Marketing news

• Nexstar Media Group to buy LKQD in $90m transaction

  07-12-2017 23:00
  Nexstar Media Group today (December 7) announced it has agreed to acquire LKQD Technologies, a specialist outfit that helps publishers and media buyers with their online video ads, in a transaction anticipated to be worth $90m.
  The transaction is expected to close in December 2017, and will see LKQD’s earnings immediately included in Nexstar’s revenue streeam with the newly acquired company’s founding team, including chief executive Brian DeFrancesco, and technology chief Chris
  
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• T Group Productions acquires Big Boots Studios

  07-12-2017 21:25
  Culver City’s T Group Productions is acquiring Big Boots Studios, a studio founded by Roger Mincheff that's described as a digital house “dedicated to engagement platforms.”
  According to T Group, the acquisition is part of the company’s commitment to prioritizing digital and branded content. Earlier this year, T Group worked with Johnsonville and Droga5 to produce a sausage-themed reality cooking show called The Sausage Dome.
  As part of the acquisition, T Group is es
  
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• Taste of Home brings big gingerbread house to NYC

  07-12-2017 20:24
  Culinary platform Taste of Home is bringing its Gingerbread Boulevard installation to New York City’s Madison Square Park for the fourth consecutive holiday season today (December 7). The free event features the return of its life-size, interactive Gingerbread House ­– now with a ‘4D’ immersive storytelling experience. 
  This year, the gingerbread house invites visitors to go on a sight, sound and motion journey through Gingerbread Boulevard. Upon entering the hou
  
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• TV Ad Spend Weekly: A Google Home for the holidays

  07-12-2017 19:32
  Brands continue to invest heavily in above-the-line content, and television is still seen as the place brands want to be. Each week, in partnership with Kantar Media, The Drum looks at which brands have been investing the most on newly-launched creative on US national broadcast and cable TV.
  Advertising expenditures for new creative on national TV reached $155m during the week of November 27, falling 10% compared to the previous week. This decline doesn’t come as a surprise, as ad spending
  
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• Top health tech predictions for 2018: PulsePoint

  07-12-2017 17:58
  Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning will revolutionize clinical trials and GDPR will positively impact targeting capabilities, according to PulsePoint’s General Manager EMEA, Gareth Shaw, who predicts how valuable new opportunities are being created for healthcare brands to reach consumers in 2018.
  Speaking to The Drum, Shaw said the “explosion of health data” from wearable devices will be combined with other offline or online data assets to produce highly targete
  
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• What the Black Friday online results tell us about shopping trends

  07-12-2017 17:45
  In spite of The Economist’s prediction that ‘Despite the momentum that the event [Cyber Weekend] has built up, retailers are approaching this year’s jamboree with caution. For a start, shoppers seem unwilling to open their wallets. Sales in October were 0.3% lower than last year, according to official figures', it appears retailers had nothing to worry about.
  Black Friday sales were expected to reach almost £8bn during Cyber Weekend (BBC), an increase of nearly 38% over t
  
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• How brands and marketers can leverage Facebook Watch

  07-12-2017 17:04
  Facebook plans to sink nearly $1bn into original video content over the next year to build out its newly launched Watch tab, which serves as a hub for longer-form, TV-like series that the social giant is hoping will help it rival the likes of YouTube.
  Advertisers currently have the option of running mid-roll ads during Watch shows, and Facebook recently said that it will begin testing pre-roll ads for Watch as well. But brands are also interested in creating branded shows for the platform,
  
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• Nike names Lauren Sherman as new digital marketing chief

  07-12-2017 16:45
  Nike has appointed Lauren Sherman as its senior director of digital, based in New York.
  The former head of marketing for brand growth business Red Antler has taken up the new role this week. She will lead the digital marketing for the sports apparel brand across its online presence such as Nike.com, its app, its running and training clubs and SNKRS as well.
  Sherman had spend over a year at Red Antler, which she joined from Shyp where was also marketing chief for over two years.
  Announcing the mo
  
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• International round-up: Ford sells cars online in China, US ad mocks Jesus’s parentage

  07-12-2017 15:55
  Ford partners with China’s Alibaba to sell cars online
  Alibaba and Ford are set to sign a deal this week that will allow Ford to sell cars online to consumers in China.
  According to sources, Ford will begin selling cars through Alibaba’s online retail arm Tmall from next year. Under the agreement, cars purchased online will be delivered to buyers by franchised Ford retail stores.
  However, the deal could have a negative impact on dealerships, according to Yale Zhang, head of Shanghai-
  
