Latest news with #TheCollective
Web Release
a day ago
- Business
- Web Release
THE GROWING INFLUENCE OF WOMEN'S ECONOMIC POWER IN THE MIDDLE EAST
New research shows women in the Middle East are helping drive a global rise in women's spending power, yet many still feel misrepresented and misunderstood. Despite $792 billion in global ad spend, nearly half of women worldwide say brands and businesses continue to miss the mark, attempting to engage them with outdated stereotypes and missing a huge opportunity with a powerful, complex, multi-dimensional consumer who holds two-thirds of the world's discretionary spend in their pockets. The findings are part of The Collective® Economy: A Global Understanding of Women's Buying Power. The report leverages insights from 8,700 women across 10 countries, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, exploring how women live, spend, and perceive the world, and highlights where brands are falling short. In addition to capturing a holistic understanding of women's economic behaviors and attitudes, the report also introduces six new consumer personas that align diverse world views and shared experiences. The Mindful Multi-tasker: balancing work, family, and wellbeing (regardless of motherhood) balancing work, family, and wellbeing (regardless of motherhood) The Family-First Realist: grounded in practicality and long-term security grounded in practicality and long-term security The Independent Striver : driven by growth, career, and financial autonomy : driven by growth, career, and financial autonomy The Empowered Advocate: cares deeply about justice, visibility, and making change cares deeply about justice, visibility, and making change The Global Dreamer: outward-facing, creative, and connected outward-facing, creative, and connected The Creative Explorer: Defining life on their terms, and it has to mean something 'Women are telling us what matters to them and what doesn't,' said Thayer Lavielle, EVP and Managing Director of The Collective. 'And they clearly want products that support and reflect their lives, values, and priorities. This research provides a global pulse on how women perceive their marketing, by region, and where they believe brand marketers may be falling short. Through the six personas we have developed, The Collective® Economy is a blueprint for building stronger connections, greater impact and lasting growth.' Spotlight on the Middle East In Saudi Arabia and the UAE, women are navigating a blend of tradition and ambition, and they expect brands to reflect that balance. In Saudi Arabia, 54% of women say family influences their daily decisions, and 52% are the main decision-makers for household purchases, guided by values like financial stability, health and personal growth. Yet 45% say brands don't understand them, and 49% say they don't feel empowered by how women are portrayed in advertising. These women are navigating a blend of cultural tradition and modern ambition. Many fall into the study's Family-First Realist persona – practical, values-led, and responsible for others. They're not asking brands to ignore culture; they want them to see the bigger picture. In the UAE, women are more likely to identify with the Empowered Advocate persona. 66% say family matters deeply in their decisions – the third-highest rate globally – but they also lead in education, careers, and caregiving roles. Over half (55%) are the primary decision-makers for purchasing in their home. Yet nearly half (48%) say brands don't understand them, and 41% do not feel empowered by the representation of women in marketing. These are educated, digitally savvy consumers with high expectations. They want to see ambition and tradition reflected side by side, and expect brands to meet that standard. Download the full report:
Business Wire
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Walker & Dunlop Arranges $106 Million Financing for Second Phase of D.C. Luxury Apartments by WC Smith
BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Walker & Dunlop, Inc. announced today that it provided $106.3 million in financing for Agora, a Class A 334-unit high-rise multifamily asset in Washington, DC. Walker & Dunlop multifamily finance, led by Brendan Coleman and Connor Locke, arranged the financing on behalf of the longtime W&D client and Fannie Mae priority borrower, WC Smith. The team secured a rate lock within 24 hours of the signed application, providing a 35-year amortization and 10 years of full-term interest-only payments to ensure a favorable outcome for WC Smith. WC Smith developed Agora as the second phase of The Collective, a premier 1,138-unit apartment community offering unmatched amenities in Washington, D.C.'s vibrant Capitol Riverfront neighborhood. Walker & Dunlop has also arranged financing for the other two phases of The Collective, Park Chelsea, a high-end 429-unit community and, The Garrett, which features 373 apartments and 5,000 square feet of co-working space. "We are honored to work with our partners at WC Smith yet again, a company that has earned a stellar reputation over decades as a trusted multifamily investor, developer, and operator," said Connor Locke, managing director of Multifamily Finance at Walker & Dunlop. "Agora is a standout asset within their exceptional portfolio, and the swift rate lock, secured within 24 hours of the signed application, demonstrates our dedication to providing timely, customized solutions that ensure the best possible outcomes for our clients." Agora is a luxury, 11-story, 334-unit LEED Silver-certified apartment building completed in 2018, located in Washington, D.C.'s vibrant Capitol Riverfront. Part of The Collective, residents enjoy shared access to high-end amenities across the three properties, including a Whole Foods, fitness center, spa rooms, and indoor golf simulator. Steps from Nationals Park, Audi Field, and the Navy Yard, Agora sits in a 500-acre neighborhood recognized by Forbes as one of the world's 'Top 12 Coolest Neighborhoods' for its parks, dining, and strong sense of community. Walker & Dunlop is one of the top providers of capital to the U.S. multifamily market; in 2024 the firm originated over $30 billion in debt financing volume, including lending over $25 billion for multifamily properties. To learn more about our capabilities and financing options, visit our website. About Walker & Dunlop Walker & Dunlop (NYSE: WD) is one of the largest commercial real estate finance and advisory services firms in the United States and internationally. Our ideas and capital create communities where people live, work, shop, and play. Our innovative people, breadth of our brand, and our technological capabilities make us one of the most insightful and client-focused firms in the commercial real estate industry.