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ST. LOUIS, Dec. 19, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Advantage Solutions Inc. (NASDAQ: ADV), a leading provider of business solutions to consumer goods manufacturers and retailers, has been named to Chief Marketer ’s 2025 Top Agencies of the Year, an honor that recognizes the “best and brightest across all agency types and channels.” In recognizing Advantage, Chief Marketer, a leading information hub that serves Fortune 1000 marketers, noted how the organization recently “transformed its business, aligning teams, operations and service offerings under a ‘One Advantage’ model to support omnicommerce, brand activation and experiential marketing solutions for retailers and CPG brands, from everyday foods and beverages to high-consideration, high-touch categories such as beauty, baby and adult beverage.” The recognition affirms Advantage’s position as an industry leader in omnichannel marketing services, offering interconnected solutions to more than 4,000 clients across more than 100,000 retail locations across the U.S. and Canada. “This honor speaks to the collective power of our 70,000 teammates supporting how we continue to evolve and grow as a more modern, agile and essential provider to brands and retailers,” said Kelli Hammersmith, chief communications officer at Advantage. “Our teammates bring an incredible blend of smarts, heart and high-tech precision to how we transform and grow businesses across retail — at scale, in stores and online.” Advantage, which ranks as the No. 1 global provider of experiential marketing services, delivers a range of omnichannel solutions to brands and retailers, such as in-store sampling and demonstration, gift with purchase, online order sampling, subscription boxes, virtual advisor programs and connected sampling via digital engagement and QR codes. The company also owns end-to-end sales execution for dozens of brands in Amazon stores, including operations, merchandising, retailer negotiations, chargebacks, advertising, and more. Advantage Unified Commerce (AUC), one of Advantage’s omnichannel marketing agencies, is Amazon’s largest full-service partner and was honored earlier this year with Amazon’s Gold Tier recognition for excellence. Amp, one of the company’s omnichannel marketing agencies, also was honored separately by Chief Marketer. The honorees represent a wide array of expertise, including experiential firms, digital marketing agencies and AI innovators. “ Chief Marketer ’s Agencies of the Year is the only editorial roster of its kind, dedicated to the most innovative partners across the marketing ecosystem,” said Danielle Sikes, brand director at Chief Marketer . "Our annual list is an invaluable resource that helps brands get a sense of who they can trust with their business.” The Top Agencies honor builds on additional industry recognitions for Advantage. This year, Advantage was named the 16th largest agency company worldwide and the seventh largest in North America in the 2024 Ad Age Agency Report. Its AUC agency alone received more than a dozen industry honors for its work on behalf of clients this year. The award for Amp continued a string of wins in 2024 for the full-service agency, which also was honored with wins in the Shorty awards, the Davey awards, the Muse awards, the Hermes awards and the Merit awards, among others. About Advantage Solutions Advantage Solutions is the leading omnichannel retail solutions agency in North America, uniquely positioned at the intersection of consumer-packaged goods (CPG) brands and retailers. With its data- and technology-powered services, Advantage leverages its unparalleled insights, expertise and scale to help brands and retailers of all sizes generate demand and get products into the hands of consumers, wherever they shop. Whether it’s creating meaningful moments and experiences in-store and online, optimizing assortment and merchandising, or accelerating e-commerce and digital capabilities, Advantage is the trusted partner that keeps commerce and life moving. Advantage has offices throughout North America and strategic investments and owned operations in select international markets. For more information, please visit YourADV.com . Media Contacts: Peter Frost press@youradv.com
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THEON breaks all order records againCHENNAI: As avid readers flood the halls of the 48th Chennai Book Fair in Nandanam, one cannot miss the stall set by K Kumar, an associate professor in the Department of Tamil at Presidency College, and Manikandan, his student, both are visually impaired. The stall, located right at the first entrance of the fair, runs under ‘Bharathi Trust,’ an Adambakkam-based foundation for visually impaired persons. The stall houses 120 Braille books, and the books written by visually impaired people are for sale. The content in Braille ranges from Sangam and Bhakthi literature to government orders for the rights of the visually impaired. The rest of the books are authored by visually impaired people. The 47-year-old professor has written 12 books, covering themes like politicians, TRB exam and Vallalar. They are written using the software recommended for visually impaired people. “This stall is set up to give awareness about Braille writing and to educate about the visually impaired writers. Blind people are often looked upon with sympathy by others, and we want to educate people about their hidden talents,” said Kumar. “Stalls featuring braille books are set up at the Chennai Book Fair for the first time so people can recognise their literature,” said SK Murugan, secretary of BAPASI. Kumar completed his higher studies and completed his PhD at the Presidency College and became a teacher through the TRB exam in 2007. He says that he has been passionate about social service since his student days, which pushed him to become the secretary for the College Students and Graduates Association of Blind secretary for two years. He decided to continue it and has brought many initiatives for visually impaired students to be provided with Braille textbooks. “Presidency College gives importance to the differently abled people, and around 100 people graduate every year, supported by the Tamil Nadu government. Bharathi Trust takes care of 10 visually impaired college girls each year and provides them with stay and education under Bharathi Illam in Adambakkam for those who cannot afford accommodation. They are also given training for exams like TNPSC, UPSC, and TRB to have a secure future,” Kumar added.