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• US-based investment firm The Stagwell Group acquires UK agency Forward3D

  07-12-2017 15:33
  The Stagwell Group announced the acquisition of London-based digital marketing agency Forward3D.
  Stagwell Group, a digital marketing and investment firm founded by former Clinton adviser and strategist Mark Penn, has a mission to reinvent the traditional advertising agency holding company model by focusing on digital-first marketing services. It chose Forward3D for its focus on performance marketing.
  The London firm has 12 offices and 300 employees worldwide.
  Forward3D has a client roster that i
  
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• What marketing agencies can do right now to make diversity more than just talk

  07-12-2017 15:30
  Enough with all the nodding around the need for diversity (especially nodding off through boredom). Here’s how we can make it more than just talk.
  I spoke at the launch of the Jolt Academy the other day. Jolt is an initiative set up to support and nurture amazingly talented creatives from a huge range of backgrounds, representing real diversity. The audience, 30 interns discovered through partners such as D&AD and Scope, was purposefully almost equally women to men. In fact, there
  
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• Corona unites Mexican people in reconstruction and recovery after earthquake with special song, website and packaging

  07-12-2017 15:01
  2017 was a year of natural disasters, and Mexico was rocked by one of the worst in a September 19 earthquake that killed hundreds, leveled towns and injured thousands more. In the wake of the disaster, Corona Mexico and Leo Burnett Mexico have introduced a limited edition rebranded beer can with proceeds going towards reconstruction efforts, as well as creating a new song in partnership with famous Mexican musicians.
  The official music video for ‘This Spirit’ is now up, a collaborati
  
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• 'Great stories are never diminished by the size of a screen': Framestore’s co-founder Mike McGee on balancing tech with storytelling

  07-12-2017 15:00
  Big screen or small screen – a great story should translate on any medium, right? For many brands, creating great content for multiple channels poses a challenge but it does not have to be this way, according to Framestore’s co-founder Mike McGee.
  At JW Player Insights in London, where digital publishers and broadcasters come together to share best practices and learn about the future of video from industry experts, McGee said as long as it contains all the “vital ingredients&r
  
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• Creative Director's Choice: Ian Clazie of Ready State on Max Lanman's used Honda film

  07-12-2017 14:56
  Creative Director’s Choice gives creative directors a chance to highlight the current work they think is the best out in the ad world – the ads and campaigns they believe are making a difference.
  This week, Ian Clazie, chief creative officer at Ready State, talks about director Max Lanman's brilliant tongue-in-cheek short film used to sell his girlfriend's used Honda.
  In November 2017, LA-based writer and director Max Lanman published a professional-quality a
  
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• Industry insight: reaction to CES’s response to lack of keynote diversity

  07-12-2017 14:46
  CES received backlash for its lack of diversity on its keynote roster — with six male speakers (five of whom are white) slated to present in Las Vegas next month.
  The organization cited a “limited pool” of female leadership as the main culprit behind the makeup of the keynote pool.
  We asked the broader industry what they thought about the situation and below are the responses.
  What are your initial reactions to the CES response?
  It sounds like an excuse. Tech is supposed to be
  
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• Ad of the Day: Dutch supermarket Plus celebrates co-parenting with a bittersweet twist

  07-12-2017 14:30
  Dutch grocer Plus has unveiled a cinematic film with a bittersweet twist, moving away from traditional Christmas depictions of the nuclear family to showcase a co-parenting scenario that is closer to reality. 
  Created by J. Walter Thomspson Amsterdam, the spot tells the story of a little girl who spends her time between the homes of her separated parents.
  In the run up to Christmas the girl is shown flitting from home-to-home, and while she appears adjusted she is shown watching old ho
  
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• Advertising is not marketing: Here’s what it will look like in 10 years

  07-12-2017 13:15
  It may be heretical to say it, but advertising as we know it today won’t exist 10 years from now. Why, you ask? Because today, advertising is a business with two sides, but in the future, it will have to be more than that. 
  On the one side is traditional advertising. It’s mass media, which is largely untargeted and impersonal. To create traditional ads, teams spend weeks distilling complicated ideas into 30-second TV ads, posters, and radio spots that can entertain and change pe
  
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• Stuart Thompson departs Tint role to found UGC Agency

