Marketing news

• Crayola chooses Southwest Media Group as AOR for indoor experience in Plano

  17-11-2017 23:04
  Dallas-based agency Southwest Media Group has been named strategic media planning and buying agency for the brand’s 'Crayola Experience' in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
  Crayola's attraction, which lives in a 60,000-square-foot indoor facility, will provide dozens of hands-on creative activities for all ages and opens in Willow Bend, Texas in Spring 2018.
  Crayola also has arts and crafts theme parks in its hometown of Easton, Pennsylvania, plus Orlando, Florida, and at Minnesota&rs
  
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• Debenhams' fairytale experience aims to 'bring back' customers

  17-11-2017 18:50 via campaignlive.co.uk
  The retailer has brought its Cinderella-inspired "You shall" campaign to life in stores across the country, hoping to engage with customers through a "special and unique" shopping experience.
  
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• Soft focus, subversive unease: how Greenpeace parodied the iconic Coca-Cola Christmas ad

  17-11-2017 18:30
  Greenpeace’s latest film tackles ocean plastic pollution through spoofing a festive medium known to the entire Western world: the famed Coca-Cola Christmas ad, which each year spawns thousands of tiresome updates declaring “Now it’s Christmas!” after hitting TV screens. The familiarly tied up in the enduring creative made it “ripe for parody”, according to Elena Polisano, oceans campaigner at the charity.
  The idea to parody the ‘Holidays Are Coming&rsquo
  
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• How to engage people through sport

  17-11-2017 18:25
  Sport has long been a go-to platform for brands looking to connect with an audience, and for good reason. People care passionately about sport, and by aligning with it, marketers hope some of that fan passion will extend to their brand.   
  Reaching fans is one thing, but I feel that brands often overlook the most highly engaged, committed and passionate people at the heart of any sport: the people who play week in, week out. While some sports are struggling for participation, we a
  
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• Bill Murray & Brian Doyle-Murray debut on Facebook Watch with quirky minor league baseball series

  17-11-2017 17:59
  Anyone who watched the 2016 World Series saw longtime suffering Cubs fan Bill Murray crying tears of joy when they won, and his baseball fandom runs deep, which is why he and his brother have teamed up for an unscripted series to debut on Facebook Watch on Monday (November 20).
  Oso Studios and Facebook are premiering 'Bill Murray and Brian Doyle-Murray’s Extra Innings,' an original series on minor league baseball hosted by the comedy icons. The ten-episode digital series wil
  
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• Sky, Shell and BMW collaborate on a documentary series about football

  17-11-2017 17:39 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Sky Media has produced a series of talent-led, short video documentaries with Shell V-Power and BMW UK that follows Soccer AM's Adam Smith as he sets out to see what it takes to be a professional footballer.
  
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• Genius stunt or needlessly risky? Greggs 'sausage roll Jesus' row in the spotlight

  17-11-2017 17:32 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Greggs received a wave of publicity - and a boost in sales - this week after a branded advent calendar depicted Jesus as a sausage roll. Was it harmless festive fun or something more sinister? And what does it tell us about 'banter marketing' today?
  
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• Sorrell faces House of Lords grilling on the future of advertising

  17-11-2017 17:26 via campaignlive.co.uk
  WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell will be questioned by the House of Lords on a number of topics related to the future of advertising.
  
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• L’Oréal, McDonald’s, M&S: 5 things that mattered this week and why

  17-11-2017 15:53
  L’Oréal talks sense on ‘digital’ marketing
  L’Oréal has a new European marketing boss in Stéphane Bérubé and he took the opportunity on his first meeting with the marketing press to talk about his priorities for the company. One of his biggest is a strategy he calls O+O – or how to drive sales for both online and offline. Currently about 20% of L’Oréal’s sales come through ecommerce channels, but the company wants
  
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• Ad Council highlights ‘numbers’ in campaign to motivate people to get treatment for high blood pressure

  17-11-2017 15:42
  The latest campaign from the Ad Council, in association with the American Heart Association (AHA), American Stroke Association (ASA), and American Medical Association (AMA), highlights high blood pressure numbers to get people to seek treatment before they are debilitated by a heart attack or stroke.
  The campaign, ‘HBP Numbers,’ consists of a series of black-and-white public service announcements featuring real stroke and heart attack survivors talking about the high blood pressure n
  
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• Amazon seizes ATP Tour rights in UK and US as live programming push progresses

