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Georgia Southern University – is thinking BIG when it comes to entrepreneurs and small business

Through the CARES Act and the U.S. Department of Commerce, Georgia Southern University’s Business Innovation Group (BIG) has received $300,000 in grant funding to expand its services to the region in an effort to help communities and businesses respond to and recover from the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. “This will really allow us to help businesses and entrepreneurs throughout the entire state ideally get access to the skills, knowledge and services that Georgia Southern has to offer,” said Dominique Halaby, DPA, director of BIG. Over the next two years, BIG will use these funds to expand their services through the Georgia Enterprise Network for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (GENIE). “We’re hoping that we can demonstrate to budding entrepreneurs and small business owners that Georgia Southern can help them develop and grow,” Halaby said. “We are hopeful that in two years’ time people are going to have a heightened aerial view of awareness for Georgia Southern and our Business Innovation Group services, but more importantly, that they are going to get the type of resources to be able to launch the business that they’ve always wanted to launch.” Halaby said offering these resources to the region is important for economic growth. “Any time that we have an ability to do something, we have a responsibility to do it,” Halaby said. “The needs of our community are great. Our ability to service those needs by connecting those with the resources on our campus and with the skills that we have fostered within BIG puts us in a very unique position. This way, we are able to provide services to help as many entrepreneurs and to help as many people looking for jobs as we possibly can.” BIG will also use part of the grant funding to work with Georgia Southern faculty to strengthen patent and licensing activity. “We’re working with our intellectual property committee and through the University to let faculty know that if they’ve got a concept, that BIG can help them flesh that out. We can work with them to do an analysis to see the marketability for their concept and determine if it’s patentable or licensable,” Halaby said. If you’re a journalist looking to know more about how Georgia Southern University is assisting regional businesses or its Business Innovation Group (BIG) – then let our experts help with your coverage. Dominique Halaby, DPA, is the Director of the Business Innovation Group (BIG) at Georgia Southern University. In 2015, BIG was recognized as a Gold Award Winner in Entrepreneurship by the International Economic Development Council. Simply click on his icon now to arrange an interview today.

Airing commercials after political ads actually helps sell nonpolitical products

About $7 billion reportedly will be spent this fall on television and digital commercials from political campaigns and political action committees, filling the airwaves with political ads many viewers dislike. Companies running ads immediately afterward have been concerned about the potential of a negative spillover effect on how they and their products and services are perceived. But new research from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business finds that the opposite is true. Contrary to mainstream thought, political ads instead yield positive spillover effects for nonpolitical advertisers. And this happens regardless of whether the political ad is an attack ad or not, who the ad supports, and whether it's sponsored by a candidate, political party or PAC. Political advertising accounts for nearly 10 percent of all U.S. television ad revenue. The findings are in the article "Impact of Political Television Advertisements on Viewers' Response to Subsequent Advertisements" -- accepted for publication in Marketing Science -- by Beth Fossen, assistant professor of marketing; Girish Mallapragada, associate professor of marketing and Weimer Faculty Fellow; and doctoral candidate Anwesha De, all from the Kelley School of Business. "Our investigations provide insights into the previously unexplored ad-to-ad spillover effects and, more broadly, provides insights into how political messages influence consumers," Fossen said. "Nonpolitical ads that follow political ads benefit through a reduction in audience decline and an increase in positive post-ad chatter." Using data for 849 national prime-time ads during the 2016 U.S. general election, the researchers found that ads airing after a political commercial saw an 89 percent reduction in audience decline and a 3 percent increase in post-ad chatter online. Their findings remained consistent when examining the effect by TV network and political party affiliation. "It seems reasonable to assume that Fox News viewers are more likely to be positively stimulated by pro-Republican ads than viewers of other channels," researchers wrote. "However, evidence from our data suggests that the positive spillover from pro-Republican ads is not higher and is nearly lower on Fox News viewership decline than when pro-Republican ads air on other channels." They found a similar trend when it came to advertising on MSNBC, whose viewers frequently identify with the Democratic Party and progressive causes. Mallapragada said the findings show that television networks and stations can leverage the positive spillover effects on subsequent ads by implementing differential pricing and systematic ad sequencing. Prevailing belief in the business industry has suggested that political ads on television hurt the effectiveness of subsequent ads. To illustrate this concern, during the 2020 Super Bowl, game broadcaster Fox isolated political ads from other paying advertisers in their own ad breaks, a decision that cost the network millions in ad revenue, because it ran nonpaid show promos alongside the political ads instead of commercials from paying advertisers. "The insights from this research enable advertisers to advocate for the inclusion of ad positioning in ad buys and, specifically, negotiate that their ads follow political ads," he said. "Our results may also encourage advertisers outside of the television context to experiment with advertising next to political content, an experimentation that may be especially beneficial for online advertisers given that they commonly blacklist political topics to avoid having their ads appear near political content." Editors: Contact George Vlahakis at vlahakis@iu.edu for a copy of the paper.

