having Destiny’s Child or Rihanna playing in the background as you read.

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Marketing to Millennials all starts with understanding them as a consumer demographic. Millennials, also known as generation Y, consist of those who were born between the early 1980’s and early 2000’s. They are heavily influenced by digital technology, the information revolution, globalization and social media.

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Feeling like the corporate world is becoming the political world? Every action we take and every move we make may be judged as a reflection of our beliefs and values. Day to day, we are contemplating the balance between our desire for better practices and policies for the good of society and our habits of mass consumerism. Is there a way to achieve a complementary system where companies serve as soapboxes for social change and buyers are not forced into a structure of commerce based on ethics?

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Hi! My name is Natalie Matthews and I am ecstatic to begin as the new social media and marketing intern at HMG Creative, this semester. Born and raised in Clear Lake, Texas, I have enjoyed dancing competitively for twelve years with my older sister and traveling alongside the rest of our family in our free time. I am an avid cooking show viewer, occasional chef for one and dedicated consumer of all things sweet. You can often find me making my way around Town Lake while listening to some of my favorite artists, ranging from Frank Sinatra to Katy Perry. I am passionate about empowerment, the alleviation of poverty, education and positive living.

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This year, we saw a one-minute Super Bowl spot from Toyota featuring a Paralympic athlete and the journey she took to increase her chances of winning a gold medal. Heartwarming and inspiring—no cars were featured in the ad, which promoted the phrase, “When we’re free to move, anything is possible.” So what does this say about what we value as consumers? Are features and benefits our main concern? The fact is, in a world with so much variety, availability, and interconnected commerce, we subscribe to the brands we choose to invest loyalty in, not the products we choose to buy.

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Optimizing your website’s keywords, call-to-actions, and landing pages are fundamental in search engine optimization and getting started with inbound marketing. It takes time to rank higher through organic SEO methods, but inbound marketing is one of the most cost-effective ways of capturing the attention of high-quality prospects. The second most important contributor to organic search engine optimization is producing blog content that is knowledgeable on topics within your industry and valuable to your ideal customer. Optimizing your website for conversion and creating content that that resonates with your readers will set you up for continuously bringing in high-quality leads.

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Having taken two advertising classes before beginning my internship with HMG, my knowledge of the marketing industry was limited. I remember sitting in the conference room listening to all the tasks I was going to take on and all of the social media accounts I was going to manage and being so excited to expand my knowledge in the field of marketing. Fast forward seven months, and I can honestly say I’ve gained value far beyond the tasks given to me.

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Let’s be honest, life is hectic. Between work, home, kids (if you have them) and trying to have a social life, everything can blend together and it can become hard to stay organized. While work-life balance is important, work is a large contributor to our attitude, happiness and overall outlook on life. If you are one that wears many hats at work, here are five ways to relieve the stress of having what seems like one million things to do. Disclaimer: random tedious and sometimes unpleasant things are inevitably going to pop up, but turning these tips into habits will make it more bearable.

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Imagine going on a 100-mile bike ride in the middle of the summer in Wichita Falls, Texas—sounds excruciating, right? That’s exactly what these cyclists are doing in The Hotter’N Hell bike race in order to raise money for children in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Riding 100 miles in one day in the middle of Texas does not compare to the pain and suffering these children go through without proper healthcare.

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