CAUSES

HURRICANE HARVEY TOOK HOUSTON THIS MONTH AND THE WORLD RESPONDED “IN KIND”

THE REVIEW donated to Hurricane Harvey victims and hopes you did too, along with many celebrities and various do-gooders across the nation and throughout the world.

Beyoncé delivered an emotional speech to Hurricane Harvey evacuees Friday at Houston's St. John's Church.

Went a lil’ somethin’ like this…

Written by: DANIEL KREPS for ROLLING STONE®

Pics by: THE REVIEW® and ILYSE TERRI®

"This today is a celebration of survival," Beyoncé told her hometown crowd. "Y'all are my family. Houston is my home. I thank God that y'all are safe, that your children are safe. The things that really matter are your health and your children, and your family and your life."

Beyoncé's Destiny's Child bandmate Michelle Williams and mother Tina Knowles joined the Lemonade singer, who previously pledged to aid Hurricane Harvey relief efforts through her BeyGood foundation.

"I just want to say that I'm home. This church is my home. I was maybe nine or 10 years old the first time I sat where my daughter's sitting. I sang my first solo here," Beyonce said before turning to her pastor Rudy Rasmus.

"I just want to thank you for lifting my family. For praying for me. And for being such an incredible example of what life and love is."

During her visit to St. John's Church, Beyonce also helped distribute food to those affected by the historic flooding to Houston and its' neighbors.

Beyoncé was among a handful of celebrities – including Kevin Hart, Janet Jackson and Jennifer Garner – who visited evacuees at Houston-area shelters Friday, the Associated Press reports.

On September 12th, Beyoncé, Drake, Justin Bieber, Oprah Winfrey and George Clooney were among the artists and celebrities that will appear on the Hand in Hand: A Benefit for Hurricane Harvey Relief telethon, which will air at 8 p.m. EST on ABC, CBS, CMT, Fox and NBC as well as stream live on social media.

HOSPITALITY

ALOFT HOTELS KICKS OFF 2017 LIVE AT ALOFT HOTELS TOUR FEATURING EMERGING MUSICIANS

Public Relations by: VICTORIA HART for HOSPITALITY.NET

Pics by: VICTORIA HART and HOSPITALITY.NET

Marriott International’s Music-Driven Aloft Hotels Support Emerging Musicians with the Kick-Off of the 2017 Live at Aloft Hotels Tour Featuring Artists Max, ZZ Ward, and Drake White

Aloft also announces the 8th annual Project: Aloft Star Competition giving up-and-coming musicians a chance to be mentored by Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum-selling artist, Gavin DeGraw

Music-lovers will once again be able to come together and enjoy stripped-down performances from the next big acts in music as Aloft Hotels announces the launch of its 2017 Live At Aloft Hotels Tour. With a focus on both established and emerging artists, the brand is also kicking off the 8th Annual Project: Aloft Star Competition, a global contest to identify and elevate tomorrow's hottest artists. The contest is launching in collaboration with Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum-selling musician, singer and songwriter, Gavin DeGraw as a mentor to this year's winner.

Live At Aloft Hotels

Live At Aloft Hotels is an international program that brings in local sounds to Aloft properties around the world, by hosting free, intimate, live music performances at its W XYZ® bars. Alongside a number of local emerging artists, this year's lineup includes notable performers like acoustic singer MAX, country star Drake White, and LA-based blues performer ZZ Ward.

"Aloft Hotels is excited to continue to bring together musicians, guests and music-loving locals to deliver a buzzing social scene and support up-and-coming music talent through Live At Aloft Hotels," said Bridget Higgins, Senior Director, Aloft Hotels. "Our Live At Aloft Hotels events are a unique opportunity to bring fans and musicians together in a laid-back setting to enjoy new music – whether that musician is a well-established artist or the next big thing."

Previous performers at Live At Aloft Hotels have included artists such as The Lumineers, Colbie Caillat, and "American Idol" winner Nick Fradiani.

Aloft Hotels is joining forces with Coca-Cola, bringing innovative, tech-driven digital extensions to the program including live streaming events from Coke Music TV's Periscope, an innovative Emoji cocktail menu and more.