  17-11-2017 15:34
  Amazon has made another momentous move into the world of live sports programming by investing in four years of live ATP Tour tennis.
  The investment will see the retailer take the men’s tour rights from current holder Sky in the UK from 2019. It will be packaged alongside  40 individual channel subscriptions including Discovery, Eurosport Player and hayu. 
  The US rights also come under its wing. The partnership grants it online-only coverage of some 37 Tour events that report
  
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• Comcast in hunt for considerable stake in 21st Century Fox

  17-11-2017 15:27
  Telecom conglomerate Comcast has approached Fox, expressing substantial interest in the media company and select properties.
  Comcast's interest follows news that Walt Disney looked to acquire rights to various channels. 21st Century Fox had also been on the radar of both Verizon and Sony Corporation.
  According to the Wall Street Journal, the assets considered up for grabs are: 21st Century Fox's movie studio, some US cable networks, and various international networks. The acquisition o
  
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• Greggs and the sausage roll Jesus: is it ok for a brand to parody religion?

  17-11-2017 15:16
  Intentionally or not, Greggs has walked into a perfect storm in a polystyrene cup with its advent calendar ad which replaces Jesus with a sausage roll in the nativity scene. Publicly, the brand may be eating humble pie, but with only 1.5% of the country regularly attending church, whatever sales Greggs loses will be dwarfed by the huge gains that follow widespread national coverage.
  Madonna outraged clergymen on the release of her smash hit, Like a Prayer. It was a calculated move and
  
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• E.ON is bringing a ray of sunshine to London to beat the winter blues

  17-11-2017 14:43 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Energy provider E.ON is staging a three-day event aimed at giving Londoners a taste of summer to help counter the long winter nights.
  
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• A second hedge fund bets against WPP as stock touches three-year low

  17-11-2017 14:31 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Marshall Wace has become the second hedge fund to bet against WPP's shares in the space of two months.
  
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• The FCC paves way for greater media consolidation as it repeals 'stale' broadcast ownership rules

  17-11-2017 14:10
  The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), led by chairman Ajit Pai, has repealed a series of broadcast ownership regulations that could pave the way for greater consolidation in the media industry.
  The regulations were first put in place in the 1970s to ensure that a diversity of voices and opinions could be heard on the air or in print.
  But Pai believes those rules were keeping the media industry out of the digital age since they don't take into account how the media indust
  
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• KFC launches $10,000 anti-tech 'internet escape pod' in holiday season stunt

  17-11-2017 14:07
  KFC has come up with a novel way of escaping the never ending cycle of Black Friday emails and seasonal humble brags in the form of a $10,000 'internet escape pod'.
  The brand is touting the one-of-a-kind steel structure, which comfortably fits up to four adults, as a "true respite" from Cyber Monday deal reminders, the relentless desire to check Facebook and Instagram and the constant streaming of Christmas songs. 
  “We've come up with several technologically advanced, creative experie
  
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• Ad of the Day: Gangster baby ridin’ dirty drives Amazon Music’s ‘Moments’ at Christmas

  17-11-2017 13:57
  Amazon Music has revived its ‘Moments’ campaign in time for the festive season, continuing its concept of pairing meme-worthy video clips alongside the perfect accompanying track with a baby wheeling past a Christmas tree to Charmillionaire’s ‘Ridin’ Dirty’.
  As the tot crosses the screen, gangster-style, the line reads: ‘40 Million Songs. One for Every Moment’.
  ‘New Wheels’ forms part of the campaign extension alongside ‘Merry Chr
  
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• Story-living – why brands need to move beyond narrative into drama

  17-11-2017 13:41
  The experience economy is growing. We’re spending more on doing things than buying things. Consumers also know and expect more than ever and are getting more demanding. As a result, brands are having to work harder to engage people on a deeper level to foster long-term loyalty.  
  This shift in consumer behavior set up our latest thought leadership event, The Tap. With the theme of 'story-living', we set out to explore what experience marketing means and why it’s going to be
  
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• Event Awards 2017: Emerging trends in experiential

  17-11-2017 13:37 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Winners of the Event Awards 2017 will be unveiled on 22 November. Ahead of the big reveal, the judging panel offer their views on some of the industry's hottest emerging trends.
  
