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When I was a kid, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books. In these stories, readers assume the protagonist role and make choices along the way that takes them to one of a handful of endings. My curiosity had me obsessed with knowing every ending. I’d bookmark a page with a decision, see how the story played out, then go back to that decision and eagerly read all of the other endings. This fun childhood memory got me thinking about the evolution of direct marketing and customer journeys fr

Accessibility in games is more important now than ever, thanks to changing legislation in the US and increased awareness among consumers. Major game companies are trying harder to make sure everyone can play. EA’s surprise Titanfall battle royale Apex Legends provides a good example for how you can use clever in-game communication features to make life easier for players with speech or language disorders. Open mic night Apex Legends’ “ping” system is a method of communic

In this age of on-demand everything, when we have unprecedented choice and power over what we want, how we want it and when we want it — when the likes of Amazon and Netflix, Airbnb and Uber, Dollar Shave Club and Rent the Runway have placed all the control in the hands of the user — consumers have become what I like to call “on-demanding.”
 
Certainly, I am on-demanding — and why not, as so many social media platforms dedicate themselves to knowing me so intim

A Belgian security researcher has found an unusual quirk in Facebook’s search function. Facebook lets you search for photos of your female friends, but refuses to play dice if you want to look up pictures of your male friends. The bizarre find was discovered this weekend by notorious Belgian white-hat hacker Inti De Ceukelaire. Meer zelfs: bij het opvragen van foto's van je mannelijke vrienden, gaat Facebook er van uit dat je foto's van vrouwen wou gaan bekijken. *Facepalm* pic.twitter.co

After nearly 16 years out of the advertising business, legendary filmmaker Sir Ridley Scott has brought his grand vision to two high-profile campaigns. The first was an adventure film for Turkish Airlines, which was teased during the Super Bowl. The second grabs the viewer with Scott’s signature other-worldly vision – a visually rich film for Hennessy X.O, ‘The Seven Worlds’ which will have a brief presence during the Oscars.
The four-minute, visual effects-heavy spo

Nurturing leads along the buyer’s journey and turning them into paying customers is a vital part of successful entrepreneurship — but it’s often easier said than done … Go too long without following up with a prospective client, and they may forget about you altogether. But follow up too often, and your pushiness might just push them away and cause you to lose a big sales opportunity. Needless to say, marketers need to find the right balance when it comes to nurturing l

It’s time for your marketing team to get lean! No, I’m not talking about a new fitness routine or diet regimen. I’m referring to an approach to marketing that will save you time, money, and deliver proven results at scale.
 
Today, it seems like so many marketing teams are running different versions of the same old strategies. Although new ideas are always exciting, they can quickly be risky and expensive. So, I see lots of marketers playing it safe instead.
 
Don&rsq

Blockchain has a new unexpected hero: Twitter’s Jack Dorsey. Although up until recently the cryptocurrency community would routinely grill Dorsey over Twitter’s notorious Bitcoin giveaway scam epidemic, the micro-blogging service’s chief has found a new fandom among staunch Bitcoin supporters; and it all began on the Joe Rogan’s podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. Following a heated backlash from free speech activists, Dorsey embarked on an unusual podcast media run

In the first of his upcoming blog series for The Drum, Alex Lubar, chief executive at McCann London uncovers some surprising truths about Britain today – informed from McCann Worldgroup’s proprietary insights team – Truth Central.
15 minutes of Privacy
“In the future everyone will want to be anonymous for 15 minutes”. An exaggeration or has Banksy - the artist who values his anonymity above all else, nailed it with this quote?
According to our latest Truth Central i

For the ongoing series, Code Word, we’re exploring if — and how — technology can protect individuals against sexual assault and harassment, and how it can help and support survivors. You walk through the door and set your bags on the floor. You pose for a selfie with your hotel room in the background, uploading it to Instagram with seemingly random hashtags. For your followers, the photo is a means of documenting your travels. For investigators, you’ve just taken a&

It’s a common narrative that cryptocurrencies will provide a platform for the millions of unbanked individuals in the world to obtain financial freedom. In the developing world, around 50 percent of people over the age of 25 have a bank account. This is nearly half what is seen in the likes of North America. If anywhere in the world needs access to more cost effective financial systems its those in developing nations, where the cost of sending money without a bank account can be prohibiti

The continuing success of the ‘Love Has No Labels’ campaign by the Ad Council has sparked a new digital series hosted by storyteller and filmmaker, Jay Shetty.  
Building on the recent short film, ‘Rising,’ a new two-part documentary series with Facebook and Great Big Story expands on the theme, “Why does it take a disaster to bring us together?” The series highlights the lessons people can learn from human behavior during disaster to ultimately act inclu