"Coca-Cola has partnered with the Live at Aloft Hotels program for the second year in a row due to its ability to bring together incredibly talented artists who represent the next generation of music," said Joe Belliotti, Group Director Global Entertainment Marketing, Coca-Cola North America. "We will be live streaming performances, bringing an eclectic group of emerging musicians to wherever music fans are. Guests attending the performances live at the hotels will enjoy refreshing complimentary Coca-Cola beverages in the open yet intimate setting created in W XYZ® bars."

Aloft StarProject: Aloft Star promotes the brand's commitment to supporting self-expression by identifying the hottest emerging music talent from around the globe, offering them a chance to kick start their careers and take center stage at one of the most innovative hotel brands.

Beginning August 15, until September 30, unsigned bands and artists across North America and Latin America are invited to upload up to two original songs along with a photo at LiveAtAloftHotels.com. A panel of industry insiders will select five finalists for Phase 2 of the competition. From October 20 through October 30 fans and music lovers are encouraged to vote for their favorite two artists via LiveAtAloftHotels.com.

What You Win

Two finalists will be personally mentored by Grammy-nominated, multiplatinum-selling artist Gavin DeGraw, and will perform for key music industry insiders including Mike Easterlin, President of Fueled By Ramen and Roadrunner Records and Danny Bush, Senior Vice President of Promotion and Artist Development at RED Distribution on November 7. The winner will be named that evening and offered the opportunity to perform live as part of the 2018 Live At Aloft Hotels Tour.

The Project Aloft Star competition is already underway in the Asia-Pacific region in partnership with MTV, and will also be rolled out in Europe and the Middle East later this year.

All 2017 Live At Aloft Hotels Tour performances have no cover charge and are open to hotel guests and music-loving locals alike. For a complete and up-to-date list of all performances, please visit LiveAtAloftHotels.com and join the conversation by connecting with Aloft Hotels on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, using the hashtag #AloftLive.

Live At Aloft Hotels Tour Dates Highlights

Rachel Crow, Aloft Miami Doral, Friday August 18

ZZ WARD, Aloft Seattle Redmond, Wednesday August 30

MAX, Aloft Dallas Downtown, Friday October 20

Drake White, Aloft Philadelphia Downtown, Tuesday October 24

Magic Giant, Aloft Denver Downtown, Monday November 13

This naturally brings us to our next hot monthly topic!

MUSIC

COLDPLAY LIT UP HOLLYWOOD’S HARD ROCK STADIUM WITH “A HEAD FULL OF DREAMS”

Written by: CELIA ALMEIDA for MIAMI NEW TIMES®

Content and Video by: THE REVIEW® and ILYSE TERRI®

Chris Martin is a ham. Fans have long known this. Like his fellow Brit, the knighted bassist of history's most famous and fab band, Martin is a crowd pleaser. He asks the road crew to turn the house lights up to "get a good look" at everyone in the crowd, has the cameramen pan to every single section of Hard Rock Stadium, and repeatedly thanks the audience for braving rain, traffic, and the impending buzzkill of a Tuesday morning to come out to his band's concert.

Yet the most significant maneuver Coldplay ever pulled to please an audience was the radical transformation of its sound from acoustic and piano-driven dorm-room soundtracks to millennial-whooping, electro-pop/rock hybrids methodically designed to get the people in the cheaper seats dancing at stadium shows.

Coldplay's first album, Parachutes, contained some strong indications that Martin possessed the potential to write songs that could fill stadiums, most notably the breakout single "Yellow," which one would think the band would've saved for an encore but played early in Monday night's set, in what was by far the loudest sing-along of the evening.

The band performed some early hits, including "The Scientist," "Clocks," and "God Put a Smile Upon Your Face," but largely eschewed quieter selections in favor of more danceable numbers off the albums Ghost Stories, Mylo Xyloto, and the latest, A Head Full of Dreams. Surprisingly, the third album, X&Y, in which the band pivoted to an electronic sound, went largely ignored save for the delicate "Fix You," which Martin sang while lying on the runway between the main and center stages.

With brightly colored confetti, a vibrant laser light show, and glowing tempo-coordinated audience wristbands that shone well after the show ended, Coldplay's set was a Technicolor feast for the eyes and felt at times like a mix between a tame night at Electric Daisy and the Holi Festival of Colors in India. At one point, Martin asked the crowd to forgo cell phones and camera flashes in favor of their wristbands, which lit up in bright blues, reds, and greens like suburban homes in viral Christmas-light videos.