Digital Media Consumption in Canada is Being Dramatically Impacted by the Coronavirus Crisis

A Canadian perspective on Comscore’s ongoing special investigation into how the COVID-19 pandemic is leading to significant audience and consumer behaviour changes across digital platforms. Insights from our Analysis: News, news and more news: Canadians are consuming news at a record pace Social media and messaging: Canadians are staying ultra-connected with their communities Entertainment, music, and spirituality content: increased consumption seen as behaviours change Government: information from government websites are becoming top-of-mind Finance: increased focus on investments and payments  Analysis of News & Information Category We have seen an explosion on engagement with news and information sites. In looking at the news categories and its subcategories, the week of Mar 9-15, 2020 saw big increases in engagement over the benchmark week of Dec 30, 2019 - Jan 5, 2020. As a trend, news consumption in general is also on the rise in Canada in terms of aggregate daily unique visitors and visits over time. Analysis of Social Media and Messaging Category As Canadians respond to the Coronavirus reality, we are seeing that their engagement with digital communication channels has increased significantly. When comparing daily engagement with email, instant messengers and social networking sites between the week of March 9-15, 2020 and the benchmark week of Dec 30, 2019 -Jan 5, 2020 as it relates to the % change in usage, we saw large increase in activity. The raw increase in numbers in social media provides greater detailsof the growth in usage: Analysis of Entertainment, Misc and Religious / Spiritual Category Content is Queen, King, Prince, and Princess – between the weeks of Dec 30– January 5 and March 9-15, greater amounts of time at home and the associated increased screen time drove incremental usage of the Entertainment category and the Religious/Spiritual subcategory. Driving the growth is the explosion of Entertainment – Music, which saw an increase of 32% in aggregate daily UV, a 33% increase in visits, and a 31% increase in minutes during this time. Analysis of Government Category Another category that has seen an explosion of visitation and engagement is government sites. Overall there has been huge audience and time spent with government-related content. Here is the build of visits and aggregate Daily UV over the past 10 weeks: We reviewed the Government category between week of Dec 30, 2019 – January 5, 2020 to March 9 – March 15, 2020 and looked at the % change in usage, which really showed a large increase in activity by Canadians. Based on this trend and growing global cases of Coronavirus, it is expected that Canadian audiences will continue to flock to the content from the government in these uncertain times. Analysis of Finance Category There is a saying that we hear in society – “Follow the Money”. The digital behavior of Canadians has been analogous in recent weeks as we have seen increased measures taken relating to the Coronavirus. Overall the Business/Finance category has seen some increased usage over the time period reviewed. Banking, Payments, Investments, and especially Taxes have seen high visitation. Between the week of Dec 30, 2019 – January 5, 2020 to March 9 – March 15, 2020 we saw an increase of +19% and +59%, respectively, in visits in the Investments and Payments subcategories. Additional insights from Comscore’s initial COVID-19 insights for Canada show that: Overall Digital Consumption across the Total Internet has increased. During the time period of this review visits have increased by 10% and time spent has increased by 14% In a time of crisis, people turn to News/Information Websites There have been significant increases in activity by Canadians on Social Media, Email, and Messaging pointing to the need for communication. Social distancing is safe on the internet. Interest soars for government information sources – where we see an explosion of usage. Increases in certain content Categories like Entertainment, Games, Music, Dating, and Religion/Spirituality have spiked Spikes in traffic are occurring for the e-commerce giants as social distancing and local restrictions impact in-store retail – with specific focus on Food and Supermarket Global movement restrictions lead to tumultuous traffic for travel sites

