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In an almost beat-for-beat repeat of the discourse surrounding the self-perpetuated-but-ultimately-false hopes of the LGBTQ community that Splatoon 3s Shiver was non-binary, various Nintendo sources have deconfirmed recent speculation that newly revealed Pokmon Scarlet & Violet Gym Leader Iono is a non-binary and transgender character.

Source: Guess Ionos Pokmon Partner? Pokmon Youtube

RELATED: Pokmon Presents Showcase Reveals New Information For Pokmon Scarlet & Violet: New Pokmon, Paldean Wooper, Type-Changing Terastal Phenomenon, And More

Revealed to the world on October 12th via the official Pokmon YouTube channel, Iono is the pint-sized Electric-type gym leader of the Paldea regions Levincia city.

When not testing the mettle of challenging trainers, the blue-and-pink-haired, oversized-yellow-sweater-clad Iono spends her free time serving as the titular internet personality behind the Iono Zone livestream.

Shortly after Ionos reveal, taking notice of both her color pallet and the lack of pronouns in her introductory tweet from the official Pokmon Twitter account, the founder of popular Pokmon fansite Bulbagarden Liam Pomfret posited the possibility that the Electric-type trainer could identify as non-binary and transgender.

Worth noting that, alongside being a bokukko (i.e. feminine presenting while using the masculine pronoun boku) stated one of, if not the most prominent proponents of the idea. The colours of Ionos hair and Magnemite hair accessories appear to evoke the transgender flag.

Source: Liam Pomfret, PhD Twitter

RELATED: Pokmon Scarlet & Violet Alleged Leaks Round-Up: Over 120 New Pokmon, Only Two New Regional Forms, A Bike Pokmon, And More

Interestingly, Ionos names in the different languages are basically all a bunch of references to concepts related to questions and mystery, he continued. I havent checked all languages yet, but Im also seeing a lack of gendered language in how the official accounts introduced them as well.

Source: Liam Pomfret, PhD Twitter

Ultimately, Pomfret closed his speculation with the acknowledgement that it appears the Spanish language account did use explicitly feminine language (la influencer).

Mind you, Im given to understand Spanish doesnt really have gender neutral terms, and it seems like itd be difficult to phrase this without any gendered terms, he concluded, so *shrugs*.

Source: Liam Pomfret, PhD Twitter

RELATED: Pokmon Scarlet & Violet Alleged Leaks Round-Up: Trainer Customization, Ancient Forms Outright New Pokmon, No Fishing, And More

Unfortunately for Pomreft, his theory would have the lights turned off on it less than twenty-four hours after he put it forward when an update to the official English Pokmon website confirmed that Iono did not identify as a non-binary and transgender individual, but rather a girl who uses feminine pronouns.

Smash That Like Button for Iono, the Supercharged Streamer, read an official piece of marketing copy shared by Nintendo. Get amped up to meet this electrifying Gym Leader in Pokmon Scarlet and Pokmon Violet but who is her partner Pokmon?

Source: Source: Ionos Pokmon Scarlet/Violet Character Announcement

Ionos female gender was further confirmed on October 13th with the official Japanese Pokmon Twitter accounts announcement of a subsequent trailer introducing her aforementioned partner Pokmon, the ElecFrog newcomer Bellibolt.

Nanjamo [Iono in English], a gym leader in the Paldea region and a popular video distributor, introduced her partner Pokmon Harabar (Bellibolt) on Donnamonja TV (Iono Zones Japanese Counterpart)! wrote the account (via DeepL). Were everyones predictions correct?

Source: Pokemon Japan Twitter

Likewise, in their respective sharing of the trailer, the official North American, UK, Spanish, German, Italian Twitter accounts similarly used feminine pronouns in reference to the electrifying internet personality.

The Levincia Gym leaders feminine identity was also explicitly confirmed in her character profile, as published on the official Pokmon website.