During "Adventure of a Lifetime," Martin compelled the audience to get low and jump up when the chorus kicked in. Even the roadies joined in, all while wielding giant pink, yellow, orange, and purple balloons that they later tossed into the pit.

It was a far cry from the Coldplay of old. At the 2003 Video Music Awards, after a performance of "The Scientist," host Chris Rock broke the somber tension in the room by declaring, "Hope you didn't slit your wrists to that one!" It's a joke you'd never make about the band that packed Hard Rock Stadium Monday night.

Coldplay has taken a page out of the U2 playbook, not only in the outright intent to write readymade stadium anthems for world tours, but also in the realization that at their best, stadium shows should feel like agnostic tent revivals, nourishing the souls of congregates via designer-drug hooks and chords like those on "Something Just Like This," the Chainsmokers' collaboration saved for the main-stage encore.

The saccharine, nearly focus-grouped melodies of Coldplay's later work don't translate into timeless records like, say, A Rush of Blood to the Head, but they sure do make for an exuberant concert experience. The bandmates still allow for reflective moments in their sets, such as the touching "Houston," a country tribute they wrote to the ailing Texas city in the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. "I am dreaming of when I get back to Houston," Martin sang, alluding to the tour stop they were forced to cancel in advance of the looming storm.

Monday night was proof that — like all pop musicians — Coldplay's members follow a loose formula, but one that works. If you miss the old records, heed the advice John Lennon gave Beatles fans when the world stopped after their breakup. "It's not some great tragedy," he said. The records will always be around, he knew. In the case of Coldplay, a band that's been around for 20 years — 13 more than the Beatles lasted — is bound to change dramatically over time. Save and listen to the old records, but the newer songs are meant to be heard with 50,000 others, underneath a "Sky Full of Stars" and swallowed in a sea of glowing lights.

GREEN DAY GOES HARD IN WEST PALM BEACH

Written by: BEN CRANDELL for SOUTHFLORIDA.COM

Content, Video and Pics by: THE REVIEW® and ILYSE TERRI®

Just as Green Day guitarist and frontman Billie Joe Armstrong was about to launch into the band’s classic hit “When I Come Around” Sunday night, he tilted his head and fired an impressive loogie straight up into the air, ducking out of the way as it hit the Coral Sky Amphitheatre stage. It was a reflexive act from one of punk rock’s iconic flag bearers, but also emblematic of the casual joy that carried him throughout Green Day’s West Palm Beach concert.

No one in pop music is having more fun onstage than Armstrong, touring with music from “Revolution Radio,” the first Green Day album since he went into rehab in 2012 for prescription-pill addiction. And no audience could possibly have more fun than the crowd that packed Coral Sky Amphitheatre for an exhilarating two-and-a-half-hour show with more than two dozen Green Day favorites stretching all the way back to “Kerplunk.”

Looking trim and still boyishly handsome, the mop-topped Armstrong hit the stage with a contagious, chaotic energy and an objective. As Green Day throttled up the new war chant “Know Your Enemy,” Armstrong had a warning for those seated close to the stage: “Just because you paid more money for those seats doesn't mean you can sit on your ass!”

Standing, jumping and singing along was the rule as Green Day careened through classic songs that have fueled 25 years of high-school and college parties, including “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” “Longview,” “Welcome to Paradise,” “Basket Case,” “Jesus of Suburbia” and “American Idiot.” The crowd, ranging from tweens to grandparents, sang not only these hits, but rarities such as “Minority” and “2000 Light Years Away.”

Armstrong again offered fresh evidence of what a seriously underappreciated guitarist he is, and his singing voice was clear and assured to the final encores of the night, two beautifully spare, solo acoustic versions of “21 Guns” and “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life).” Drummer Tre Cool and bassist Mike Dirnt were, as always, a well-oiled rock rhythm machine, and longtime guitarist Jason White was a nimble accompanist on incendiary versions of “Welcome to Paradise” and “Are We the Waiting.”

The politically charged and critically praised album “Revolution Radio,” a collection of songs that touch on social issues written during the turmoil of 2016, was well represented Sunday night by the title track, “Bang Bang” (about a mass shooter), "Still Breathing," “Youngblood” and “Somewhere Now.”