Canadian's Digital Behavioral Shifts in Relation to the The Coronavirus Pandemic

This article is part of a series of insights that reveal a Canadian perspective on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumer behavior and significant audience shifts across digital platforms. Things are moving fast. Following our last update regarding digital media consumption during the Coronavirus pandemic, this article will highlight some of the major category changes reflected as of the week March 16 - 22, 2020. Key Insights from Our Analysis Digital consumption continues to grow: the visits and minutes curve is not flattening Key content categories such as news, social media, and government are being driven by higher engagement: metrics include visits and duration More engagement with news sites: sites categorized as local, business/finance, and general news are main drivers Categories that focus on entertaining, kids, food, financial advice, and children’s education are also seeing growth: growth comes from increases in aggregate unique visitors, visits and minutes Automotive manufacturers, real estate, sports and travel entities have seen decreases: however, they are poised for major increases and a bounce back. Mobile platforms are driving growth: some differences between desktop and mobile engagement Canadian's total digital consumption continues to grow When we analyzed Canadian total digital media consumption to compare the percentage change between the week of March 16, 2020 and the first weeks of January 2020, February 2020, and March 2020, we found that overall digital engagement is not flattening. Even comparing the beginning of March against mid-March, we can see visitation, visits, and engagement continuing to grow. Looking at the total digital consumption trend over time, we can see growth in total minutes spent online while total visits have remained relatively flat. Media Consumption Growth by Category There are several content categories that we are seeing major growth in each of the time periods: These digital categories of news/information, social media, entertainment, government and games are showing continuous growth. The need for ongoing news and information updates, government information, flocking to social media to bring community together and message, and the need to be entertained with visitation and engagement on Entertainment and Games Entities. News and Information Category Insights  To look at the news/information category a bit closer – it is amazing to see the category growth over the past few weeks of Canadians going to news entities to get updates. The hockey stick growth from the start of March 2020 is very evident. The news and information growth is being driven by local news, general news, and business/finance news. That being said – technology, politics, and weather are also seeing growth. Through these time periods, we are also seeing some other categories that are showing significant growth. Many of the categories are a result of many Canadians being home bound and isolated, and with families with kids having the kids at home. Platform Variance for Media Consumption One of the areas that we have been asked most about is whether we find any variances between desktop and mobile platforms. When reviewing the data, there is greater engagement with mobile platforms in the week of March 16 compared to other weeks. Amidst the global COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing a significant increase in digital consumption amongst Canadian consumers. The data trends show Canadians are flocking online with significant growth in news entities, instant messaging, social media, government resources, entertainment, music destinations, video, and financial websites. What this means for marketers and advertisers is a significant opportunity to reach Canadians who are highly engaged and are looking for relevant and timely content. It comes down to delivering the right message, at the right time, in front of the right audience, in brand safe environments.