RELATED: Pokmon World Champion Concerned Over The Addition Of New Type-Changing Mechanic In The Upcoming Pokmon Scarlet & Violet

Iono is the Gym Leader of Levincia, one of the Paldea regions prominent cities, specializing in Electric-type Pokmon, reads said profile. Shes also known as the Supercharged Streamer, having gained popularity as the host of the Iono Zone.

She even streams her work as a Gym Leader and seems to place great emphasis on viewer engagement on her channel and the number of views she gets. it adds. Her catchphrases include: Your eyeballs are MINEcaught in my Electroweb! and Ello, ello, hola! Ciao and Bonjour!

Source: Iono Pokmon Scarlet/Violet Character Profile

Pokmon Scarlet and Violet hit shelves exactly one month from today on November 18th, 2022.

Source: Meet Bellibolt | Pokmon Scarlet and Pokmon Violet, The Official Pokmon YouTube channel

NEXT: Pokmon Scarlet & Violet Trailer Reveal New Pokmon, Box Legendaries, World Exploring Multiplayer, and Release Date

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'Pokmon Scarlet & Violet' Official Sources Refute Social Media Speculation That New Gym Leader Iono Is Non-Binary And Transgender - Bounding Into...

Online literature platform Wattpad is holding onto its ad dollars, leveraging organic growth on social media and prioritizing its owned channels to build up community engagement by way of exclusive interviews and comedic TikTok videos.

Theres all this engagement already happening on Wattpad, said Abby Yew, Wattpads head of marketing.We havent focused on growth at all.

Wattpad is an online literature platform, founded in 2006, on which users can create and publish written content. According to the brand, about 90 million people use the platform, five million of whom are Wattpad writers. Wattpad has 1.4 million TikTok followers and nearly double that on Instagram, where it has 2.2 million followers. Instead of spending big on increasingly steep CPMs in a crowded digital marketplace, Wattpad leverages a mostly organic social media strategy, tapping into existing communities like #BookTok on TikTok to boost engagement and build its online community.

When you talk about our channels, because were not focused on growth in advertising and paid media, were really utilizing and leveraging our own channels, Yew said.

For example, a TikTok book influencer will organically recommend a story written by a Wattpad creator. To capitalize on that movement, Wattpads social team joins the conversation, reacting in real time, according to Yew. Other times, the company posts exclusive content with Wattpads more notable writers. Any paid media is reserved for retargeting purposes, but its really very low, lower funnel, focus versus anything awareness and engagement. Its all organic, Yew said.

Thats not to say the brand doesnt spend on digital media at all. So far this year, Wattpad has spent at least $250,000 on paid digital media, according to Pathmatics. That figure is significantly higher than last years spend, which was just $46,900. Per Kantar, the brand spent just shy of $700,000 on media this year. (Kantar figures do not include social and digital spend as Pathmatics figures do.) Last year, that spend was less than half at $255,000.

Aside from social media, Wattpad also has paid investments in desktop and mobile display, according to Pathmatics.

Wattpad isnt alone in leaning into online communities and trends like #BookTok to gain traction with users. Earlier this year, Penguin Random House inked a deal with TikTok that allowed users to link to books in videos using the hashtag, according to previous Digiday reporting.

While organic social can be a key component of any marketing plan, marketing experts say pressure mounting on social media platforms to turn a profit via ad revenue could limit organic growth in the long term.

While a feature may start free as a means of testing use cases, at some point in the future we expect to have to pay-to-play, Shalanna Clark, head of marketing at marketing agency Code3, said in an email to Digiday. While brands should look for ways to enhance their organic social presence to authentically build community, social media fickleness demands a level of paid delivery to ensure the user sees your message, let alone engages with it, said Clark.

Wattpad has dabbled with paid efforts in the past, but didnt see the return on investment. Hence, why the company is now bullish on organic marketing and building up its owned channels, per Yew.

Were so fortunate that the product is so sticky in itself and that were able to then just focus on preference, brand loyalty and getting into that conversation with our audiences, Yew said.