Early on in the show Armstrong told the crowd, “This is your night to be away from the television. I’m so sick of all the politics. That s--t is not coming in here tonight. Tonight is about love and compassion.”

Not surprisingly, it was a promise unkept: During “Hitchin’ a Ride” Armstrong encouraged more noise from the audience to wake up anyone who might be staying at Mar-a-Lago, sprinkling in a few f-bombs as he went. And he closed “American Idiot” with a simple “[Expletive] you, Donald Trump.”

Some of the best moments of the night came when Armstrong himself turned into something of a reality-show host.

“Who knows the words to this song?” he asked, looking for a vocalist in the audience during “Know Your Enemy.” He finally plucked from the crowd a boy of about 14 who looked like a Billie Joe Armstrong clone in a black shirt and pants, red tie and a slash of green in his hair. The boy growled a few verses of the song into the microphone and, as he was drowned in applause, he dove into the waiting arms of the audience and surfed back to his friends.

A little later, a young man who told Armstrong he was from the Dominican Republic scrambled onstage to help sing “Longview,” first holding Armstrong in a long, emphatic hug. The man sang and roamed the stage like a rock star, finally taking a running start and leaping into the crowd.

Armstrong’s ambition almost got the better of him on the Operation Ivy cover “Knowledge,” as he searched the crowd for a guitarist to come onstage. After some discussion about her level of expertise, a 16-year-old girl named Kate was invited up from the audience. Once she arrived onstage and held the guitar, Kate appeared to freeze.

As the rest of Green Day played on, she spoke to Armstrong, who moved closer to her. As the conversation continued, Armstrong seemed to look at her intently and reached up and caressed her face tenderly in his hands. After a minute Kate slowly put the guitar over her shoulder, and Armstrong moved behind her and held his fingers on the fretboard. As the song turned back to Kate’s moment to play, Armstrong counted it down, “One, two, three!” and Kate ripped her hand across the strings. It was rock ’n’ roll, in all its glory, and the crowd went wild.

After a few more bars and a rock star-style leap on the final note, Kate was done. Except for a final word from Armstrong: “Kate, you can keep the guitar.”

Something unpredictable, and in the end just right.

FASHION

CHINA DEBUTS THE FACE-KINI

Written by: MONICA KIM for VOGUE®

Pics by: LUCA CAMPRI

Hop aboard the bullet train from Beijing and hurtle five hours southeast toward the sea to reach Qingdao, the sun-drenched port and largest city in Shandong Province. Its claims to fame include picturesque beaches, smooth Tsingtao beer, and the infamous “facekini”—a supernatural swatch of spandex stretched over the head with nose, mouth, and eyeholes offering extreme sun protective qualities. Invented more than a decade ago by an enterprising local, it has since become a global curiosity.

Across East Asia, a pale complexion is the beauty ideal—milky, near translucent, free of even the suggestion of a freckle or spot. It has nothing to do with the West. Rather, it picked up after the Industrial Revolution, when skin tone became a visible class marker. To this day, many Chinese women take extreme measures to avoid the sun; they religiously carry UV-blocking umbrellas or wear mirrored visors that slope down over the face. In Qingdao, the facekini rules as no passing trend, but a way of life for many.

It is a sticky 98-degree day when photographer Luca Campri arrives on Beach No. 1 (just around the bay from Beach No. 2). The crowds are thick with children encased in inflatable tubes the color of ice cream—mango sherbet, frosted blue rings that float in the water. A few brave beachgoers have decided to forgo the facekini and step into the waves in their everyday street clothes. There’s a woman in a black chiffon blouse and matching straw bonnet, while a father in a full linen suit kicks a rowboat out to sea. Surrounded by a throng of locals dressed in head-to-toe swaths of UV-protective mesh, they seem almost exceptional by comparison.

Most facekinis contain an extended flap that covers the delicate skin along the neck; locals may also cover their décolletage and chest.

Not all locals avoid the bright rays. A teenager hits the beach in sneakers and a red cotton dress—no hat, no shades, nothing to distract from the postcard setting.

Crisp wide-brimmed visors offer shade during dips in the Yellow Sea.

Shielding the face takes priority for most beachgoers; Children learn about the importance of sun protection from an early age.

There are endless ways to cover up in Qingdao: a floral silk shawl and matching umbrella, a woven hat topped with baby blue netting.