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Trump's Least Favorite Words, in One Terrifying Song
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Last year, a lot of indie-music fans—including myself—got someone else's packing list stuck in their head. I'd walk around muttering 'Milk thistle, calcium, high-rise, boot cut / Advil, black jeans, blue jeans'—lyrics hissed out by the art-punk legend Kim Gordon on a song called 'Bye Bye.' The track led off her album The Collective, one of the most acclaimed releases of 2024. Over hard hip-hop beats and snarling guitar distortion, Gordon stammered about daily banalities, reframing modern life as a psychological war zone. Now the 72-year-old co-founder of Sonic Youth has released a new version of the song, called 'Bye Bye 25.' The music is largely the same, but the lyrics are new, and they start like this: mental health electric vehicle Gulf of Mexico energy conversion gay bird flu These are among the terms that the Trump administration has tried to minimize from public life. PEN America has assembled a list of at least 350 phrases that federal authorities have, this year, scrubbed from government websites and materials (including school curricula), flagged as necessitating extra review in official documents and proposals, or discouraged the use of among staffers. The attention paid to these words reflects Trump's crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as his team's stances on policy issues such as energy and vaccines. Gordon picked some of these words to rework 'Bye Bye'—making her, somewhat curiously, one of the few established musicians to release music directly inspired by Trump's second term. For all the chaos and consternation caused by the president this year, the entertainment world's response has been relatively muted. Bruce Springsteen, that liberal stalwart, kicked off his tour with an anti-Trump sermon; stars such as Doechii and Lady Gaga have made awards-show speeches in support of immigrants, trans people, and protesters. But outright protest music responding to recent events has been rare. 'I think people are kind of mostly just still stunned and don't know what to do,' Gordon told me in a video chat earlier this week. The memory of what happened the last time around might be contributing to the hesitation. Trump's rise to power in 2016 spurred a quick response from popular culture, resulting in diss tracks (Nipsey Hussle and YG's 'FDT') and provocations from luminaries (remember Madonna wanting to explode the White House?). The indie-rock world united for a compilation called Our First 100 Days: one track released for each of Trump's first 100 days in office. But today, many of those efforts feel like either artifacts of a bygone movement—the pink-hatted #Resistance—or simply inconsequential. When I spoke with Gordon, she said, with a laugh, that she had no memory of contributing to the Our First 100 Days project. The new version of 'Bye Bye' caught my attention because it's deadpan funny, and because it avoids some of the pitfalls that await many anti-Trump protest efforts. The president and many of his supporters seem to use liberal outrage as fuel, which means strident criticism has a way of backfiring. Steve Bannon's stated strategy to 'flood the zone with shit'—to stoke multiple incendiary media narratives every day—can make knowing what to protest first difficult. The firing of human-rights workers? The extrajudicial deportations? The dehumanization of trans people? The bid to turn Gaza into a resort? How do you pick? Gordon's song cuts across topic areas by highlighting the dark absurdity of an ascendant political tactic: controlling policy by controlling language. It also doesn't sloganeer; instead, it presents a patently ridiculous jumble of terms for listeners to reflect on. (Theoretically, a MAGA loyalist might even enjoy the sound of diversity-related jargon becoming a heavy-metal hit list). 'I wanted to have some really mundane, weird words in there like allergy or measles or tile drainage,' she told me. 'It's unrealistic to think they could actually ban these words, because everyone uses them every day. But I think if they had their ultimate fantasy, maybe.' Gordon and her former band, Sonic Youth, emanate the kind of inscrutable hauteur that might seem at odds with outright protest. But this is not her first such effort in this vein. Sonic Youth arose out of the punk-rock underground of the 1980s that was boiling with outrage against Ronald Reagan. In 1992, their song 'Youth Against Fascism' featured Thurston Moore—the band's other singer, and Gordon's now-ex-husband—sneering, 'Yeah, the president sucks / He's a war pig fuck.' That same year, the Gordon-led 'Swimsuit Issue' skewered male chauvinism, a topic she returned to with the hilarious 'I'm a Man' on The Collective. Talking with her, I remembered that though Gordon is often associated with Gen X disaffection, she's really a Baby Boomer who came of age attending Vietnam War protests and listening to folk music. The video for 'Bye Bye 25' splices images from the recent anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles with shots of her holding cue cards in the style of Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' video. She told me her favorite protest song is Neil Young's 'Ohio,' which decried the state violence at Kent State University in 1970. Young, she suspected, didn't intend to write an out-and-out rallying cry. 'Those lyrics were describing a time,' she said. 'That's what I hope I'm doing with my music and my lyrics—really describing what's going on.' Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