  07-12-2017 12:53
  Stuart Thompson has stepped down as Tint’s director of Europe in order to found a new marketing agency differentiated by its bottom up approach to content – although he will remain as an advisor and shareholder.
  UGC Agency has been formed out of a desire to offer brands better value for money with Thompson having said that he plans to by shake up its billing model in favour of a more transparent approach by charging for project delivery rather than time spent on specific campaigns.
  T
  
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• RNIB get a feel for Christmas with launch of Braille greeting cards

  07-12-2017 12:49
  A series of Braille Christmas cards to support the RNIB (Royal National Institute of Blind people) has been created by Chapter to allow blind and partially sighted people to ‘Feel Christmas’. With the central thought being ‘It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas’ each card features a popular Christmas lyric set in Braille.
  Ian Boulter, Chapter creative director, said, "We create a card every year, but this year we wanted to do something to help others. We
  
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• Charlotte Rogers: The razor subscription market is already on the verge of saturation

  07-12-2017 12:33
  Subscription services are the beating heart of any successful ecosystem brand. From Amazon Prime and Netflix to Deliveroo’s £8 a month Plus service, brands in every industry are realising the importance of getting consumers to commit.
  No sector has been more disrupted by the fight for subscriptions than the men’s shaving market. Innovation was once limited to the latest high-tech release from Procter & Gamble’s Gillette, but last year the shaving market exploded with
  
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• SheSays unveils its 2018 president

  07-12-2017 12:25 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Senior freelance creative Fabiana Xavier has been elected as the next president of SheSays.
  
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• How to overcome the three big pain points of data

  07-12-2017 12:16
  For many brands today, data has become the most valuable asset, and marketers are equipped  with a variety of ways to collect it – from social media listening tools to in-store data, CRM software, call centres, mobile usage, web analytics and third-party sources. There is a wealth of data at their disposal.
  Although data-driven marketing offers exciting, new opportunities for brands, there are numerous challenges and obstacles that can hamper a marketer’s ability to succeed. We
  
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• Victoria's Secret creates New York pop-up with large slide and snow globe

  07-12-2017 11:56 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Victoria's Secret, the lingerie retailer, is creating a pop-up in New York with a large pink slide and snow globe.
  
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• It's not only tech giants buying into AI as M&A deals double in two years

  07-12-2017 11:56 via campaignlive.co.uk
  There have been 98 M&A deals involving artificial intelligence businesses so far this year, up a third on 2016 and double the number in 2015.
  
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• Agency of the Year 2017: words from the winners

  07-12-2017 11:41 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Claire Beale spoke to Adam & Eve/DDB about winning the prestigious award for the fourth year in a row and how they plan to secure it again next year.
  
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• Fever-Tree Gin School returns for Christmas

  07-12-2017 11:30 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Fever-Tree, the premium soft drink mixers brand, is kicking off its gin school again for the festive season.
  
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• Samsung India tops YouTube's most watched ads of 2017

  07-12-2017 11:25
  YouTube has revealed its ten most-watched ads of 2017, unveiling some surprise winners.
  Three Super Bowl ads make the list showing that at least for some brands, the pricey media buy was not a waste. These include efforts from Mr Clean, Budweiser and Kia.
  Mobile title Clash Royale moved up from fifth in 2016 to second, boasting 110.7 million. Rival Mobile Strike (featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger) completely drops out of the list from first. Views varies from 17.6 million views to the heights of 1
  
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• FA hands England men's team creative brief to Wieden + Kennedy ahead of 2018 World Cup

  07-12-2017 11:17
  The Football Association (FA) has handed the men's national team creative brief to Wieden + Kennedy London, which will work collaboratively with the FA’s own in-house team, following a competitive pitch.
  The win will see the England men’s national teams benefit from a new creative direction and brand messaging in the run-up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup
  Helen Andrews, managing director, Wieden+Kennedy London, commented: "We are delighted to be working with The FA as the men's
  
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• How UK consumers shop at Christmas - and how to target them

  07-12-2017 11:16
  The festive period is the most important time of the year for retailers, and one of the best ways to harness it is to better understand retail audiences and their customer journeys, both on and offline.
  UK consumers are a diverse lot, but there are plenty of ways you can get your business in front of the right people. All you need to do is understand who your customers are, capture the correct data, and then separate the audiences that matter out from the rest. In doing so, you can target audien
  
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• Sipsmith revives rooftop gin experience with 'hot fire pokers'

  07-12-2017 11:13 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Sipsmith, the London gin brand, is reviving its rooftop hot gin activation with an experience featuring a historical bar tool to heat the cocktails.
  