BRANDS

THIS BURGEONING VENDING MACHINE STARTUP IS TRYING TO REDEFINE OUT-OF-HOME DIGITAL ADS AND IT’S GETTING TO SCALE ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES

Written by: CHRISTOPHER HEINE for AD WEEK®

Content and Pics by: VENGO®

Kiehl’s has been orchestrating such samples-based prospecting via Vengo Labs’ network of vending machines that serve digital ads on 1,400 screens, most of which are on university grounds or in gyms like Planet Fitness. Vengo is really growing. During the first quarter of 2017, the 2-year-old company doubled its screens to 700, and they’re now in 38 out of 50 states. That growing presence is what drew Pivot Media to ink an exclusive partnership, which is being announced today, with the company and sell its growing inventory, specifically targeting CPGs.

“They always had the right placement, but now they have national scale,” said Pivot Media co-founder Jordan Perlmutter. “It’s a ‘solve’ in the out-of-home landscape.”

Whether Vengo Labs can become a formidable OOH player remains to be seen. In addition to the digital ads and sampling, marketers can buy physical wraps around the interactive machines. The cost for its ads run at a CPM, or cost per thousand, rate of around $8.

The targeting can be interesting. “You can imagine [gym ads] in locker rooms that are gender specific and brands that they need,” said Brian Shimmerlik, CEO of Vengo Labs, which, per CB Insights, competes with U-Vend and VendScreen.

Meanwhile, Vengo Labs’ biggest claim to fame may be getting a $2 million investment on ABC’s Shark Tank from investors Kevin O’Leary and Lori Greiner. It seems safe to say they’ll keep an eye on this Pivot Media deal.

ONCE A RUNNING JOKE, LINKEDIN IS SUDDENLY A HOT SOCIAL NETWORK

Written by: DAN TYNAN for AD WEEK®

Pics by: GETTY IMAGES®

When Microsoft announced it was acquiring LinkedIn for $26 billion last December, the tech world responded with a collective “Huh?”

Why did the enterprise software giant want LinkedIn so badly, and why was it willing to pay so much? Did Microsoft have a secret plan to turn the social network for business professionals, which lost $166 million in 2015, into a moneymaker? Or did it want to embed LinkedIn’s user data into its Dynamics 365 CRM platform and other Office software?

Nine months after Microsoft closed the deal, many of those questions remain unanswered. LinkedIn has only just begun to be integrated into Microsoft products; the LinkedIn business unit continues to cost more than it brings in.

In the meantime, though, something unexpected has been happening. LinkedIn has become more than just a place to park one’s digital resume; it has established itself as an essential destination for marketers looking to reach an executive audience.

Over the last two years, LinkedIn has pumped up its publishing platform, tamped down the spam, streamlined its mobile and desktop apps, and introduced new lead-generation and targeting tools. In August, the network unveiled a posse of third-party partners to help marketers create and manage campaigns. At press time, the company had begun to roll out the ability to host native video directly on the site.

It’s not exactly a head-to-toe makeover, perhaps, but not the same old LinkedIn, either. Less buttoned-down and more accessible, it’s become a real social network for real business people—a strategy shift that’s paying off for many publishers and brands.

The polite social network

Not surprisingly, LinkedIn dominates business-to-business digital marketing, says Will McInnes, chief marketing officer for Brandwatch.

“LinkedIn is the Facebook for b-to-b marketers,” says McInnes. “If you are an Apple, a Cisco or an IBM, LinkedIn is a great place to market your products.”

And while it’s not in the same league as Facebook for consumer marketing, LinkedIn is increasingly part of the conversation among top brands, he adds. One reason is the sheer volume of data the social network collects. LinkedIn’s half a billion users share a lot of information—not merely their digital CVs, but endorsements, recommendations, blog posts, comments, likes, shares and follows.

“More than most social networks, LinkedIn has very robust and deep user data,” says Jessie Liu, senior analyst at Forrester Research. “It’s collecting your location, educational history, professional history and interests. That makes it far more valuable than, say, Twitter.”

But LinkedIn has another big advantage over other, more social networks. Unlike Twitter and Facebook, it’s not besotted with fake profiles, fake news and angry invective. As a result, it’s become a kind of refuge for real people who want to discuss ideas, not hurl insults or swap memes.