NEW YORK (AP) — Shortly before he was to be flogged and imprisoned for eight years, Mohammad Rasoulof fled Iran. His weekslong journey would take him from Tehran, through rural Iranian villages, on foot across a mountainous borderland and ultimately to Hamburg, Germany. As arduous and dangerous as the trip was, Rasoulof’s travels had an added wrinkle: He was trying to finish a movie at the same time. A week after arriving in Germany, Rasoulof would premiere his film, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” at the Cannes Film Festival in France. As he fled, Rasoulof was preoccupied with the movie’s edit, which was being carried out in Germany. “I remember when I was sitting in the car that was driving me to the border,” Rasoulof says. “I had my laptop and I was taking notes and sending them to my editor. The two friends who were taking me kept saying, ‘Put that thing away for a second.’” In Cannes, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” won a special jury prize and Rasoulof was celebrated with a 13-minute standing ovation. The movie has since been hailed as one of the best of the year, and arguably its most daring. Rasoulof made “Sacred Fig” clandestinely in Iran, directing scenes from a separate location to avoid raising suspicions. (The opening titles read: “When there is no way, a way must be made.”) Its story — a devastating family drama set during the 2022 protests that engulfed Iran — would surely only add to Rasoulof’s prison sentence. So after all of this, how is he feeling? When he recently met with The Associated Press for an interview, Rasoulof shrugged. “Ordinary,” he says. Rasoulof, 52, has a more gentle, bemused presence than some of his films would suggest. But how could Rasoulof, after what he’s lived through this year, feel anything like ordinary? “I still haven’t grasped the meaning of exile,” he explains. “I think it will take some time. The feeling of that void has not hit me yet, and I think it may never come.” Rasoulof has been busy traveling from film festival to film festival. In September, he and his 24-year-old daughter attended the Telluride festival in Colorado. Many more such stops were to come. Since fleeing Iran, Rasoulof has effectively been immersed in the world he’s long known: cinema. “Maybe I am living in the world of cinema, and maybe that’s why things are so familiar,” he agrees. “Maybe that’s why I don’t feel I’m in exile.” “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” currently playing in theaters, is the Oscar submission from Rasoulof’s adoptive home, Germany. He’s settled in with his family, grateful for how the country has welcomed him. Speaking through an interpreter, Rasoulof grants that he’ll probably always mentally have a bag packed, ready to return to Iran should the chance ever come. But what “home” constitutes has changed for him. “I might be able to change this concept of home for myself,” he says. “I walk on the streets here and I see people of different colors and forms from all over the place, and they all call this place home. So there’s always the chance that one can build something new.” How oppressive politics can infiltrate the home is central to “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” It concerns a family of four: Iman (Missagh Zareh), a lawyer newly appointed to the Revolutionary Court in Tehran; his wife, Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and their two daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). Iman is proud of his high position, but, when the government crackdown on protesters following the death of Mahsa Amini accelerates, his daughters are increasingly at odds with him. After Iman's gun goes missing, his wife and daughters turn into suspects. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” populated with real cellphone videos from the protests, plays out as an excruciating microcosm of Iranian society. “It wasn’t like I put those videos in. They just came in,” says Rasoulof. “The reality is that it was through those videos I realized what happened. When the Woman, Life, Freedom movement occurred, I was in prison.” Rasoulof has spent several spells in Tehran’s Evin Prison. In 2010, he was arrested on set for filming without a permit. In 2022, he was jailed for seven months after pursuing the release of another of Iran’s most prominent filmmakers, Jafar Panahi. Panahi, who secretly made the film “No Bears,” was only released in 2023 after commencing a hunger strike. “My windows at home opened to the hills that have the Evin prison in them,” says Rasoulof. “I knew behind those walls many of my friends were sitting.” Rasoulof, inspired by the courage of the younger generation, resolved to pour the same spirit into “The Seed of the Sacred Fig.” Although it wasn’t until Rasoulof’s appeal of his sentence failed that he resolved to flee, he grants that deciding to make “Sacred Fig” essentially sealed his fate. “Making this film was part of that decision,” he says. “Although I had made up my mind earlier, because it was such a bitter decision, I was denying it and delaying it, waiting for a miracle to allow me to stay.” “I would open the fridge to make sure there was nothing there that would go bad,” he adds. “It was a strange circumstance.” For the film's actors and crew members, signing up for the movie meant also becoming co-conspirators. Everyone knew the risks. And, like Rasoulof, many of them have since left Iran. Rostami and Maleki also now live in Germany. Asked if his collaborators are all currently safe, Rasoulof responds: “No one is safe from the Islamic Republic.” In his new life, Rasoulof is experiencing freedoms he never had in Iran. His films, for example, are widely available outside his native country but not in Iran. His prize-winning 2020 drama “There Is No Evil,” about capital punishment in Iran, is banned — though, ironically, Rasoulof’s prison guards enjoyed watching it with him from a flash drive. “I haven’t seen many of my films on a big screen, especially my last film,” he says. “I really want to see ‘There Is No Evil’ on a big screen. A festival in Portugal has promised to take me to see my own film.” The name of Rasoulof’s film comes from his memory of an ancient fig tree he once visited on an island in the south of Iran. It’s a tree that, with apparent metaphorical meaning for the Iranian government, spreads its seeds onto other trees, killing them and growing in their place. Rasoulof pulls out his phone to share a photo of his apartment in Tehran. Outside a large window, you can see the walls of Evin running along a craggy hillside. Inside are many houseplants. “This is my home,” he says. “I have a lot of plants. I really miss my plants. I have a neighbor who takes care of them for me. I actually have a fig tree at home.” Copyright 2024 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission. Get local news delivered to your inbox!