Why online lit platform Wattpad is keying its organic digital strategy on TikTok videos

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Why online lit platform Wattpad is keying its organic digital strategy on TikTok videos - Digiday

ESG has been an incredible movement. It has had a momentum and acceleration that was seemingly unstoppable, and for good reason. Everyone wants to save the climate and support treating employees, customers and communities with respect. Everyone is for good corporate governance.

Yet, for several years, many people, particularly behind closed doors and in private conversations, have been skeptical about investing based on environmental, social, and corporate governance factors. This skepticism to ESG investing has come to a head lately.

Why is this? It is because there is a tremendous disconnect between ESG as a philosophy and as an investment product. ESG is a conceptual idea of new factors that market participants should consider when investing in and managing corporations. Many ESG investment funds took this idea and exploited it as a marketing tool to raise assets in strategies that relied on quantitative data and ratings that were easily manipulated, and that were way too passive to create any real change. Moreover, there is a widespread perception, if not reality, that ESG investing means sacrificing returns.

Now, a bear market has exposed these weaknesses, and for the first time, the ESG investing movement has been losing some steam. Even worse, these exposed deficiencies in ESG investment funds have opened the door for funds that market themselves as the antithesis of ESG, advocating for the elimination of any social motivations to corporations and totally disregarding ethnicity and gender in hiring practices. This drastic reaction to ESG funds does on the right exactly what it is criticizing on the left: It takes an extreme position that exploits the views of the far right to weaponize the opponents of ESG funds just as many ESG funds were created to exploit and weaponize the acolytes of ESG. Ideologically maximizing profits while ignoring social repercussions will lead to companies like Purdue Pharma or boards that rationalize potential oil spills through a cost-benefit analysis of the potential fines and cleanup costs versus the costs of prevention. How about worker safety? Should that be sacrificed if the cost to keep employees safe exceeds the liability and costs to replace injured employees? Anti-ESG funds focused solely on shareholder value would presumably forego the costs and pay the liability. Moreover, does anyone other than these anti-ESG funds really believe that a board or management team is not better when it has qualified members with a diversity of perspectives and life experiences than when it is all white and male?

Of course, environmental, social and governance factors should be considered by management teams and investors, but they are factors that need to be weighed, not mandated. These decisions are more complex than either side acknowledges. They cannot be made quantitatively, with generalizations or by extremists. They need to be made qualitatively, by an active participant weighing the pros and cons and pragmatically advocating for a position that benefits all stakeholders, including shareholders. That is what active ESG investing, or AESG, does.

AESG investing is when an activist investor takes a position at a company and actively (usually from a board level) and qualitatively analyzes and improves not only financial, operational and strategic facets of the company, but also its ESG footprint. Funds like Inclusive Capital and Impactive Capital are the leaders in this area, and they look at every investment not only through a shareholder value lens, but an ESG lens as well. In many cases these funds advocate for ESG practices at their portfolio companies that advance shareholder value. Other activists, while more focused on operational, financial and strategic matters at their portfolio companies, are realizing that while they are actively involved at these companies, they are also in a unique position to improve ESG practices at the company. Accordingly, many of these funds, like Starboard, ValueAct and Third Point have dedicated ESG executives to help focus on such opportunities. We are seeing many more of them starting to adopt such practices.

These AESG investors realize that you cannot accomplish ESG objectives by investing in the "best" ESG companies and excluding the worst. Nor can you expect management teams to blindly adhere to ESG pressures regardless of the effect they will have on shareholder value. Instead, AESG investors analyze ESG issues and opportunities, as well as the company's financials and operations, to pragmatically develop strategies and practices that either advance both ESG and shareholder value or further one of them without hindering the other.

Accordingly, AESG solves the problems with ESG investing as (i) it is genuine, not a marketing ploy, (ii) it relies on qualitative analysis, not quantitative metrics and ratings, (iii) it uses engagement to actually effect ESG change without sacrificing shareholder value, and (iv) it has the alpha that has historically been associated with shareholder activism. Moreover, AESG investors are not only looking to change ESG practices at their portfolio companies during their engagement, but to change the long-term culture of the company so that ESG is ingrained in management's thinking as something to weigh and consider in all future business decisions.