“People are more careful about what they say on LinkedIn, because it’s essentially their default resume,” says M. Scott Havens, global head of digital for Bloomberg Media. “We see a much cleaner conversation that’s supportive, positive and actually useful.”

Authenticity and polite discourse are two reasons why business periodicals have embraced LinkedIn as a publishing platform. Since the beginning of this year, Bloomberg’s LinkedIn follower count has doubled to roughly 1.5 million, says Havens, while user engagement is literally off the charts.

“If you look at comments or unique impressions of our content, the growth is exponential,” he says. “We were doing half a million impressions a month before, and now it’s like 5 or 6 million.”

Similarly, over the last seven months, Forbes has seen a 137 percent increase in clickthroughs from LinkedIn and an 81 percent increase in followers, notes Shauna Gleason, Forbes Media’s director of social media.

oriented and less political than its posts on Facebook or Twitter, says Gleason. LinkedIn has even begun to influence the kinds of stories these sites publish.

“We’ve started to pitch editors in the newsroom with ideas we think would work well for LinkedIn, like leadership and career content,” Gleason says. “We’re really taking a social-first approach to the way we tailor content to our platform.”

Less spam, more content

Many of these improvements can be traced to changes LinkedIn began making well before the Microsoft acquisition. Two years ago, the network decided to abandon “shallow growth tactics,” which led to aggressive email and endorsement campaigns, in favor of boosting its value to members, says LinkedIn’s global head of product, Ryan Roslansky.

Today, he says, LinkedIn sends nearly 70 percent less email than it did two years ago, and endorsement requests are less frequent and more relevant. Instead, the network tries to entice users to engage more frequently with the original content on their newsfeeds.

“It used to be very difficult to have any kind of social conversations on LinkedIn,” Roslansky admits. “It was a very disjointed experience, compared to how commenting worked on other social platforms. We had to get a lot of that right.”

An early part of that effort was beefing up the network’s publishing platform, starting with its LinkedIn Influencer program. Launched in October 2012 with 100 handpicked thought leaders like Bill Gates and Richard Branson, Influencer was opened up to all LinkedIn members in February 2014. They now produce more than 100,000 new articles a week, and members share nearly 1,000 posts every minute.

Jeff Selingo, a New York Times best-selling author who writes about higher education, was one of LinkedIn’s original Influencers. Now, almost five years later, he’s attracted nearly 420,000 followers on the network.

“When they reached out and asked if I was interested in becoming an Influencer, I was pretty skeptical,” Selingo says. “I didn’t think many people went to LinkedIn for content. But after a couple of pieces, we started to get huge amounts of traffic—like over 100,000 pageviews.”

Like every other LinkedIn Influencer, Selingo doesn’t get a dime for his work. But he says he uses it to test out ideas and survey readers.

“And, to be perfectly blunt, it’s helped me sell books,” he adds.

Instead of only displaying posts by people within one’s network, LinkedIn tweaked its recommendation algorithms to share content based on members’ interests. It’s also begun to use “sessions”—clocking each time members use LinkedIn more than 30 minutes after their last activity—as a key metric of user engagement. Over the last nine months, the number of sessions has increased by more than 20 percent each quarter, says LinkedIn’s Roslansky. That makes it a much more attractive venue for advertisers, he adds.

Along the way, LinkedIn also enhanced its advertising and sales tools. Advertisers can install code on their sites that lets them create richer user profiles and track conversions from LinkedIn, such as event sign-ups and white paper downloads. Marketing pros can create more precisely targeted LinkedIn campaigns, and users can now auto-fill lead generation forms with a single click.

“LinkedIn is really supporting its advertisers more than it has in the past,” says James Carroll, senior digital media specialist for Tableau, a business intelligence and analytics company. “Eighteen to 24 months ago, LinkedIn had a handful of products but not a lot of innovation. Over the last year, they’ve added a lot of new products and become much more competitive.”

Playing catch-up

Still, some brands see room for improvement.

Alison Herzog, director of global social business and digital strategy for Dell, says that while LinkedIn’s recent changes are all welcome, they’re less about innovation and more about playing catch-up to competitors.

“We’ve been asking for a lot of these changes for a long time,” Herzog says.

She adds that LinkedIn still needs to do a better job of sharing its analytics data with big brands.