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• A lesson in less – why a copywriter should never do too much

  17-11-2017 13:30
  ‘There’s more than one way to skin a cat’ is one of those strange, unpleasant sayings that feels increasingly uncomfortable to drop into a modern conversation. Far removed from the days when actually skinning a cat was as normal a practice as blithely trepanning demons out of one’s skull, most modern citizens are more likely to support the public hanging of an obnoxious X-Factor contestant than to tamper with Tiddles. 
  But however disagreeable (and vividly sinewy) th
  
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• Sky Bet signs five-year extension to EFL sponsorship

  17-11-2017 12:42 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Sky Bet has signed a five-year extension to its headline sponsorship of the English Football League (EFL).
  
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• How the Winter Olympics organisers plan to convert consumer fitness into light for refugees

  17-11-2017 12:22 via campaignlive.co.uk
  The International Olympic Committee has created a campaign for the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang that converts fitness app users' physical activity into solar-powered lighting for Rwanda's Mahama refugee camp.
  
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• Tamara Ecclestone’s baby skincare range Fifi & Friends appoints Media Bounty to lead latest social campaign

  17-11-2017 12:05
  Commercial consultancy Romelle Swire has hired Media Bounty to lead on creative, content strategy and production for Tamara Ecclestone’s baby skincare range, Fifi & Friends.
  Media Bounty will be bringing to life a hero content campaign for YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, with the first creative - ‘Life Behind The Lens’ -  taking a playful slant on the reality of parenting. Influencers will also be employed to amplify the core message at the start o
  
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• Business on the Move: Starbucks, Nando's, Deutsche Telekom and more

  17-11-2017 12:00
  Welcome to The Drum's Business on the Move section, where we collate agency account wins, reviews, agency launches, rebrands and acquisitions.
  Agency wins
  Starbucks has appointed Iris to lead its creative account in Europe, Middle East and Africa following a competitive pitch. The process was led by Creativebrief.
  The agency’s first work for the coffee brand will launch next year and run across 41 markets. This is the first time that Starbucks has consolidated its creative duties for
  
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• Sky Bet signs a five-year title deal with EFL to display responsible gambling messages

  17-11-2017 11:38
  Sky Bet has agreed a new five-season title sponsorship agreement with English Football League (EFL) which will see responsible gambling messages displayed on every club shirt.
  As reported by Sky Sports, the new agreement between Sky Bet and EFL represents a 20% year-on-year increase from 2019/20 on the current deal and will see the working relationship extended to 11 years.
  As part of the partnership, Sky Bet will also be launching its responsible gambling marketing campaign featu
  
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• BT's cross-generational TV campaign continues brand's 'connecting people' push

  17-11-2017 11:20
  BT has begun championing the power of TV to bring people closer together for its latest heartwarming advertising campaign.
  Packing an emotional punch, the AMV BBDO devised advert follows a boy and his grandmother through various points in their lives, together with the special moments they share re-living favourite moments from TV programmes and films.
  Opening with footage of the pair playing in a park the minute-long clip fast forwards to Luke’s first day at school by way of qua
  
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• Greenpeace hijacks Coke's 'huge PR push' with alternative Christmas campaign

  17-11-2017 11:02 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Greenpeace has launched a Christmas campaign designed to take advantage of what it describes as Coca-Cola's "huge PR push" during the festive season.
  
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• Elspeth Lynn joins Geometry as creative chief

  17-11-2017 11:00 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Former FCB Inferno creative boss Elspeth Lynn is to join Geometry Global UK as executive creative director.
  
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• Coca-Cola to open pop-up shop featuring virtual reality

  17-11-2017 10:58 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Coca-Cola is hosting a four-day Christmas-themed pop-up experience in Dublin, Ireland, providing exclusive merchandise for shoppers alongside a virtual reality (VR) experience.
  
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• KFC's latest wacky product is a $10,000 internet escape pod

  17-11-2017 10:54 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Designed to "comfortably fit four adults and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken", KFC US hopes the internet escape pod is just what consumers will need this holiday season.
  
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• Cash Converters customers fret as hackers make off with personal data

  17-11-2017 10:45
  Cash Converters has become the latest name to be added to an ever-lengthening roll call of ignominy after its servers were breached by hackers who likely made off with customer usernames, addresses and passwords.
  This particular attack is believed to have centred on the firm's old UK website, supplanted in September 2017 with a more robust portal, forcing the pawnbroker to report its failings to the information commissioner.
  No credit card information was included in the haul of lost data howeve
  
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• Marvel to bring comic book to life with immersive exhibition

  17-11-2017 10:32 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Marvel Entertainment is creating an exhibition featuring more than 300 items from the brand, to celebrate the 78-year history and legacy of the Marvel comics.
  