Saying ‘Bye Bye' to Trump's Least Favorite Words
Last year, a lot of indie-music fans—including myself—got someone else's packing list stuck in their head. I'd walk around muttering 'Milk thistle, calcium, high-rise, boot cut / Advil, black jeans, blue jeans'—lyrics hissed out by the art-punk legend Kim Gordon on a song called 'Bye Bye.' The track led off her album The Collective, one of the most acclaimed releases of 2024. Over hard hip-hop beats and snarling guitar distortion, Gordon stammered about daily banalities, reframing modern life as a psychological war zone. Now the 72-year-old co-founder of Sonic Youth has released a new version of the song, called 'Bye Bye 25.' The music is largely the same, but the lyrics are new, and they start like this: mental health electric vehicle Gulf of Mexico energy conversion gay bird flu These are among the terms that the Trump administration has tried to minimize from public life. PEN America has assembled a list of at least 350 phrases that federal authorities have, this year, scrubbed from government websites and materials (including school curricula), flagged as necessitating extra review in official documents and proposals, or discouraged the use of among staffers. The attention paid to these words reflects Trump's crusade against diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as his team's stances on policy issues such as energy and vaccines. Gordon picked some of these words to rework 'Bye Bye'—making her, somewhat curiously, one of the few established musicians to release music directly inspired by Trump's second term. For all the chaos and consternation caused by the president this year, the entertainment world's response has been relatively muted. Bruce Springsteen, that liberal stalwart, kicked off his tour with an anti-Trump sermon; stars such as Doechii and Lady Gaga have made awards-show speeches in support of immigrants, trans people, and protesters. But outright protest music responding to recent events has been rare. 'I think people are kind of mostly just still stunned and don't know what to do,' Gordon told me in a video chat earlier this week. The memory of what happened the last time around might be contributing to the hesitation. Trump's rise to power in 2016 spurred a quick response from popular culture, resulting in diss tracks (Nipsey Hussle and YG's 'FDT') and provocations from luminaries (remember Madonna wanting to explode the White House?). The indie-rock world united for a compilation called Our First 100 Days: one track released for each of Trump's first 100 days in office. But today, many of those efforts feel like either artifacts of a bygone movement— the pink-hatted #Resistance —or simply inconsequential. When I spoke with Gordon, she said, with a laugh, that she had no memory of contributing to the Our First 100 Days project. The new version of 'Bye Bye' caught my attention because it's deadpan funny, and because it avoids some of the pitfalls that await many anti-Trump protest efforts. The president and many of his supporters seem to use liberal outrage as fuel, which means strident criticism has a way of backfiring. Steve Bannon's stated strategy to 'flood the zone with shit'—to stoke multiple incendiary media narratives every day—can make knowing what to protest first difficult. The firing of human-rights workers? The extrajudicial deportations? The dehumanization of trans people? The bid to turn Gaza into a resort? How do you pick? Gordon's song cuts across topic areas by highlighting the dark absurdity of an ascendant political tactic: controlling policy by controlling language. It also doesn't sloganeer; instead, it presents a patently ridiculous jumble of terms for listeners to reflect on. (Theoretically, a MAGA loyalist might even enjoy the sound of diversity-related jargon becoming a heavy-metal hit list). 'I wanted to have some really mundane, weird words in there like allergy or measles or tile drainage,' she told me. 'It's unrealistic to think they could actually ban these words, because everyone uses them every day. But I think if they had their ultimate fantasy, maybe.' Gordon and her former band, Sonic Youth, emanate the kind of inscrutable hauteur that might seem at odds with outright protest. But this is not her first such effort in this vein. Sonic Youth arose out of the punk-rock underground of the 1980s that was boiling with outrage against Ronald Reagan. In 1992, their song 'Youth Against Fascism' featured Thurston Moore—the band's other singer, and Gordon's now-ex-husband—sneering, 'Yeah, the president sucks / He's a war pig fuck.' That same year, the Gordon-led 'Swimsuit Issue' skewered male chauvinism, a topic she returned to with the hilarious 'I'm a Man' on The Collective. Talking with her, I remembered that though Gordon is often associated with Gen X disaffection, she's really a Baby Boomer who came of age attending Vietnam War protests and listening to folk music. The video for 'Bye Bye 25' splices images from the recent anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles with shots of her holding cue cards in the style of Bob Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' video. She told me her favorite protest song is Neil Young's 'Ohio,' which decried the state violence at Kent State University in 1970. Young, she suspected, didn't intend to write an out-and-out rallying cry. 'Those lyrics were describing a time,' she said. 'That's what I hope I'm doing with my music and my lyrics—really describing what's going on.'