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• Health Promotion Board urges commuters to walk 10,000 steps with interactive displays in train station

  07-12-2017 11:08
  Singapore’s Health Promotion Board has partnered with Moove Media to create creative platform screen doors, step risers, floor stickers and wall murals at Bugis Station, part of the Downtown Line, (DTL) as part of its promotional campaign for the third season of its National Steps Challenge.
  On the mezzanine level, floor stickers and giant badges on the wall are installed with motion sensors, allowing commuters, who are ‘bored’ with walking, to hop, jump and groove instead.
  The
  
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• Seasonal creative collaboration: a how to guide for marketers

  07-12-2017 10:56
  Tis’ the season and all that jazz. Along with mulled wine, overdue catch ups and a longing for rest by the fire, it’s also time to think about next year. In among all the Christmas parties, some planning is in order.
  Marketers continue to tell The Drum how coordinating effective seasonal campaigns is tough. Combining all the collateral, coordinating freelancers, assets and most importantly campaign communications poses a huge challenge.
  Hosted by The Drum, a webinar “A festive
  
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• Visual artist collaborates with Bynder to demonstrate how organisation and artistic talent can go hand in hand

  07-12-2017 10:53
  Amsterdam-based visual artist, Bart Eysink Smeets, has released the first results of his latest experiment ‘The Art of Organizing’ – a project built in collaboration with software company Bynder to uncover the link between creativity and organization.
  As a part of an upcoming creative series, Bynder challenged Smeets, a former art director and visual artist behind such experimental projects as ‘Finding myself in India’ and ‘A.A.D.’, to pro
  
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• Only 28% of UK brand websites will be GDPR compliant in time

  07-12-2017 10:47 via campaignlive.co.uk
  A survey of 100 UK marketers has found that only 28% expect their websites to be GDPR compliant by the 25 May deadline next year.
  
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• Mandatory plain packaging poses $187bn threat to snacks, drinks and confectionery markets

  07-12-2017 10:46
  Some of the world’s biggest brands including Coca-Cola and Kraft could be facing a multi-billion dollar hit if plain packaging regulations are extended to areas such as alcohol, confectionery, snacks and fizzy drinks.
  According to consultancy Brand Finance as much as £187bn could be wiped off the cumulative worth of businesses operating in these sectors should mandatory plain packaging policies be enacted, with Pepsi being the biggest single casualty – losing over a quarte
  
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• Food futures: retail is about the journey and the destination

  07-12-2017 10:44
  This November we attended the annual Food Matters Live conference in the Excel in London to hear about the latest insights and successful case studies at the forefront of the food futures movement. 
  We have gathered some of those insights to explore how retail brands can successfully move with the times and engage with consumers of today, ensuring that they are focusing not only on the eventual destination, but how to get there. 
  Here are some of our findings...
  Make it easy
  
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• EDF Energy's new digital home platform on hunt for ad agency

  07-12-2017 10:23 via campaignlive.co.uk
  EDF Energy is searching for an ad agency for its new digital home services platform Hoppy.
  
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• Cheil appoints new ECD as Caitlin Ryan leaves for Facebook

  07-12-2017 10:23 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Cheil London has promoted Russell Schaller to the role of executive creative director, replacing Caitlin Ryan who is leaving to take a new role at Facebook.
  
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• Alibaba and Ford form technology-based alliance

  07-12-2017 10:15
  Alibaba Group has formed a strategic alliance with Ford Motors to enhance consumer retail experiences and explore solutions for sustainable mobility. 
  As part of the three-year partnership, Ford will work with Alibaba’s four business units namely AliOS, Alibaba Cloud, Alimama and Tmall and jointly explore mobility services, connectivity, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and digital marketing.
  Ford and Alibaba will initially focus on digital solutions for new retail o
  
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• Google wins discrimination court battle over gender pay

  07-12-2017 10:13
  Google has emerged with its wallet and reputation intact following a US courts decision to throw out a case in which the tech giant was accused of systematically rewarding male employees with higher levels of pay than their female colleagues.
  Three female former employees were seeking to sue Google via a class action on behalf of all Google’s female employees over the past four years at San Francisco Superior Court, alleging ‘systematic compensation disparities against women pretty m
  
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• L'Oréal marketing chief: 'We want to be at the forefront of innovation'

  07-12-2017 08:47 via campaignlive.co.uk
  Stéphane Bérubé, the new chief marketing officer for Western Europe at L'Oréal, says the company is looking to start-ups to drive innovation across the business.
  