ESG investing is a term that combines two concepts: ESG and investing. However, most investment funds on either side of the debate tend to focus on only one of these concepts and ignore the other. Responsible ESG investing means not just being responsible to environmental, social and governance factors, but being a responsible investor to ESG factors and the goal of attaining outsized capital appreciation. This is a main tenet of AESG investing.

Because there is a limited number of investors who have the skillset, characteristics and inclination to actively engage with management of portfolio companies, AESG investment strategies will always be a small subset of aggregate ESG assets. But it will be an increasingly important subset, and those who engage in AESG investing will add a much-needed active component to ESG investing to effect real change and generate real alpha. ESG investing is still a nascent strategy and will continue to develop and evolve. As we see more activist managers start to focus their efforts on ESG improvements, AESG is becoming a significant part of this evolution.

Ken Squire is the founder and president of 13D Monitor, an institutional research service on shareholder activism, and he is the founder and portfolio manager of the 13D Activist Fund, a mutual fund that invests in a portfolio of activist 13D investments. Squire is also the creator of the AESG investment category, an activist investment style focused on improving ESG practices of portfolio companies.

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Activist ESG investing the Goldilocks of responsible investing - CNBC

Porter Novelli's new reputational report reveals a new Era of Accountability in Actionand how businesses can do better

NEW YORK, Oct. 6, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Porter Novelli, the strategic communications company built on purpose to do business better, has published its fifth annual research study of corporate reputation: The Purpose Priorities Report: How to respond in the new Era of Accountability. It includes a new Better Business Matrix to help companies navigate current cultural trends and meet the evolving demands of their audiences.

An era of accountability in action

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in the wake of the 2020 social justice movement sparked in part by George Floyd's murder, companies have made many promises to support change. The increase in extreme weather events, caused by climate change, has also sparked more corporate environmental commitments. And now there is a need to show outcomes from all of this as people are looking to companies for leadership.

The report also highlights how consumers are demanding genuine change, not just marketing campaigns.

David Bentley, Global CEO of Porter Novelli, commented: "Good intentions aren't enough. Consumers are tired of talk: they don't want to see campaigns, they want to see action. Companies are realizing the benefits of doing business better as all audiences demand integrity and business growth will depend on navigating the complex landscape of audience expectations."

Addressing the climate crisis is now table stakes for organizations

After fires, floods, and droughts this year, the environment is front and center in consumer minds. While quality products and services are a prerequisite for a thriving business, audiences across allages now expect industry to address sustainability as a core quality issue.

The demand for operational D&I

Social inequalities are now a new second business priority to address, with operational changes expected.

Conroy Boxhill, President of Porter Novelli U.S, commented: "Consumers are looking to businesses for active leadership. The research shows clearly there's now a sense of urgency around companies' DE&I efforts to the point that people are requesting they restructure operationally to drive this change."

Politics can be punishing

In the last couple of years, companies have chosen to wade into political issues like voting rights and Roe v. Wade, but consumers aren't convinced business and politics mix.

Companies should play politics with caution.

Reputation leaders

As part of the report, the strategic communications company has developed a Better Business Matrix. This ranks the reputational leaders by industry, in eight key sectors, mapped to highlight the beneficial impact of Purpose on brand value. It also enables companies to self-diagnose their own reputation, based on the key criterion described in the report. Companies that performed the best within their industries include:

Sandy Skees, Purpose & Impact lead from Porter Novelli, added: "The landscape is shifting rapidly, and this report highlights the changing expectations around sustainability and DEI as examples of purpose in action. The Porter Novelli Better Business matrix is about ensuring companies know how to decode and deliveron environmental and social progress as well as avoiding the pitfalls of political overreach."

The Purpose Priorities Report analyzed the reputation of 200 top companies listed in the Fortune 100, Fortune Best Companies to Work For, World's Most Ethical and the DiversityInc., among others.

