Insta Influencers and Graphic Design - Don’t Neglect Cloud Security

Our Editor Sean J. Miller had a great interview in this week’s Creative Newsletter with Jazmine Johnson, a designer who worked with the Biden campaign and at the DNC during the 2020 cycle. On creating an impactful brand for a candidate, Johnson said the path to authenticity is developing an actual relationship with the candidate.

“Thinking back to all of the candidate branding we admired or critiqued, my gripe is that agencies don’t really think intentionally about who they’re branding, they’re just trying to create a brand that looks really cool, and that comes when you’re not spending a lot of time with the candidate. I think having a relationship with the candidate, designers included, is important for creating something authentic.”

C&E also asked Johnson what worked design-wise with social media influencers:

“In the influencer program, I had a lot of liberty to design outside of the DNC brand, so it allowed me and my team to go crazy with different styles. From there, we gave the influencers the freedom to use our graphics however they liked. Some influencers would post our graphics in their feeds alongside other sharable resources and some influencers would repost our graphics and write these empowering messages and personal stories about the election. It varied. But the one thing we learned early on is that there’s power in autonomy.”

You can read the interview in full here. And if you’re not already, you can subscribe to our Creative Newsletter here — it goes to subscribers every other Thursday. *Note you will be automatically subscribed to the Creative Newsletter once you click.

SolarWinds, the software company that’s become synonymous with the recent widespread hack of the U.S. government and major corporations, is investigating whether the hackers entered their network through Microsoft’s cloud. It’s a vulnerability that some consultants have already experienced first-hand, but many users still aren’t aware of — despite a highly publicized corporate cloud hack in 2019.

Chris Carter, CEO of Wisconsin-based Approyo, which provides businesses with cloud computing services related to SAP, put it this way:

“Cloud vulnerabilities are incredible right now. People don’t want to spend either the financial [resources] to secure the cloud, or they just don’t know what they’re doing so they don’t go in there and they don’t know how to set up the cloud security.”

Carter suggested that organizations with a $1 million budget should be devoting at least 2-5 percent of their technology spend to protect their cloud storage. He recommends Check Point CloudGuard and Amazon Redshift to provide data encryption and added security.

“A lot of these smaller businesses think just because I put it up there, it’s safe. But people are not doing their homework properly yet. Businesses need to be cognizant of the hardware and the tools they’re using. Have someone who knows how to build it and how to secure it on your team.”

As the 2021 Reed Awards entry deadline is today we thought we’d highlight some digital categories that might have flown under your radar.

Did your firm absolutely crush the move to work from home? Then you should 100% consider entering Best Employer: Work-From-Home Transition

In-person campaigning was scaled back due to COVID and you stepped in with a great virtual voter engagement program? Then walk right over to Best Use of Targeting to Support Virtual Voter Contact

And speaking of in-person being scaled back, did you raise the bar with innovative virtual fundraising events or make it rain with an end of quarter email campaign? Then check out Best Virtual Fundraising Event and Best End-of-Quarter Fundraising Email

When it came to producing online video, did your team step up the plate with innovative ways to shoot and produce remotely? They did!? Then Innovation in Virtual Video & Ad Production and Best Remote Production Solution are waiting for you. And what about that candidate who, against all odds, you made relatable in an online video? Then Most Relatable Depiction of a Candidate in an Online Video is for you.

2020 demanded a hell of a lot more from field programs. Did you leverage data analytics or machine learning in never before seen ways? Submit your efforts for Best Use of Data Analytics/Machine Learning in Field Program.

So many texts. So. Many. But if yours left the competition in the dust, consider Best Use of P2P on a Campaign and Best Use of SMS.

Were you a pioneer in podcast advertising? Then Best Podcast Ad for Candidate Campaign and Best Use of Targeting in Podcast Advertising might be worth a look.

Check out the full list of categories here. And make sure to submit your work before 11:59pm EST today.

Facebook Developing a Tool to Help Advertisers Avoid Bad News
(Axios)

The platform says it will begin testing “topic exclusion controls” to address concerns from brand advertisers.

Where Does Democratic Fundraising Go Post-Trump?
(Campaigns & Elections)

With Trump out of the White House and currently off his main social channels, the focal point of a lot of online rallying is gone, too.

Deceptive News Sites Proliferated on Facebook and Twitter In 2020
(Bloomberg)

That disinformation was widespread on Twitter and FB in ’20 is nothing new, but according to new research from the German Marshall Fund, the spread of deceptive websites on Twitter was largely driven by verified accounts.