Sales & Marketing news

• Big brands’ insight innovations help level the playing field for everyone

  01-08-2017 16:51
  Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé, Diageo, AOL, Microsoft. What do these brands – some of the biggest in the world – have in common? They all value the power of insights to drive growth. Not only do they value insights, but they are at the forefront of pushing the boundaries of how data can be collected, and how insight can be used to drive growth. What’s more, these brands celebrate the power of insights and data.
  The research industry over the past decade has faced significa
  
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• Bob Wootton: Don’t be fooled by the AI snake oil

  01-08-2017 16:26
  What do marketers really need to know about artificial intelligence (AI)? First let’s define it, as the name itself gives vital clues. It’s more than automation: ‘intelligence’ suggests that it can adapt and learn, and implies that it does this in a human-like way. But ‘artificial’ means it’s not human.
  Oxforddictionaries.com defines AI as “the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence, s
  
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• What to see at the Festival of Marketing

  01-08-2017 14:33
  The Festival of Marketing, which this year is taking place in Tobacco Dock in London on 4 and 5 October, features more than 200 speakers across 12 stages. The first agenda has been released today (1 August), showing top marketers from brands including John Lewis, Unilever and Direct Line, as well as disruptors such as Starling Bank and Laundrapp, talking across a broad range of topics from diversity to in-house creative and what to do when ads appear in unsavoury places.
  Two headliners have so f
  
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• Why Morrisons is right to bring back the Safeway brand

  01-08-2017 12:56
  Morrisons is relaunching the supermarket brand Safeway as part of a deal with convenience retailer McColl’s in a move that positions it even further into wholesale.
  Under the deal, Morrisons will supply the high-street chain’s 1,300 shops and 350 newsagents with Safeway branded own-label food and drink products. McColl’s will have one year of exclusivity for the brand with Morrisons then potentially looking to distribute Safeway branded products to other convenience retailers.
  
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• M&S looks to augmented reality to boost GM sales

  01-08-2017 11:29
  In an intensely fierce retail environment where just about everybody is looking over their shoulders and seeing Amazon, Marks & Spencer isn’t alone when it comes to looking to innovate how it reaches shoppers. But with many questioning the historic British retailer’s long-term future, it perhaps needs to exercise more urgency than most.
  In the three months to 1 July, M&S saw like-for-like sales for its struggling general merchandise business fall 1.2%. And although this rate
  
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• A key short-term boost for stocks has vanished for the first time in 17 years

  01-08-2017 03:42 via feedproxy.google.com
  Traders have not been this unresponsive to earnings announcements in nearly two decades. 
  The rate of earnings beats in the second quarter is above its five-year average, at 73% of S&P 500 companies that reported through Friday according to FactSet. Corporate America is also giving less negative guidance about the third quarter than usual.
  But this kind of topline earnings performance is not impressing Wall Street and moving the market like it used to. For the first time in 17
  
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• Facebook bought an AI startup that could turn its middling virtual assistant into a Siri killer (FB)

  01-08-2017 03:13 via feedproxy.google.com
  Facebook's virtual assistant, which goes by the name of M, hasn't quite delivered on the promise of a life-changing artificial intelligence product.
  But Facebook isn't giving up. On Monday, the company announced its acquisition of a small, AI startup that will be folded into Facebook's messaging app.  Ozlo, which was founded four years ago and is based in Palo Alto, California, describes itself as "an index of knowledge about the real world."
  In practice, that means a technology that l
  
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• WARC Prize for MENA Strategy: Shortlist announced

  01-08-2017 02:00 via warc.com
  MENA: Campaigns for Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Unilever’s OMO, and Pepsico are among the 20 papers shortlisted for the first WARC Prize for MENA Strategy, which rewards the most effective creative work from a fast changing region.Work from...
  
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• VPN restrictions in China spook international businesses

  01-08-2017 02:00 via warc.com
  HONG KONG: Amid news that Apple has removed popular VPN (Virtual Private Network) software from its app store in China, multinational companies are beginning to doubt the country’s recent pro-business rhetoric.VPN Companies, which are used...
  
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• UK ad viewability at highest level in over a year

  01-08-2017 02:00 via warc.com
  LONDON: Ad viewability in the UK rose for the first time in 9 months, spurred by a significant increase in the number of ads that met minimum requirements; however, UK viewability still lags far behind other European markets.According to research...
  
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• Grant Thornton's challenger brand strategy

  01-08-2017 02:00 via warc.com
  CHICAGO: Grant Thornton, the audit, tax and advisory firm, is emphasising its challenger brand credentials compared with the industry’s “Big Four” via an ad campaign that argues it can help move clients beyond the status quo. ...
  
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• Digital ad exposure boosts brand awareness

  01-08-2017 02:00 via warc.com
  SYDNEY: There’s a link between increased ad frequency and brand resonance in some categories, but more than a fifth of digital ads - 22% - in Australia are failing to boost key brand metrics at all, according to a new report.Nielsen’s...
  
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• 'Dark ads' on Facebook effectively sway political opinion, study claims

  01-08-2017 02:00 via warc.com
  LONDON/LAS VEGAS: ‘Dark ads’ based on publicly available interests on Facebook can be used to sway political opinions in an almost undiscoverable manner, a new study suggests.The research presented at the Def Con hacking conference in...
  
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• Affluent millennials want cars, but don't mind sharing them

  01-08-2017 02:00 via warc.com
  NEW YORK: America’s affluent millennials are still interested in owning their own cars in the near future, yet are changing in the long term, as close to half see themselves not owning a car at all.This is according to YouGov’s...
  
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