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• As it readies to launch its free ad school, Creative Circle’s biggest obstacle is the industry itself

  07-12-2017 08:45
  The Creative Circle is going back to its 1940s educational roots with the launch of a free, full-time school advertising school for students who would ordinarily struggle with the cost. But the task ahead for chief executive Jeremy Green is immense, not least because it relies on the industry’s willingness and commitment to giving back.
  Earmarked to launch in September 2018 (a year later than originally planned), The Creative Circle Foundation will cater for roughly 15 students from d
  
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• Monocle, a UK publishing success story, looks beyond Brexit Britain for its future

  07-12-2017 08:00
  Monocle, one of the most distinctive global news media brands to have emerged in the UK since the start of this century, is now looking beyond Brexit Britain for its future.
  Launched in London in 2007 as a stylish magazine briefing on world affairs and culture, the multi-platform media brand has turned to one of Thailand’s largest property developers, Sansiri, for the $6m financial injection which will fund its next phase of growth.
  Furthermore, it has chosen to establish a “second h
  
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• 2017 year in review: It’s been a good year for…

  07-12-2017 08:00
  Samsung shows brands how to bounce back
  Putting aside the announcement that CEO Kwon Oh-hyun is planning to step down amid an ongoing corporate governance crisis, from a product perspective Samsung is a standout example of a brand using the power of marketing to bounce back.
  The South Korean smartphone brand relied on its marketing strength to cut though the negative publicity surrounding the Galaxy Note 7 exploding phones scandal in October 2016, first by accepting responsibility and then movin
  
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• 2017 year in review: It’s been a bad year for…

  07-12-2017 08:00
  Digital: The year the gloss came off
  A catalogue of unfortunate revelations have dogged digital marketing in 2017, chief among them being the world’s biggest advertiser cutting over $100m of digital spend with no negative impact on sales. That was Procter & Gamble chief financial officer Jon Moeller’s statement to investors in July, when he explained it had set out to slash misplaced ads and fraudulent impressions.
  As a result, “we didn’t see a reduction in the [sales
  
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• Weibo Sports forges strategic alliances with Mailman Group

  07-12-2017 07:24
  Weibo Sports has announced its first domestic strategic partnership with sports digital consultancy, Mailman Group to strengthen its presence in China and expand globally.
  As part of the partnership, the brands will work together on content promotion, commercial promotion and to provide data insights to global sports organisations. 
  Andrew Collins, chief executive of Mailman said: “We hope to see this have a huge impact on the sports digital market in China. Mailman Pro has the potent
  
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• 'Our app uses product innovation and localised content to beat the competition', says Gaana's exec

  07-12-2017 06:48
  According to an Indian media and entertainment industry report by KPMG India and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) , the digital music industry downloads and streams in India is estimated to be generating more than 70% of the Rs12.2 bn music industry’s overall revenue.
  The Drum spoke to homegrown music streaming service Gaana's chief operating officer Prashan Agarwal to find out what marketing strategy the brand has implemented to engage its audience and increa
  
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• MullenLowe Singapore CEO Shannon Cullum departs for global CMO role at Jet8

  07-12-2017 06:09
  MullenLowe Singapore’s CEO Shannon Cullum has left the business to take up a global CMO role at mobile influencer platform Jet8.
  Cullum has left the agency world to take on a new role, which will see him helping the Singapore-based company to grow outside of Asia Pacific, first starting with Africa.
  Cullum had been at MullenLowe for almost two years and prior to that held a variety of roles across the Asia Pacific region for Saatchi & Saatchi, most recently as CEO of Singapore and Mala
  
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• To ‘Queer Eye’ creators, authenticity makes brand integration special

  07-12-2017 01:12
  What’s the Story? is a storytelling video series dedicated to learning what truly makes a great story, told through the lens of the world’s talent and practitioners of the craft in entertainment, marketing and beyond.
  For a good portion of any industry, the word “authentic” can tend to be bandied about fairly indiscriminately. However, when learning more about Scout Productions, it isn’t simply a word, it’s a way of doing the work that breaks through
  
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• Sprout Social has acquired social analytics company Simply Measured

  07-12-2017 00:59
  Social media firm Sprout Social announced the acquisition of Seattle-based social analytics firm Simply Measured for an undisclosed sum.
  Based in Chicago, Sprout has provided of social media management, analytics and advocacy solutions on a global scale. Simply Measured has used full-funnel analytics to give social teams better intelligence to reach the right people, content marketers insight to create more relevant materials and digital agencies opportunities to win new business and f
  
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