Happy's marketing news - 13.10.17
It’s been a busy week in the marketing world, here’s what has caught our eye!
In its continued effort to take virtual reality mainstream, Facebook has announced Oculus Go – a standalone headset that will be released in 2018. Mark Zuckerberg said the device, priced at $199, would be the “most accessible VR experience ever”. Sales of the company’s VR hardware have been slow since launching the first Oculus Rift headset in March 2016. Speaking at Facebook’s yearly virtual reality developers conference in San Jose founder Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the slow adoption of the technology to date. But he said his company’s goal was that one day, it would get one billion people into VR. To get there, the company needs to create a premium, standalone VR device that offers free movement. It hasn’t managed that yet – the new Oculus Go should still be regarded as a budget VR experience.
British consumers believe the LGBTQ+ community is portrayed least accurately in advertising, with many consumers questioning the authenticity of brands’ commitment to social diversity. 500 members of the general public were questioned, as well as 275 people from the LGBTQ+ community, on their thoughts about the representation of people with different gender identities and sexualities in advertising. Both groups agree it is important for advertising and marketing to accurately portray diversity in society (72% of the general public versus 83% of the LGBTQ+ community), while 60% of the general public believe it should be a priority (versus 67% of LGBTQ+ community). The research also shows the general public and LGBTQ+ community agree that people of different gender identities (40%) and sexualities (33%) are least accurately portrayed. Almost one third (29%) of consumers believe people of different religions are not accurately portrayed, meanwhile.
Manchester Airport has unveiled a marketing campaign to attract new retailers and food outlets as part of its £1bn transformation programme. The ‘We are changing’ campaign comes after construction work on Terminal Two started this summer at the UK’s third largest airport. The transformation programme will see Terminal Two more than double in size, creating 60 new units in over 167,000 sq ft of retail space. With more than 27 million passengers and continued growth, the airport is looking to fill the space with a range of new food and beverage and retail outlets.
A staggering 85% of Brits aged 50 or over believe ads aimed at older people rely on stereotypes, with 79% claiming their age group is patronised by advertisers. Meanwhile, 55% hate words like ‘older’, ‘silver’, ‘mature’ and ‘senior’, and more than half (52%) say brands whose ads resonate with them win their custom.
The UK has one of the highest rates of adblocking worldwide, with over a third (39%) of consumers using an adblocker, resulting in a loss of more than £2.9bn in publisher revenue in 2017, according to report by OnAudience.com. The revenue gulf has increased 15% from the £2.5bn loss UK publishers suffered in 2016. Internationally, the loss of publisher revenue from ad blocking has risen by a third to $42bn (£32bn), indicating that the threat of adblockers on sites reliant on advertising for revenue is becoming a more pressing issue. However, the figures represent a marked increase from eMarketer’s report in June, which claimed that more than one-fifth (20.9%) of UK internet users will use adblocking software this year, with the total number number forecast to hit 11.4 million.