"For the past 30 years, Porter Novelli has sought to understand the role of Purpose in company performance," says Andrea List, senior vice president of Data & Insights, the report's lead author. "In that time, the imperative to authentically address social and environmental issues has only grown stronger. This study continues to demonstrate that no corporate reputation can thrive without Purpose."

About the Study

The Purpose Priorities Report presents the findings of an online survey designed and executed in August 2022 among an online sample of 7,000 American adults, ages 18+. The study was fielded by Dynata. Respondents were asked to rate up to six companies each, with each company rated by an average of 150 respondents.

About Porter Novelli

Porter Novelli is the strategic communications company, built on purpose to do business better. Founded 50 years ago by pioneers Jack Porter and Bill Novelli, Porter Novelli is widely considered to be the founder of social marketing. Trailblazers of their time, both Jack and Bill believed that organizations could, and should, be driven by their values, not just by creating value; something intrinsic to how we do business better today. Fast forward 50 years and the world is highly complex. In a shifting landscape of new influences and audience power, Porter Novelli continues to build on this values-driven philosophy and work with ambitious clients to decode change, navigate culture and deepen authenticity to shape reputation and accelerate growth.

About Omnicom Public Relations Group

Omnicom Public Relations Groupis a global collective of three of the top global public relations agencies worldwide and specialist agencies in areas including public affairs, marketing to women, global health strategy and corporate social responsibility. It encompasses more than 6,300 public relations professionals in more than 370 offices worldwide who provide their expertise to companies, government agencies, NGOs, and non-profits across a wide range of industries. Omnicom Public Relations Group delivers for clients through a relentless focus on talent, continuous pursuit of innovation and a culture steeped in collaboration. Omnicom Public Relations Group is part of the DAS Group of Companies, a division of Omnicom Group Inc. (NYSE:OMC) that includes more than 200 companies in a wide range of marketing disciplines including advertising, public relations, healthcare, customer relationship management, events, promotional marketing, branding and research.

SOURCE Porter Novelli

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Porter Novelli's new Reputation Report: People push for real purpose over 'posturing and politics' - PR Newswire

At the height of the pandemic, there was hope that lessons learned from this period would provide the foundations for a healthier society. No longer would snotty commuters swap germs on packed trains; if people were ill, they would stay home or at least wear masks to protect others.

Now few people are masking, and I have lost track of the number of friends with colds who have happily coughed on me in recent weeks. Rather than building back better, the country seems to have reverted to business as usual, circa 2019.

It did not have to be this way, psychologists stress. And we may have missed the perfect opportunity to boost the nations health and productivity.

Being sick with flu or endless colds is not good for individuals, for families, or for a productive workforce, said Prof Susan Michie, the director of the Centre for Behaviour Change at University College London.

Having adopted these new behaviours, we could have been encouraged to say: Actually, this is worth thinking about to protect you and others from numerous other illnesses. There hasnt been a sense of learning from the past or from elsewhere.

Asia could have provided a good starting point. Although surgical masks were in use before the 2002-04 Sars epidemic, the outbreak embedded the habit of wearing one to protect others from infection. Three months after the epidemic was declared over in Hong Kong, 60%-70% of people said they would wear a mask in public spaces or the workplace if they had cold- or flu-like symptoms, while 94% reported still frequently washing their hands.

Michie said: Some of it is about social norms, but interpersonal trust is also much higher in many south-east Asian countries than it is here and we know that trust is really important in terms of adherence to protective measures.

Western countries such as the UK also tend to be more individualistic: Theres more of a Do I fancy it, or not [attitude] in the UK, rather than a sense of societal obligation and responsibility.

Even so, psychologists dispute the notion that widespread behavioural change could not happen here. Before the introduction of an indoor smoking ban, many derided the idea that people would move their habit outdoors to protect others health.

Michie also remembers the furore when legislation was brought in to make the wearing of seatbelts compulsory: People said, No one will do this and Its a terrible infringement of individual freedoms. But the combination of legislation, backed up by clear and coherent messaging, meant that everybody took it on board.

