Sales & Marketing news

• Hostelworld ramps up customer focus as it appoints Kristof Fahy as CCO

  11-01-2018 17:56
  Hostelworld has appointed former Ladbrokes Coral top marketer Kristof Fahy to the newly created role of chief customer officer (CCO) in an effort to put customers at the “centre of all decision making”.
  Speaking to Marketing Week, Fahy, who left his role as Ladbrokes Coral CCO in September, hopes his experience of working in the fast paced gaming and gambling sector will be a key asset in his bid to help Hostelworld engage its target 18- to 35-year-old audience.
  “The exciting t
  
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• Ikea launches pregnancy test ad, Diet Coke gets a revamp in the US: International round-up

  11-01-2018 16:38
  Ikea asks women to pee on its ad – to check if they’re pregnant
  Is it April Fool’s yet? You might think this is the case looking at Ikea’s latest magazine ad. The advert, which ran in Sweden, has a weird twist – it also functions as a pregnancy test.
  Swedish agency Åkestam Holst’s first ad of the year for the retailer is an advertisement for cribs. If you happen to be in the market for a crib (read: you’re pregnant), then you can get a discount on
  
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• Coca-Cola preps Diet Coke overhaul in the UK to boost sales

  11-01-2018 12:34
  Coca-Cola is overhauling its Diet Coke brand in the US and has promised “exciting” changes in the UK to fight declining sales.
  Diet Coke is rebranding with new packaging, flavours and a new campaign. The original Diet Coke flavour will continue, and the four new flavours include ginger lime, feisty cherry, zesty blood orange and twist mango. The packaging is also changing with slimmer cans, a sharper logo and different colours representing each flavour.
  The launch will start mid-Janu
  
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• John Lewis backs ‘thoughtful giving’ Christmas message despite signs of fatigue

  11-01-2018 12:20
  John Lewis has given its continued backing to its “thoughtful giving” Christmas message as it posts upbeat sales for the festive season despite a difficult climate for high street retailers.
  Sales at stores open for more than a year were up 3.1% in the six weeks to 30 December, with gross sales rising by 3.6% year on year to £1.03bn – John Lewis’s first ever billion-pound festive trading period.
  At the John Lewis Partnership gross sales were up 2.5% to £1.96bn
  
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• Hearst Media looks to diversification

  11-01-2018 12:00 via warc.com
  Publishers faced with declining print ad revenues need to look beyond digital to pick up the shortfall, according to James Wildman, CEO Hearst Media.Hearst Media is in the fortunate position of not only having a roster of...
  
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• M&S hails ‘brilliant’ Paddington campaign despite ‘mixed’ Christmas sales

  11-01-2018 11:32
  Marks & Spencer (M&S) had a difficult festive trading quarter, with like-for-like sales falling at both its clothing and food businesses.
  The retailer blamed an unseasonably warm October for a 2.8% year-on-year decline in its general merchandise (GM) division, which includes clothing and home, over the 13 weeks to 30 December. Without the poor performance in that month, M&S says its same-store sales would have been positive for the quarter.
  And its food business, which has been relie
  
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• Tesco records ‘biggest ever’ Christmas as fresh food lifts sales

  11-01-2018 10:49
  Tesco has published its “biggest ever” Christmas results, with fresh food and online sales pushing the business ahead of the market.
  Like-for-like sales in the UK grew by 2.3% in the third quarter, representing the eighth consecutive quarter of growth.
  Tesco also saw record sales during the Christmas period, delivering its strongest ever week of sales in the week leading up to Christmas itself and “significantly” outperforming the market. Fresh food outperformed the rest
  
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• Salary Survey 2018: Wellbeing and the future of work

  11-01-2018 08:21
  Marketers have a very important part to play in shaping the future of work. Whether it is exploring new ways of working, embracing greater flexibility or abandoning burnout culture, marketers are leading the charge for change.
  Results gathered from the Marketing Week Career and Salary Survey 2018, a study of 4,154 marketers across 24 different industries, highlights the importance marketers place on flexible working in their quest to achieve a better work/life balance.
  Some 92.2% of those survey
  
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• Cryptocurrency markets are tanking after news of shutdown in South Korea

  11-01-2018 06:26 via feedproxy.google.com
  News of a bitcoin crackdown in South Korea sent the market for digital coins into a tailspin Thursday morning.
  Reuters reported a day earlier that South Korea has a bill in the works to shut crypto trading.Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, was trading down more than 9% at last check.
   