Racial and LGBT bias persists in ridesharing drivers despite mitigation efforts

Despite efforts by ridesharing companies to eliminate or reduce discrimination, research from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business finds that racial and LGBT bias persists among drivers. Platforms such as Uber, Lyft and Via responded to drivers' biased behavior by removing information that could indicate a rider's gender and race from initial ride requests. However, researchers still found that biases against underrepresented groups and those who indicate support for the LGBT community continued to exist after drivers accepted a ride request -- when the rider's picture would then be displayed. In other words, their efforts shifted some of the biased behavior until after the ride was confirmed, resulting in higher cancellation rates. Understanding whether bias has been removed also is important for ridesharing companies as they not only compete against each other but also with traditional transportation options. "Our results confirm that bias at the ride request stage has been removed. However, after ride acceptance, racial and LGBT biases are persistent, while we found no evidence of gender biases," said Jorge Mejia, assistant professor of operations and decision technologies. "We show that signaling support for a social cause -- in our case, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community -- can also impact service provision. Riders who show support for the LGBT community, regardless of race or gender, also experience significantly higher cancelation rates." Mejia and co-author Chris Parker, assistant professor in the information technology and analytics department at American University in Washington, believe they are the first to use support for social causes as a bias-enabling characteristic. Their article, "When Transparency Fails: Bias and Financial Incentives in Ridesharing Platforms," is published in Management Science. They performed a field experiment on a ridesharing platform in fall 2018 in Washington, D.C. They randomly manipulated rider names, using those traditionally perceived to be white or Black, as well as profile pictures to observe drivers' behavior patterns in accepting and canceling rides. To illustrate support for LGBT rights, the authors overlaid a rainbow filter on the rider's picture profile. "We found that underrepresented minorities are more than twice as likely to have a ride canceled than Caucasians; that's about 3 percent versus 8 percent," Mejia said. "There was no evidence of gender bias." Mejia and Parker also varied times of ride requests to study whether peak price periods affected bias. They found that higher prices associated with peak times alleviated some of the bias against riders from the underrepresented group, but not against those who signal support for the LGBT community. They believe that ridesharing companies should use other data-driven solutions to take note of rider characteristics when a driver cancels and penalize the driver for biased behavior. One possible way to punish drivers is to move them down the priority list when they exhibit biased cancellation behavior, so they have fewer ride requests. Alternatively, less-punitive measures may provide "badges" for drivers who exhibit especially low cancellation rates for minority riders. But, ultimately, policymakers may need to intervene, Mejia said. "Investments in reducing bias may not occur organically, as ridesharing platforms are trying to maximize the number of participants in the platform -- they want to attract both riders and drivers," he said. "As a result, it may be necessary for policymakers to mandate what information can be provided to a driver to ensure an unbiased experience, while maintaining the safety of everyone involved, or to create policies that require ridesharing platforms to monitor and remove drivers based on biased behavior. "Careful attention should be paid to these policies both before and after implementation, as unintended consequences are almost sure to follow any simple fix."

Chatbots can ease medical providers' burden, offer trusted guidance to those with COVID-19 symptoms

COVID-19 has placed tremendous pressure on health care systems, not only for critical care but also from an anxious public looking for answers. Research from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business found that chatbots -- software applications that conduct online chats via text or text-to-speech -- working for reputable organizations can ease the burden on medical providers and offer trusted guidance to those with symptoms. Researchers conducted an online experiment with 371 participants who viewed a COVID-19 screening session between a hotline agent -- chatbot or human -- and a user with mild or severe symptoms. They studied whether chatbots were seen as being persuasive, providing satisfying information that likely would be followed. Their results showed a slight negative bias against chatbots' ability, perhaps due to recent press reports. When the perceived ability is the same, however, participants reported that they viewed chatbots more positively than human agents, which is good news for health care organizations struggling to meet user demand for screening services. "The primary factor driving user response to screening hotlines -- human or chatbot -- is perceptions of the agent's ability," said Alan Dennis, the John T. Chambers Chair of Internet Systems at Kelley and corresponding author of the paper, "User reactions to COVID-19 screening chatbots from reputable providers." "When ability is the same, users view chatbots no differently or more positively than human agents." Other authors on the paper, forthcoming in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, are Antino Kim, assistant professor of operations and decision technologies at Kelley; and Sezgin Ayabakan, assistant professor of management information systems, and doctoral candidate Mohammad Rahimi, both at Temple University's Fox School of Business. Even before the pandemic, chatbots were identified as a technology that could speed up how people interact with researchers and find medical information online. "Chatbots are scalable, so they can meet an unexpected surge in demand when there is a shortage of qualified human agents," Dennis, Kim and their co-authors wrote, adding that chatbots "can provide round-the-clock service at a low operational cost. "This positive response may be because users feel more comfortable disclosing information to a chatbot, especially socially undesirable information, because a chatbot makes no judgment," researchers wrote. "The CDC, the World Health Organization, UNICEF and other health organizations caution that the COVID-19 outbreak has provoked social stigma and discriminatory behaviors against people of certain ethnic backgrounds, as well as those perceived to have been in contact with the virus. This is truly an unfortunate situation, and perhaps chatbots can assist those who are hesitant to seek help because of the stigma." The primary factor driving perceptions of ability was the user's trust in the provider of the screening hotline. "Proactively informing users of the chatbot's ability is important," the authors wrote. "Users need to understand that chatbots use the same up-to-date knowledge base and follow the same set of screening protocols as human agents. ... Because trust in the provider strongly influences perceptions of ability, building on the organization's reputation may also prove useful."  