European blockchain technology companies had a record year in terms of VC investment in 2018, although overshadowed by funding going into financial technology (fintech) companies. According to Innovate Finance’s ‘2018 FinTech VC Investment Landscape‘ report , the European blockchain and cryptocurrency industry witnessed a series of significant deals, but notably just four deals amounted to over $300 million. Paxos delivers blockchain solutions for financial institutions,

Stuff your red roses and satin hearts: Papa John's and Pizza Express are tapping into the V-day hype by getting customers to give a pizza their hearts. 
Papa John's is encouraging its loved-up customer's to avoid crowded restaurants this Valentines, by staying in with one of its limited edition heart-shaped pizzas. 
As part of the romantic deal, customers can choose from three classic pizza flavours; Double Pepperoni, Cheese and Tomato and Hot Pe

Some of the UK’s largest traditional advertising spenders greatly tightened their belts in 2018, with overall spend slumping across cinema, outdoor, press, radio and TV. 
According to research from Nielsen, top spender Procter & Gamble reduced its traditional ad spend from £196m to 186m in the UK last year. Sky's expenditure, meanwhile, slumped to second with a 30% decline from £177m to £124m. Unilever fell out of the top three advertisers for the first time in t

FreeWheel and Nieslen have expanded their partnership to include the measurement company's data management platform (DMP) in an effort to enhance targeting capabilities across advanced TV.
The integration leverages Nielsen's media and purchase segments, audience insights and segmentation to optimize campaigns in real-time on CTV, OTT and digital video channels. 
FreeWheel Markets, a cross-platform monetization solution, will offer the Nielsen DMP through its Drive service, a suite of measur

It was just a few months ago that Focal Audio revealed the Elegia, its first take on a premium pair of closed-back headphones. I liked the Elegia when I reviewed it, but given its $900 price tag and recent release, I thought it would be quite some time before Focal tackled closed-back headphones again. Boy, was I wrong. Focal today announced the Stellia, a new flagship closed-back headphone launching in advance of the CanJam NYC headphone show this weekend. At $3,000, this is one of the most ex

To say that a personalized experience and contextual content recommendations are an integral part of modern e-commerce is nothing new. But to unlock that, brands will need AI-powered search to provide deeper insights to help them align their campaigns with the customer journey.
The Drum, in partnership with Bing, has put together a panel in The Drum Arms pop-up pub in Austin to discuss innovation in search and why AI-powered search matters.
Held at the legendary The Drum Arms, the session will a

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and connected services. If you’re working with images and want to display them on a website, a presentation slide, or a document, it helps to be able to fit them in just right, without stretching it or unintentionally cropping out important details. The best solution is to simply crop your images manually, using desktop or web apps – a number of which are free to

“AI is just fancy maths” according to innovation specialist, digital ethicist and self-proclaimed ‘data philosopher’ Charles Radclyffe. He was speaking on a panel discussion that kicked off The Drum Big Bang conference, in partnership with Marin Software, at The Science Museum. “It’s fancy maths plus data plus computational power,” he added.
The dream of matching machine intelligence with that of humans is nothing new.  However, the current hype aro

Pernod Ricard has admitted that a no-deal Brexit scenario would be “a short-term nightmare”. However, it’s insistent that whatever form the UK’s departure from the EU takes, it won’t have any long-term impact on its marketing plans. 
Along with L’Oréal, Pernod Ricard has been among the businesses shipping extra stock between Britain and continental Europe as part of its no-deal contingency plan.
Jean-Christophe Coutures, chairman and

Flexible working. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But despite everyone talking about it, it’s not that easy to come by if you’re a creative director and a mother. 
Having worked in advertising for nearly 20 years, I’d managed to negotiate a flexible job after maternity leave at the agency I used to work for, probably because I’d been there for years.
But when they announced an office move, I realised the new commute just wouldn’t be feasible with three

This week has seen another wave of appointments and departures at brands, media owners and agencies. The Drum has rounded up the key moves from the EMEA, APAC and North America regions. This week's features moves at Dentsu Aegis Network, Skyscanner, Ogilvy, GroupM, VCCP Singapore, Digitas and The Trade Desk. 
 