  The market for digital coins was under intense pressure Thursday morning amid reports that South Korea has a bill in the works to ban cryptocurrency trading.
  "South Korea's justice minister said on Thursda
  
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• A dad-and-son cybersecurity firm impressed investors with its 'unique' software that plays a kind of hide-and-seek with hackers

  11-01-2018 01:46 via feedproxy.google.com
  CryptoMove, a cybersecurity startup led by a father-and-son team, just raised $6 million in a Series A funding round.The round was led by Social Capital, a venture capital firm founded by ex-Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya. 
  Social Capital was intrigued by CryptoMove's approach to security, which protects corporate data in part by keeping it in frequent motion, playing a kind of game of digital hide-and-seek with potential hackers. In 2017, venture capitalists invested more tha
  
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• A major bitcoin conference is no longer accepting bitcoin payments because the fees and lag have gotten so bad

  11-01-2018 01:27 via feedproxy.google.com
  The North American Bitcoin conference has stopped accepting bitcoin payments for tickets due to fees and congestion associated with the cryptocurrency.
  Bitcoin is red-hot right now, but the demand has put the network under unprecedented stress and sent transaction fees sky-rocketing.
  Those issue makes it difficult to use bitcoin as a replacement for a traditional currency.For all the hype around bitcoin right now, it's easy to overlook an important fact: It doesn't actually work very well as a c
  
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• YouTube star Logan Paul's upcoming movie has been put on hold because of his dead body video (GOOG, GOOGL)

  11-01-2018 01:07 via feedproxy.google.com
  YouTube is placing Logan Paul's next movie, "The Thinning: New World Order," on hold.
  He's also been removed from Google Preferred, YouTube's top advertising program.Earlier this week, YouTube had promised "further consequences" for Paul following a now-infamous video featuring a dead body.22-year-old YouTube star Logan Paul's next movie — which was supposed to debut on the platform's YouTube Red subscription service — is getting put on hold, following Paul's posting of a notorious v
  
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• VR gets potential boost from standalone devices

  11-01-2018 01:00 via warc.com
  LAS VEGAS: Standalone VR devices are set to be the focus of manufacturers in the coming year, as evidenced by the offerings of Facebook, Google and Lenovo at CES, but mainstream acceptance of the technology may still be several years off.The...
  
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• Prudential sees success with influencers

  11-01-2018 01:00 via warc.com
  MIAMI, FL: Prudential, the financial-services company, has seen various benefits from leveraging the power of influencers to engage consumers.Dorinda Walker, VP/Consumer Strategy & Key Initiatives for Multicultural at Prudential US, discussed...
  
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• Luxury brands in Australia tap Chinese shoppers

  11-01-2018 01:00 via warc.com
  MELBOURNE: Australia’s luxury retail industry is growing at more than 10% a year, with two thirds or more of all spending coming from Chinese shoppers.According to commercial property group CBRE, existing major players which have been...
  
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• Leaked Snapchat data shows app's innovation struggles

  11-01-2018 01:00 via warc.com
  VENICE, CA: New leaked data from the secretive photo-sharing app Snapchat shows that its recent additions including Maps and the Discover publishing platform are largely ignored by users who still use the app mainly for chatting and sending photos. ...
  
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• Keep it simple to boost chatbot engagement

  11-01-2018 01:00 via warc.com
  SYDNEY: Though artificial intelligence is evolving quickly, consumers remain wary of the technology and prefer chatbots to stay simple with guided options, according to an Australian expert.Douglas Nicol, founder of On Message –...
  
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• iPhone X finds favour in UK, China, Japan

  11-01-2018 01:00 via warc.com
  LONDON: Smartphone OS data from Kantar Worldpanel shows a complicated landscape for Apple, as its iOS system ceded market share in traditional strongholds of the US and Europe while making gains in East Asia and the UK.In spite of the dual release...
  
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• Consumer Protection Bill sparks debate

  11-01-2018 01:00 via warc.com
  NEW DEHLI: The Indian government’s proposed legislation to update and simplify consumer protection law and procedures has sparked an industry debate around what exactly constitutes a “misleading ad”.
  
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• Building a better customer experience

  11-01-2018 01:00 via warc.com
  LONDON: As customer experience – increasingly based on digital interactions – becomes a competitive differentiator, brands need to assess their current capabilities and understand where they may need to make changes, according to an...
  
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• Nvidia clarifies an earlier statement that sent the stock sliding (NVDA)

  11-01-2018 00:04 via feedproxy.google.com
  Nvidia clarified its own blog post on Wednesday.
  The original post suggested that Nvidia's GPUs were vulnerable to the Spectre flaw affecting most modern CPUs, which sent the company's stock lower.
  Nvidia's GPUs are immune to the Spectre flaw.
  Watch Nvidia's stock price move in real time here.Nvidia graphics processing units are not, in fact, affected by the Spectre flaw present in nearly all computer, tablet, and phone CPUs, the company said on Wednesday.
  This clarifies a blog post the com
  
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