Cancellation of non-conference college football games may lead to a new battle in the courtroom

The Big Ten Conference's decision to cancel all non-conference football games for the upcoming season -- and the possibility that schools in other major conferences may soon follow -- raises a number of potential legal issues, says Nathaniel Grow, associate professor of business law and ethics at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business.  “Depending on the terms of the schools' college football scheduling agreement, the university cancelling the game may still owe the other school some level of compensation for breaking the agreement,” Grow said. “If the cancelling university refuses to pay, then it would not be surprising if the other school would elect to file a lawsuit.” A nationally recognized expert in the field of sports law, Grow studied has studied this issue, the subject of a 2010 article in the Journal of College and University Law. "The ultimate outcome of such a lawsuit would hinge largely on the specific terms of two affected schools' contract. In general, though, two provisions of the contract would likely prove to be the most important. First, most scheduling agreements will include some sort of liquidated damages provision, a clause that specifies that one side of the agreement must pay the other party a certain amount of money should the contract be broken. Often times, these contracts will provide that the breaching party must only pay the other school in the event that the opponent is unable to replace the cancelled game on its schedule with one against a sufficiently suitable alternative opponent.  "The other relevant clause in these scheduling agreements is likely to be the force majeure provision, sometimes referred to as an ‘Act of God’ clause. Under these provisions, schools may be excused from cancelling a game without penalty if circumstances arise that make playing the game unduly difficult or impossible (for instance, a hurricane or other major weather event). The applicability of such a provision will also vary depending on the specific wording employed in the contract, and whether the clause permits a team to cancel a game on the basis of either a pandemic or a change in conference policy regarding the playing of non-conference games." Grow can be reached at 812-855-8191 or grown@iu.edu.

