Happy's marketing news - 16.06.17
It’s been a busy week in the marketing world, here’s what has caught our eye!
Facebook has announced details of steps it is taking to remove terrorist-related content. The move comes after growing pressure from governments for technology companies to do more to take down material such as terrorist propaganda. The ability of so-called Islamic State to use technology to radicalise and recruit people has raised major questions for the large technology companies. They have been criticised for running platforms used to spread extremist ideology and inspire people to carry out acts of violence. Governments, and the UK in particular, have been pushing for more action in recent months, and across Europe talk has been moving towards legislation or regulation.
Newspaper The Guardian and Observer will relaunch in tabloid format next year and outsource its print operations to Trinity Mirror. The cost-cutting move – part of a three-year plan to break even – will see Guardian Media Group (GMG), the parent company of the Guardian and Observer, selling or scrapping its three printing presses in Trafford Park in Manchester and London. The Guardian and Observer started printing in its European-style Berliner format back in 2005, when it sold 341,000 copies a day.
Instagram has unveiled a number of new features that will allow influencers to clearly signpost paid for content and share campaign metrics directly with brands, in a move to “increase transparency across the board”. The first tool, which is being described as a ‘paid partnership’ tag, is rolling out to a select number of global creators – ie influencers, publishers and business pages – over the coming weeks. The feature is designed to help content creators communicate to Instagram’s some 700 million users more clearly that they are working in collaboration with a business. It will signpost content as paid for above images in the Instagram feed as well as within the Stories section of the app.
Uber’s first UK TV advert ‘Where to?’ aired at the weekend followed by a series of out-of-home ads that have gone live, as the ride-hailing app seeks to convey a positive message in the face of recent controversies and doubts about CEO Travis Kalanick’s role at the company. The campaign took seven months to develop and will run on TV, out-of-home, online, cinema and press for the next six weeks. The out-of-home concept will go live in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh.
Businesses need to start looking at how customers view their brand rather than trying to understand customers by looking at them through the lens of their brand, according to Marks & Spencer’s (M&S) global director of loyalty, customer insight and analytics, Nathan Ansell. Ansell says M&S uses segmentation internally around things like frequency, so it knows its best shoppers come 208 times a year but there is a “large number” of occasional customers that come in just 10 times, so it’s looking at how to encourage those people to visit more often.