“When you’re competing with the likes of Facebook, where it’s less expensive and you have access to much more refined targeting and better numbers, it’s hard to justify the cost, even when it’s the right audience,” Herzog says. “Maybe we’ve just gotten spoiled with Facebook. But when you’re a big brand and you’re spending a lot of money, you expect more.”

Jenny Sussin, research vp for Gartner, agrees that holding data so close to the vest may be limiting LinkedIn’s usefulness, given its status as the world’s broadest and deepest professional network.

“Unlike other social networks and a lot of other sites and software, LinkedIn’s fairly closed off from a data perspective,” Sussin says. “Its APIs don’t allow people or companies to export the data from LinkedIn into a third-party system. The data that’s trapped in there could be used for human resources, sales, marketing, you name it.”

“Members give us a lot of data about who they are and what they know,” he says. “And if the data is out there freely, available to anyone, I’m concerned we’ll lose members’ trust in what we’re doing with it.”

Troll-free numbers

LinkedIn will never match Facebook for volume, Twitter for notoriety, YouTube for eyeballs, and Instagram or Snapchat for fun. But for brands like Tableau, in a social media marketplace where brand safety concerns and fraud issues run rampant on social platforms, it’s all about quality. LinkedIn’s rich trove of professional data allows Tableau to zero in on the precise audiences it wants to reach.

“If we want to go after executives, we can target that,” says Carroll. “If we want to target analysts, we can do that in a very accurate way. That lets us trim the fat of wasted impressions or wasted clicks.”

And there are more changes to come. In July, LinkedIn unveiled a dedicated Windows 10 app, as well as integration between its Sales Navigator tool and Dynamic 365 system. Integration with other Microsoft products is on the way.

“You can imagine a world where you’re in Outlook, you mouse over a person’s name, and you see their LinkedIn profile and all the people you know in common,” Roslansky says.

In the meantime, the social network with half a billion professionals is happy to keep doing what it’s best at—connecting talent to opportunities at scale—far from the turmoil and the trolls.

ART

ALL KINDS OF CRAZY COLORS: STERLING RUBY DISCUSSES HIS SCULPTURES FOR CALVIN KLEIN’S FASHION SHOW

Written by: NATE FREEMAN for ART NEWS®

Pics by: ART NEWS® and MATTHEW HIGGS INSTAGRAM AND CALVIN KLEIN

“Sterling Ruby’s Sophomore (2017) installed at the Calvin Klein offices in New York City.

“On Thursday evening, I walked into the Calvin Klein headquarters on 39th Street in Manhattan, the site of the night’s hotly anticipated Spring 2018 ready-to-wear fashion show by designer Raf Simons, to see, hanging above the snaking runway, an eye-popping new sculpture by the Los Angeles-based artist Sterling Ruby. Titled Sophomore (2017), it was an extended hanging mobile made up of pick-axes, jack o’ lanterns, giant pom-poms, metal pails, gnarled car parts, and red splashes of long fabric—all in the service of a work made by Ruby but pitched to the theme of the evening, which Simons described as “both an American nightmare and the all-powerful American dream.” The show’s program, placed on the seats for attendees, offered a few further words: “The Sterling Ruby installation functions as a panorama, a context, for a collection that plays inherently with recontextualization—utilizing ‘the clues of horror.’“

“Ruby and Simons have been collaborating for years, such that they now occupy a muse-to-muse relationship. The sculpture on the ceiling harmonized with the looks on the models, in a fashion show that doubled as an art opening and vice versa. All the work on view was an extension of the two artists’ past collaborations, including Simons’s Fall 2017 collection, presented at Gagosian Gallery in New York in February, and a show-stopping renovation of the Calvin Klein store on Madison Avenue. When Simons remade iconic early Calvin Klein underwear ads for his first campaign, he had boys in their skivvies stand in front of Ruby’s Flag (4791), from 2014, at the Rubell Family Collection in Miami.

“Simons is maybe the most fawned-over designer in fashion, having successfully reignited the beleaguered House of Dior after the loss of John Galliano and then assuming his post as the first-ever chief creative director at Calvin Klein. “It’s a tough gig to be crowned the savior of American fashion,” Vanessa Friedman wrote at the start of her New York Times review of Thursday’s show. Such is Simons’s stature that this summer saw a tribute song in his honor, “RAF” by the rapper A$AP Mob, hit the charts with an immortal hook: “Please don’t touch my Raf, please don’t touch my Raf.”

