• Sign up to our webinar: a guide to marketing on Instagram

    Instagram is a global community of over a billion users, and with over two million active advertisers using the channel, it continues to be one of the most effective yet competitive channels for brands to engage with customers.
    In this webinar, Gavin Flood, senior director for international marketing at AdRoll, will show you how to take advantage of Instagram’s exploding popularity as an ad channel, covering how to:Establish a great brand presence
    Create impactful Instagrams ads
    Run succes
  • Breast pumps and boilers: Meet the brands turning functional products into household names

    Breast pumps, boilers, drinking straws and mattresses don’t tend to scream ‘buy me’. They are functional, useful products, but it’s rare for consumers to search for items like these by brand. More often than not people buy them out of necessity rather than desire, to satisfy a specific need rather than make a statement.
    But a raft of new businesses are looking to change that by turning practical (but often boring or taboo) products into aspirational household names.
    One
  • Cilla Snowball and AMV among big winners at Oystercatchers Awards

    Diageo’s CMO Syl Saller, AMV’s Dame Cilla Snowball and Oystercatchers CEO Suki ThompsonDame Cilla Snowball was honoured with a ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ and the agency at which she is chief executive, AMV BBDO, was crowned large agency of the year at the Oystercatchers Awards last night (21 November).
    Snowball was handed the trophy by Diageo CMO Syl Saller and Oystercatchers CEO Suki Thompson. Presenting the award, Saller said: “Those of you who know Cilla know t
  • A Chinese recycling company spent $75 million on a Michelangelo masterpiece — and is selling shares in it for $10 a piece

    A Chinese company which used to focus on recycling has spent $75 million buying a Michelangelo.
    Yulong Eco-Materials, which until recently was focused on recycling bricks and concrete, announced earlier this week that it had bought a depiction of the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ by Michelangelo.
    The company now says it wants to focus on collecting art, abandoning its recycling business.
    It had previously bought a 61,500-carat gem known as the "Millennium Sapphire" in October for around $50 millio
  • Advertisement

  • Sheryl Sandberg is on the hot seat at Facebook — but ousting her alone wouldn't solve its problems (FB)

    Sheryl Sandberg's future at Facebook has become an open topic of discussion in recent weeks.
    Facebook has stumbled through myriad scandals over the past two years and is facing calls for someone to be held accountable for them.
    There are good reasons for Facebook to oust Sandberg, its chief operating officer, including that she oversaw the groups at the center of many of the fiascos.
    But firing her wouldn't be nearly enough to solve Facebook's problems — and the problems it poses for socie
  • How strategists across Asia are reclaiming influence

    This year's Asia Prize winners showed refreshing new ways to approach influencer marketing, writes Ida Siow. From the judge's point of view, she shares her strategic takeaways.
  • Four lessons in praise of storytelling

    Many winning case studies in this year’s WARC Prize for Asian Strategy told remarkable stories and captivated the jury, particularly FALCON’s Avtar Ram Singh. Here are four lessons from the judging.
  • The Future Marketing Organisation: Creating a culture of accountability

    While marketers show a real desire to optimise their businesses by creating new structures that put customers at the heart of the conversation, change must start with the culture of the company itself.
    And it appears the industry is moving in the right direction. Some 57% of respondents taking part in Marketing Week’s Future Marketing Organisation study, conducted in partnership with marketing intelligence company MiQ, believe that marketing is changing for the better.
    Furthermore, 47.8%
  • Advertisement

  • The Marketing Week Podcast: The role of marketing in startups and functional products

    In the latest Marketing Week podcast features editor Lucy Tesseras and reporter Ellen Hammett explore the role marketing plays in turning startups into brands and how it can give life to more functional and mundane products.
    From personal insurance and flying taxis, to breast pumps and straws, the podcast looks at how young brands are using marketing and whether those that embed it from the start are better positioned to grow.
    READ MORE: Building a brand from scratch: Marketing’s role in
  • Trump's pushback against China is catching on globally as European negotiator declares an end to the region's 'naivety'

    The European Union says it is ready to work together on a tough new system to scrutinize investment out of China.
    Now there's an end to "European naivety," the pushback against China has expanded globally in 2018.
    Europe, with almost twice as much Chinese investment as the United States, is playing catch-up with the rest of the world following the US government's clear shift to rivalry with China under the US President Donald Trump.SYDNEY, Australia — The European Union on Tuesday came tog
  • Why we can’t give up on the ‘science’ of advertising

    Advertising has, historically, employed few scientists, but in spite of this it has also been an industry that has often used theories and ideas that have the appearance of science as part of its armoury of tools to impress clients and sell more ads.
    Today, every planner worth their salary is expected to have a point of view on Byron Sharp’s How Brands Grow; in my day it was Rosser Reeves’ Reality in Advertising. However, unlike science, which builds on and refines theories over time
  • Retailers struggle to set festive pulses racing with product-focused 2018

    It goes without saying that 2018 has been an especially tough year for retailers.
    A combination of growing competition from online rivals and changing shopping habits have resulted in numerous store closures and in some cases, retailers going into administration. Meanwhile, ongoing anxieties around Brexit and the general economy are weighing heavy on consumer moods and, as a result, pulling those purse strings ever tighter.
    And it looks like a bleak Christmas is on the horizon, especially for t
  • UK ad spend to exceed £20bn next year

    Advertising spending in the UK is expected to be £20.8bn next year, breaking through the £20 billion mark for the first time.The figure comes from the latest media and marketing forecasts from GroupM, the media investment group, and...
  • India's marketers need to work on personalisation

    Indian consumers prefer personalised marketing but most are not willing to share their data just for that purpose – they require something more tangible if they are to divulge relevant information, a new study shows.Epsilon, the data-centred...
  • Brand partnerships are the way forward

    The use of strategic partnerships can become an important way of building a brand – by helping meeting consumer needs in innovative ways and creating meaningful difference, according to a BrandZ executive.Writing exclusively for WARC, Martin...
  • Asia's effective marketing trends uncovered

    Successful brands in Asia utilise a mix of the old and the new in their marketing, and mix influence and action in their strategies according to WARC’s Asian Strategy Report 2018, published today.The report, based on an analysis of the...
  • Americans check their smartphones 14 billion times a day

    The smartphone reigns supreme as the Americans’ choice for online activities, a new survey shows.So much so, that an estimated 270 million American smartphone users now find themselves checking their devices 52 times a day, according to...
  • Africa is the new China

    Businesses taking the long view ought to consider investing in Africa, where the combination of a young population, urbanisation and natural resources will make it a “pillar of growth”, according to two McKinsey executives. ...

Follow @sales_mrktinguk on Twitter!