STORY: By the Numbers - CAA looks back on key initiatives from the pandemic

It’s been almost five months since COVID-19 started to dominate headlines in Canada and many people and businesses had to adapt to quickly changing circumstances.   As one of Canada’s largest membership organizations, with multiple areas of business, CAA had to navigate the changes in various industries in order to keep CAA members safe.   The initial response As a travel company, our agents helped to rebook hundreds of passenger travel itineraries as flights were cancelled and borders closed. CAA’s travel insurance company, Orion Travel Insurance, worked with thousands of insureds to extend their trip cancellation and interruption insurance policies while offering additional protection for travel suppliers’ vouchers and credits.   As the community spread of COVID-19 started to take hold, CAA had to make the difficult decision to implement contact-free service and ask members to seek alternative transportation from their breakdown location, all in the interest of keeping members and drivers safe.   To help do our part to curb the spread of the virus, a decision was made in early March to close all of CAA’s retail stores across south-central Ontario. While the state of emergency had not yet been implemented by the province, we felt it was the right thing to do. All CAA associates across the company quickly adapted to work from home.   Shortly after, a state of emergency went into effect in Ontario and CAA was established as an essential service both for roadside and insurance operations.   A Responsibility to do something good Once the safety of CAA operations was taken care of, we quickly started looking at how else we can make a difference during this difficult time.   First, we committed to supporting healthcare workers and first responders by offering free roadside assistance during this crisis.  We then leveraged our network of trucks to deliver vital food and supplies to those in need. CAA worked with several large organizations in need, such as food banks, Meals on Wheels, Mobilizing Masks for Healthcare Workers and other community service groups, to assist with delivering vital supplies where they were needed urgently.   CAA also felt that it was important to stay connected and check in on the vulnerable members of our community who are struggling most. We created Operation Outreach to proactively reach out to a group of CAA members who were over the age of 75. The initiative was overwhelmingly positive with members appreciating the call and opportunity to interact with someone. One member even offered to join our outbound-calling team and to help check in with others. As the pandemic continued, we noticed that another important way we could give back and help people in need was through our insurance coverage.   We saw that Canadians everywhere were feeling the profound social, emotional and financial effects of COVID-19, and so CAA Insurance looked at every possible way to help people save money. We are the only insurance company offering a 10% rate reduction on both home and auto policies, as well as a $100 Auto Insurance Relief Benefit. Unlike other insurers, we made sure that the rate reduction would be valid for the duration of the 12-month policy term.  By the numbers Everything that was accomplished throughout the pandemic was possible thanks to the hard work of dedicated Associates and the enduring support of our Members. While many Members may join CAA for roadside or to sign up for insurance, they are also contributing to the community.   The COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity for us to support our Members and the communities in which they live. We are pleased to share the impact that was made throughout this time.

With an economy on life support – is inflation inevitable?

As countries around the globe are flooding their respective economies with enough cash to hold back the financial tsunami that could be felt by COVID-19 … will all that cash inevitably come with an unfortunate consequence like inflation? Those who work the markets and do their best to see into the future … think so.   With the world economy forecast to shrink 6% this year, it may seem like a strange time to fret about inflation. And sure enough, market-based gauges suggest an uptrend in prices may not trouble investors for years. U.S. and euro zone inflation gauges indicate that annual price growth will be running at barely over 1% even a decade from now. So if inflation really is, as the IMF put it in 2013, “the dog that didn’t bark”, failing to respond to all the central bank money-printing unleashed in the wake of the 2008-9 crisis, why should investors prepare for it now, especially as demographics and technology are also conspiring to tamp down inflation across the developed world? The answer is that some think the dog really will bark this time, partly because - unlike in the post-2008 years - governments around the world have also been rolling out massive spending packages, in a bid to limit the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. “We will be pushing, pushing, pushing on the string and dropping our guard, then 3-5 years from now...that’s when the (inflation) dog will start barking,” said PineBridge Investments’ head of multi-asset Mike Kelly, who has been buying gold on that view. “Gold worries about such things long in advance. It has risen through this coronavirus with that down-the-road-risk top of mind,” he added. June 22 - Reuters It’s a daunting and stressful scenario. How much inflation could America expect and what would it mean to household incomes and spending? What industries would be further devastated by this? Is there any way to reverse inflation or is there an upside to it for some? If you are a reporter covering this topic – then let our experts help. Jeff Haymond, Ph.D. is Dean, School of Business Administration and a Professor of Economics at Cedarville and is an expert in finance and trade. Dr. Haymond is available to speak with media regarding this topic – simply click on his icon to arrange an interview.

STORY: CAA named the most trusted brand in Canada in the annual Gustavson Brand Trust Index

The Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) has been named the most trusted brand in Canada in the annual Gustavson Brand Trust Index, released today. This is the fourth consecutive year that CAA is one of the top two most trusted brands in Canada, beating out several hundred other prominent international and Canadian brands. This year, CAA tied for first place with Mountain Equipment Coop (MEC), another Canadian, membership-based, not-for-profit organization. Further, CAA finished first, for the third year in a row, in the insurance category of this year’s Index. Conducted by the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria, the sixth annual Gustavson Brand Trust Index asked more than 7,800 consumers to score 342 prominent companies and brands, across 27 industry sectors, on a range of brand value measures.