Happy's marketing news - 22.09.17
It’s been a busy week in the marketing world, here’s what has caught our eye!
Superbrands Apple, Nike and BT Sport are amongst those making the top 10 YouTube ads last month. Despite the new iPhone 8 and iPhone X models hitting stores imminently, the most popular YouTube ad for August was in fact for the iPhone 7. The clip features American actor, producer and professional wrestler Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who wastes no time showing off how many things he can get done in one day – with the help of Apple’s Siri, of course.
A regional publisher is to launch a new weekly newspaper in a town which lost its daily title two weeks ago. The Oldham Chronicle published its final edition on 31 August after 163 years of publication after parent company Hirst, Kidd and Rennie Limited went into administration. But regional publisher Newsquest has moved swiftly to fill the gap with the launch of a new weekly title, the Oldham Times.Priced 80p, it will go on sale for the first time next Thursday and will be edited by Bolton News editor Ian Savage who will add the title to his existing portfolio.
A supermarket in London is trialling a biometric payment system that uses the unique vein pattern in fingertips to pay for goods. Costcutter said it would consider rolling Fingopay out more widely if the test, at Brunel University, was successful. An electronic reader maps the user’s finger veins, generating a unique key. But one expert questioned whether biometric systems had any benefit over traditional methods of payment. During registration, users need to link their finger pattern to their credit or debit card and then they can pay for goods without the need to be carrying any cash or cards. The technology has been developed by electronics giant Hitachi, with biometric payments company Sthaler licensed to roll it out in the retail sector.
Twitter‘s CEO Jack Dorsey has promised to overhaul its ad offering to make it a more attractive proposition to advertisers after admitting it was previously too complicated, making it hard to see its point of difference. Speaking in a Q&A session with WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell at the Dmexco ad tech conference in Cologne, Dorsey claimed that while it has a very strong differentiated business advantage, it hasn’t clearly communicated that with marketers and agencies. And that failure can be seen in its results. Revenues were down for the first two quarters of this year for the first time on the back of stalling user growth.
With seven consecutive quarters of growth under its belt, the turnaround at Morrisons is in full flight. For the first six months of the year, its pre-tax profits jumped 40% to £200m while like-for-like sales rose three per cent. Morrisons has prospered by creating a consistent price strategy and prioritising its fresh food offer in-store. It has also been boosted by its deal to supply Amazon Fresh with own-label products, with the partnership leading Morrisons CEO David Potts to confidently claim he expects to make £1bn of wholesale supply sales “in due course”.