Simons is also a discerning and devoted art collector. I’ve spotted him many times at Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland, as well as other major fairs. His home in New York has work by Cindy Sherman, Cady Noland, George Condo, Sanya Kantarovsky, Anne Collier, and Wolfgang Tillmans, in addition to pieces by Ruby. So, naturally, there were more art-world personalities than usual milling around before the start of Thursday’s show. Condo sat with Purple magazine editor Olivier Zahm, while younger artists such as Jordan Wolfson, Joe Bradley, and Liz Magic Lazer were in the crowd. White Columns director Matthew Higgs was there, as was Jessica Morgan, the director of the Dia Art Foundation. I was seated next to dealer Monika Sprueth, who owns Sprueth Magers (with Philomene Magers). She said it was her first fashion show in over a decade.

“There were celebrities in attendance, people my seatmate said she “recognized from their pictures in the newspaper:” actors like Jake Gyllenhaal, Lupita Nyong’o, Mahershala Ali, Rashida Jones, and Kate Bosworth along with the model Karlie Kloss and Daily ShowTV host Trevor Noah. Brooke Shields came to watch her daughter Kaia Gerber’s runway debut. And Ruby, the night’s main artist guest, sat next to Christina Ricci and Kyle MacLachlan.

“Once the show started, 45 minutes late, the models bombed down the aisles in fabulous outfits cut from nylon, rubber, and lace, with hues flipping from violent yellow to blood-red on jeans and pulsating skirts. As the rapper Quavo articulated it in a verse in “RAF”: “Raf Simons, all kind of crazy colors.”

“The biggest surprise may have been that, a few looks in, certain clothes were pattered with works by Andy Warhol, the result of a collaboration between Calvin Klein and the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. You won’t see any soup cans: many of the designs referenced in the show come from the “Death and Disaster” series. Don’t be surprised when you see shoulder bags adorned with Electric Chair (1964-1965) and Ambulance Disaster (1963-1964).

“After the show, I was ushered into the backstage area, where behind a scrum in line to cheek-kiss Simons stood Ruby, in his jeans and a sweatshirt, stringy hair down to his shoulders. He seemed a little flustered by it all, bearing witness to a splashy fashion spectacle that shared DNA with his own work.

“It’s flattering to see that the artwork I’ve created for Calvin Klein have ceased to be just objects—they’ve integrated themselves into the garments,” he told me. “As an artist, I love that this trajectory of what I’ve done is going to be translated into a garment that someone can wear out on the street.”

“Simons, as a fashion designer, has to create shows at a faster clip than an artist who may have a show or two per year. Visions need to come together quickly—a circumstance that Ruby, as his collaborator, has gotten used to.

“Three weeks ago, Raf said, ‘You think you can do it? Can we repurpose the mobile but integrate horror?’ ” Ruby recalled. “I said, ‘What do you mean by horror?’ “

“As Simons began to explain in his thinking—”fashion tries to hide the horror and embrace only beauty, but they are both a part of life,” as he put it in his notes—the collaborative work started to come together.

“We both work on this platform where a topic has to be turned into an abstraction—it can’t exist as it is,” Ruby said. “A horror trip can’t be just a horror trip as you might know it. It has to be something else. It has to be integrated into something more.”

“But the collaborators work on two sides of the country, meaning the final experience—the looks sashaying down the runway with the Ruby works strung overhead—would not come together until right before show time.

“For the past week I’ve been working in the studio on a new iteration of the mobile, and he’s been working in the atelier on things that have appropriated work out of that mobile, and up until yesterday—neither of us had seen what the other was doing,” Ruby told me. “I only saw the collection last night, and I thought it was a seamless translation of what I was doing.”

“As images from the show worked their way online minutes after it ended and well-wishers streamed backstage, it was clear that the Simon-Ruby partnership has worked well.

“Most fashion houses won’t do this—they wont allow a designer to bring in an artist and to make these kind of full-face moves which will identify the brand,” Ruby said. “This is a very sincere, very critical commitment from both of us, and from Calvin Klein.”

Sorry for the slight delay this month getting this out to you all! Hurricane #Irma had us in a tizzy and our little elves have worked through the storm to bring this months REVIEW to our fabulous readers

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