HKFP
30-05-2025
- Politics
- HKFP
Another 4 Hong Kong democrats freed after being jailed over unofficial primary election
Four more Hong Kong opposition figures have been released from prison after serving more than four years following their convictions in the city's largest national security case. Former district councillors Jimmy Sham, Kinda Li, Roy Tam, and Henry Wong left prison early Friday morning in seven-seater vehicles with curtains drawn and went directly to their residences, according to local media reports. Li and Wong were released from Stanley Prison, Sham from Shek Pik Prison, and Tam from Pik Uk Prison, according to local media citing unnamed sources. The four were the second batch of 45 democrats released from jail after being sentenced to four years and three months behind bars. Sham, a prominent LGBTQ activist before he was jailed, arrived at his home in Jordan at 6.26am carrying two big bags. He wore a black T-shirt featuring cartoon characters holding a rainbow flag and the words 'The Grand Parade.' Plainclothes and uniformed police officers deployed around Sham's home prevented reporters from entering the building where he lives. When asked by reporters whether he was banned from making a statement to the press, Sham smiled and said in Cantonese: 'I want to reserve some time for my family. See you in the afternoon.' He entered the building without elaborating on whether he planned to make a public appearance later. Another released democrat, Li, arrived at his home in Kwun Tong shortly before 6.15am. He was carrying one bag and wearing a face mask. After getting out of the vehicle, he nodded at reporters at the scene and said, 'Thank you for the hard work.' He did not respond to questions from the reporters. Some reporters went to the housing unit stated as Li's home on court documents and knocked to ask if the former district councillor wanted to speak. There was no response and the door, which was not fully closed, was shut shortly afterwards. Around a dozen reporters waited at Muk Min Ha Tsuen, a village in Tsuen Wan on Friday morning, which is listed as Tam's address in court documents. At around 6.55am, a man who identified himself as the village chief of Muk Min Ha Tsuen told reporters at the scene that he had not seen Tam's wife for more than a year, and that they may have moved out. Local media outlet The Collective reported on Friday that a private vehicle carrying Wong arrived at the car park of his residence in Yuen Long at 6.34am. Some plainclothes police officers entered the building lobby before his arrival, while a few journalists waited at the scene, the report said. The Friday release arrangement was similar to that given to four former lawmakers released last month – Claudia Mo, Gary Fan, Jeremy Tam, and Kwok Ka-ki – the first group of 45 democrats discharged from prison. The former lawmakers were sentenced to four years and two months in jail after pleading guilty to the charge of conspiracy to commit subversion. The 45 democrats were convicted of conspiracy to commit subversion over their roles in an unofficial primary election in July 2020 and sentenced in November last year. The unofficial primary election aimed to help the pro-democracy camp win a controlling majority in the legislature. Three judges ruled last year that the democrats had planned to use their constitutional powers to veto the government budget indiscriminately, ultimately forcing the resignation of the chief executive and a government shutdown. This, the judges ruled, would have resulted in a 'constitutional crisis.' With the four released on Friday, 37 democrats involved in the case are still serving prison time – including ex-law professor Benny Tai, who was sentenced to 10 years in jail. Beijing inserted national security legislation directly into Hong Kong's mini-constitution in June 2020 following a year of pro-democracy protests and unrest. It criminalised subversion, secession, collusion with foreign forces and terrorist acts – broadly defined to include disruption to transport and other infrastructure. The move gave police sweeping new powers and led to hundreds of arrests amid new legal precedents, while dozens of civil society groups disappeared. The authorities say it restored stability and peace to the city, rejecting criticism from trade partners, the UN and NGOs.