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Dentsu Aegis NetworkDentsu Aegis Network has renewed its focus on the core UK market, elevating Euan Jarvi

This article was originally published on Medium by Sahil Lavingia, the Founder and CEO of Gumroad. In 2011 I left my job as the second employee at Pinterest–before I vested any of my stock–to work on what I thought would be my life’s work. Just had an idea for my first billion-dollar company. Tomorrow, I start building it. — Sahil Lavingia (@shl) April 2, 2011 Gumroad would become a billion-dollar company, with hundreds of employees. It would IPO, and I would work on it

With one of the lowest corporate taxes in Europe (only 12.5 percent compared to Britain’s 23 percent and France’s 33.3 percent) and laxer regulations, almost every major tech company has chosen Ireland as the site for their European headquarters. Today, Dublin’s Silicon Docks look more like a hall of fame featuring the office buildings of major players like Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Apple, and Amazon, to name a few. Ireland’s new Dubliners have transformed the city into

Greater Anglia Trains have unveiled a new brand identity, created by Atomic London, positioning the transport provider as a ‘distinctive and engaging’ choice for travel across the region.
Dutch parent Abellio is pouring £1.4bn into an overhaul of its rolling stock which will begin ferrying passengers during summer, prompting the rail firm to prepare new corporate identity to match its upgraded fleet.
Built around the UK’s fastest land animal and a species indigenous to Ea

A prominent digital asset firm has revealed it successfully closed a new $40 million blockchain-specific venture capital fund, thanks largely to contributions made by two public pensions. Morgan Creek Digital, a hedge fund backed by institutional powerhouse Morgan Creek Capital, has launched what it calls the Morgan Creek Blockchain Opportunities Fund, geared entirely toward investing in the digital asset industry. In March last year, Morgan Creek Digital was reported to have had over

Dame Frances Cairncross has released the findings of her independent review into the sustainability of UK journalism, citing Facebook and Google as the roots of the the existential crises facing the news business.
The 154-page report delivered multiple recommendations on how to "safeguard the future sustainability of the UK press”, many of which would have implications for the duopoly.
Cairncross, assisted by experts from the media, marketing, advertising and tech industries

It’s an unpredictable time for retailers as high street stores battle to stay open while ecommerce vendors increasingly open up new physical shops, proving that there’s no one size to fit all. The Retail Panel, hosted by The Drum at the Big Bang event held at the Science Museum last week, discussed the trends affecting the industry. Panelists agreed that ultimately, it’s not about embracing technologies like AI or questioning whether online or offline works best but figuring ou

One in three people are expected to develop cancer during their lifetime. With the help of AI-based algorithms, pathologists will be able to deliver better and faster diagnoses. New cancer cases will increase by almost 70% over the next two decades, from 14 million in 2012 to 22 million. In the US, the National Cancer Institute reports that one in three people are expected to develop cancer in their lifetime. Pathologists are dealing with growing caseloads while patients are increasingly expect

The Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) has today launched a fresh crackdown on piracy in the form of a Europe-wide anti-piracy program designed to block revenues for websites that profit from illegal or stolen content.
Dubbed 'Project Brand Integrity', the initiative will be run by the advertising body and digital advertising insurance provider White Bullet. It will monitor pirate websites across the continent for digital ads representing major brands in order to alert and protect advertiser

Sonic branding agency Cord Worldwide has appointed Sony Interactive Entertainment's Alastair Lindsay as head of audio, leveraging the gaming veteran’s experience for brands and acknowledging the increasing hunger for interactive audio experiences. 
Lindsay will lean on his 26 years of experience for Cord’s clients across entertainment, media and gaming, including BT, Shell, Amazon, Jaguar, HSBC, Tesco and Lego.
He was first known for developing music for Tempest 2000 on the

Apple has elevated Frank Casanova, a senior director for iPhone partner marketing, to the newly created role of senior director of worldwide product marketing for augmented reality – highlighting the increased importance attached to the fast-growing sector.
Casanova first fell into Apple’s orbit in 1997 when he became a senior director of MacOS X graphics, audio and video, a role he held for a decade before making the shift to marketing.
Apple is increasingly incorporating

British retail brand Marks & Spencer (M&S) has launched its first campaign specifically for the India market, aiming to appeal to Indian consumers’ fashionable side.
The ‘rethink’ campaign, by Grey London and Delhi, sticks to the Marks & Spencer aesthetic and messaging but has updated it to appeal specifically for Indians that are looking to revamp their look.
According to M&S, this is a significant milestone for the business in India as it’s the first tim

Digitas has appointed former Ogilvy UK strategy partner in the same role to power up the team's mobile insights and bridge the product and technology teams. 
Whatley joins after seven years at Ogilvy, where he worked closely with clients like IBM, Land Rover, Converse and International Airlines Group, helping them make gains in the tech and social space.
At Digitas, he will report into its freshly enlisted chief strategy officer Matthew Holt, who he worked alongside at Ogilvy

Last September, when Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey appeared in front of US Congress, several Republican representatives asked him about the company’s bias against conservatives on the platform. While Dorsey denied this claim, the accusations continued to roll in over the following months. In October, President Donald Trump complained about it too. Later, in an interview with NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen in September, Dorsey admitted that the majority of Twitter employees have a left-leani