A key problem is that many of the healthy behaviours enacted at the peak of the pandemic regular hand-washing, social distancing, mask-wearing, working from home, and self-isolating when sick were inseparable from the Covid rules, which chopped and changed according to the level of infection.

Stephen Reicher, a professor of social psychology at the University of St Andrews, said: It was never argued that measures like ventilation arent just about Covid. They arent even just about infectious disease. There is a whole literature showing that poorly ventilated spaces impact cognitive performance, leading to declines in task performance and complex decision-making. So, for schools and universities, which are about learning, and offices, where people are taking important decisions, good ventilation is a good idea.

The problem is, we never posed things in those terms. It was just about Covid. So, if you forget about Covid then you forget about those measures, as opposed to thinking about: how do we produce a healthier society?

Being ill is not just a miserable inconvenience, it can also be expensive. According to a recent report by the National Engineering Policy Centre, even outside a pandemic, the lives lost and sick days caused by seasonal influenza cost roughly 8bn a year.

As the UK faces a potential twindemic of Covid and influenza in the coming months not to mention an abundance of everyday colds and stomach bugs this failure to build back better may yet come back to bite us.

Already, health leaders are urging a return to mask-wearing with the number of people testing positive for Covid in England rising. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, the number of people testing positive for Covid rose by 29% between the weeks ending 17 September and 24 September. All UK hospitals are under significant pressure and a new Covid surge is a very heavy straw on the camels back, the leaders said.

Politicians were warned about the risks of reverting to business as usual once Covid restrictions were lifted. In its final report, the governments Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviour (SPI-B) of which Michie and Reicher were members outlined strategies for embedding Covid-safe behaviours into peoples everyday routines.

Having commissioned the report, the government did absolutely nothing with it, Michie said.

Central to SPI-Bs recommendations was the need for a coordinated programme to shape the financial, physical and social infrastructure in the United Kingdom, the report said. Education, regulation, communications, social marketing and provision of resources will be required to ensure that all sections of society have the capability, opportunity and motivation to enact the behaviours long term.

Staying home when unwell, or wearing a good-quality mask is not always practical without adequate support, Reicher explained: When Boris Johnson announced the lifting of all measures, he was asked: Shouldnt people stay at home if theyre infected? He said: I wish we were more like Germany, where when people are sick they stay at home. What he failed to mention was that in Germany sick pay is 100% of peoples income, whereas the UK has one of the lowest rates in the OECD [Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development].

Now we have a cost of living crisis, the odds of people being able to lose out on income and stay at home if theyre ill is even more fanciful. The same goes for buying Covid tests if youve got symptoms.

In the absence of state support, the onus is on those who can afford to protect others, to do their bit. This includes employers and educational organisations. Nobody questions the fact that we have clean drinking water at work, but were still getting unsafe air, said Michie. It doesnt make sense.

Spreading the message that seasonal coughs, colds and other everyday infections are not inevitable, and there are ways to reduce the risks, is a good first step.

Do: Keep your distance from other people if you are unwell, and ideally stay at home.

Do: Wear a good quality FFP3 mask if you have cold-like symptoms and cannot stay at home or if you are in close contact with someone who has symptoms.

Do: Regularly wash your hands with soap and water, or use hand gel if this is impractical.

Do: Ventilate shared spaces by opening windows and doors.

Do: Sterilise frequently touched surfaces, such as handrails and doorknobs.

Do: Close the toilet seat before you flush, as small amounts of what you are flushing become aerosolised, meaning you can breathe them in. And many people with Covid shed the virus in their poo.

Dont: Shrug off symptoms such as a sore throat, runny nose or fever as just a cold. If you can afford a Covid test, do one.

Dont: Assume that if you tested negative for Covid yesterday, you do not have it today.

Dont: Leave used tissues or Covid swabs lying around.

Dont: Assume that other people will be fine if you give them Covid. Even with vaccines, some people remain vulnerable to serious disease or long Covid.

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Hand-washing and mask-wearing: Covid rules we would be wise to keep - The Guardian