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• Lego to stage shopping centre tour

  17-11-2017 10:21 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Lego is inviting families to build their own Lego Christmas tree decoration in UK shopping centres and its stores nationwide.
  
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• BT ad tells moving tale of how TV brings young and old together

  17-11-2017 10:08 via campaignlive.co.uk
  BT has launched a TV ad designed to convey the breadth of content available on BT TV for all generations of consumers.
  
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• John Lewis suffers hairy moment with Moz as children's author alleges plagiarism

  17-11-2017 09:48
  John Lewis has found itself making headlines for the wrong reasons courtesy of its cuddly under the bed-dwelling monster Moz, after a children’s author accused the department store of copying his own children’s picture book.
  Four years after claims that John Lewis pilfered its 2013 Christmas campaign from the pages of a children's book Chris Riddle, author of Mr Underbed, has spotted a number of similarities between his own blue-haired creation and John Lewis’s bouffant mascot.
  
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• Mashable lines up $50m sale to Ziff Davis as funding dries up

  17-11-2017 09:21
  Digital media website Mashable is expected to confirm a sale to publishing powerhouse Ziff Davis, with a sale price of around $50m – according to reports in the Wall Street Journal.
  If the change in ownership materializes it would mark a significant discount on the $250m Mashable received as recently as March last year, driven south by reports that the platform will register a loss in 2017.
  Founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005 the platform initially enjoyed great success with its proven formul
  
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• How Mars is expanding Maltesers’ diversity agenda to all its brands

  17-11-2017 08:30
  Mars has been at the vanguard of UK advertising’s drive to do a better job of representing society in its creative output.
  Its Maltesers brand won Channel 4’s first competition aiming to encourage brands to show more diversity in their advertising and subsequently aired a series of ads with people with disability at their heart. That led Maltesers to win Marketing Week’s ‘Brand of the Year’ award at this year’s Masters of Marketing awards, alongside a host of
  
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• Clothing brand Ginger from Lifestyle encourages girls to defy labels and not give a f**kness in latest film

  17-11-2017 08:08
  Clothing brand Ginger from Lifestyle has rolled out a bold film encouraging young girls to defy labels and celebrate imperfections.
  Conceptualised by JWT, the film #ImperfectlyPerfect has been developed to feature girls questioning  and defying the stereotypes, labels and name calling that exist in the Indian society for example, the perception that dark skin is not good, thin women are weak and not sexy, wearing short skirts and showing too much skin is not appropriate and
  
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• News UK revenue buoyed by ads.txt adoption

  17-11-2017 08:00
  Ads.txt has been arguably one of the biggest trends to emerge in 2017 as a solution to cleaning up the programmatic supply chain and adoption rates are accelerating. Perhaps surprisingly, it is also something that has helped traditional publishers see a boost in their revenue, News UK has revealed.
  Speaking at The Drum's Programmatic Punch on Thursday (9 November), Ian Hocking, head of programmatic at News UK, said the publisher - an early adopter of ads.txt - saw a “slight incrementa
  
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• Facebook to introduce Discover tab in India to allow users easy access to bots and business pages

  17-11-2017 07:34
  Facebook announced that it will soon roll out the Discover tab in India, a new feature in Messenger which will allow users to find and browse bots and business pages.
  Discover tab works with new parametric Messenger codes, where people can scan the codes through the Messenger camera and link to their favourite brands and businesses as reported by Gadgets Now. 
  Facebook also integrated a chat extensions to the Messenger app which allows multiple people to chat with the same business at the s
  
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• GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive: catalysts for a better class of conversation?

  17-11-2017 07:32
  The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force in a little more than six months. In response, most organisations are working away to address the data they hold about individuals and how they manage it. So what are they doing? Most are focusing on technology to get systems and data ready. Marketers have less direct engagement with that process. But that does not mean they can leave the problem for someone else to solve.
  That’s because the challenges the GDPR r
  
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• CMO spend on martech is shrinking, finds Gartner

  17-11-2017 05:02
  Spend on marketing technology has fallen by 15% this year as chief marketing officers express concerns over their ability to manage the technology effectively, according to a report from Gartner.
  The report, which surveyed 353 marketing executives in North America and the UK at companies with more than $250m in annual revenue, found that marketers spent 22% of their marketing budgets on technology this year, down from 27% last year.
  "The challenge is that CMOs' ascent to their lofty technology r
  
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