Power up: new tools for performance marketers
The adtech ecosystem has become increasingly fragmented, resulting in a greater need for interoperability across platforms, identity spaces and marketplaces. To that end, LiveRamp and Lotame have announced an expanded identity partnership. The deal means that Lotame customers using its Panorama ID tool will also be able to access RampID (LiveRamp’s people-based, privacy-first identifier). Transacting using RampID provides a number of benefits, including enabling audience-based activation and measurement across every channel. This in turn allows marketers to create a more holistic view of their customer.
Seedtag has made its contextual AI compatible with Xandr Curate to give brands a global scaleable cookieless solution. Through the new partnership, Xandr’s end-to-end platform will be able to offer third parties access to unique contextual abilities. This partnership offers advertisers a way to use contextual advertising based on Seedtag’s proprietary contextual AI technology, LIZ, as third-party cookies and identifiers are phased out. Brands will be able to target the most relevant audiences while respecting users' privacy and providing the highest level of brand safety.
Facebook parent Meta has launched Horizon Worlds, the first public iteration of its landmark virtual reality social platform, bringing the project out of private beta for millions of adults in the US and Canada. The platform currently offers no way for creators to directly make money from their games, unlike Roblox, with no plans for advertising just yet. The move to VR found a strong ally in Bill Gates, who used a year-end blog post to forecast that “Within the next two or three years, I predict most virtual meetings will move from 2D camera image grids...to the metaverse, a 3D space with digital avatars.”
Mobile gamers are often affected by unwanted ads popping up whilst playing games. In response, video game publisher Playstack has launched a new technology for advertisers - the 'Interact' SDK - which offers real world redeemables that reward players for interacting with (rather than being interrupted by) in-game advertisements. Interact gives advertisers a variety of ways to get into games from integrated display to clickable offers and tangible rewards.
Get inspired: latest campaigns and brand wins
British Fashion retailer Monsoon has appointed Threepipe as its retained agency for digital marketing. Threepipe will manage paid search and social advertising activity in the UK. The scope of work covers performance marketing campaigns throughout the year and follows the relaunch of the retailer’s online store earlier this year.
Online tri-sports retailer, WiggleCRC is radically transforming its ecommerce system with the help of global business transformation agency, Valtech. The digital-first brand expects rapid, future growth, bringing Valtech on board to rid WiggleCRC of its complex ecommerce stack with a “MACH” solution – creating a seamless CX journey, accelerating new products to market and enabling WiggleCRC to adapt to the latest trends. Despite the complex nature of WiggleCRC’s existing ecommerce platform, Valtech’s expertise is helping to support a smooth transition and in ensuring the whole business understands the potential of the technology and its capabilities.
Metro Bank has launched a Magic Money Christmas Tree marketing campaign designed to fundraise through a gold coin mechanism for a range of local children’s charities across its 78 stores. Devised by Metro Bank’s in-house creative studio and external agencies Goodstuff and Mr President, each store will host a Magic Money Christmas Tree until January 3rd. Customers, colleagues and visitors will be able to donate through cash over the counter, via the instore coin counter Magic Money Machine or via cashless donations by scanning the QR code on the ‘magic’ gold coins. The campaign will be supported with a national media campaign across digital display and paid social channels.
Google shopping specialist Bidnamic has won the Google Shopping accounts of on demand apparel printer Clever Baggers, and British designer Jessica Russell Flint. Both accounts were won by Bidnamic through non-competitive pitches. Clever Baggers previously used Google’s free bidding automation tool, Google Smart Shopping, to manage their campaigns. Whilst Smart Shopping can help retailers manage campaigns on Google Shopping, it’s limited in driving long term growth as brands can’t access customer data and decide where marketing budgets are spent. Bidnamic, on the other hand, uses their unique combination of AI machine learning and client servicing to drive long term results. Prior to signing with Bidnamic, Jessica Russell Flint did not use Google Shopping and instead focussed on selling their products via wholesalers, which had a detrimental effect on their profit margins. With Clever Baggers and Jessica Russell Flint having 1,500 and 800 SKUs on Google Shopping respectively, Bidnamic’s services will help manage bids and improve their positioning on the platform’s carousel.
Reddit has launched a new personalised Spotify Wrapped-like recap feature for all users, including a summary of the time spent on the platform, a look at the content interacted with or contributed, topics engaged with and communities viewed or joined. Reddit notes that users will be able to hide their username and avatar if they want when sharing the recap across other social media apps.
Hearts & Science has been appointed as the UK media partner for card payment device SumUp. Media buying activity will kick off in the New Year across all above-the-line channels. Hearts & Science is now working with SumUp on media buying across all ATL channels in the UK with the activity due to go live from 1st January 2022. SumUp offers a wide range of card readers and contactless payment devices, helping to support entrepreneurs who are starting their own businesses or looking to scale up their operations.
The changing marketing landscape: partnerships, mergers and rebrands
Integral Ad Science (IAS), which provides digital media quality tools, is partnering with global omnichannel advertising platform Mediaocean, providing a new level of automated campaign management. Now media buyers and planners can set up, launch, and adjust their digital campaigns within Mediaocean buyer workflow (Prisma) and automatically populate this information within IAS Signal. With more than $200billion annual media spend managed through Mediaocean, the integration with IAS Signal means advertisers can manage their investments more efficiently.
Trade body IAB Europe has published an updated version of its white paper on Native Advertising. This guide has been written by three experts of IAB Europe’s Channels and Formats Taskforce, which is part of the Brand Advertising Committee, to provide up-to-date information on Native Advertising formats, placements, and best practices so that buyers can ensure effective campaign delivery. The Guide also explores how Native will be key to growth in other digital channels such as eCommerce, CTV, and DOOH. Alongside this, there are a number of case studies to show real-life examples of Native in action.
UK competitions watchdog The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has secured improved commitments from Google on its proposal to remove third party cookies from its Chrome browser. The internet giant has said its users want more privacy when they are browsing the web, including not being tracked across sites. Other players have said the loss of cookies in the world's most popular browser will limit their ability to collect information for personalising ads and make them more reliant on Google's user databases.
As audio ads grow in importance, media investment company Group M has announced Say It Now as their voice marketing partner in the UK. The new partnership, secured after a competitive and thorough process, will see Say It Now explore collaborations, implement voice enabled marketing campaigns and develop strategies for Group M clients in this rapidly evolving space. Group M and Xaxis, who ran the RFI, were impressed with how Say It Now had been able to simplify the use of Actionable Audio Advertising for their clients and package it in a media friendly way that complements the campaigns they are already planning for their client roster. The global voice transactions market is expected to reach $164billion by 2025 as ‘v-commerce’ sets to provide opportunities for brands looking for a more effective means of audio advertising.
UniFida, a provider of customer data platform technology that also helps companies measure marketing effectiveness, is partnering with Haensel AMS, a marketing math boutique, to help marketers accurately measure the impact of their multi-channel marketing activities, right down to campaign level, and then split that across customer segments. UniFida Marketing Attribution is AI (artificial intelligence)-based technology that allows marketers to leverage data insights and see the value contributed by each marketing activity. The incorporation of Haensel AMS’ AI-driven methodology enables attribution reporting right down to the individual campaign or test level, whether digital or offline. This is combined with an understanding of the role played by each marketing activity in initiating, holding or closing a sale.
Ones to watch: movers and shakers in performance marketing
Mediaocean has named David Berkowitz as Senior Vice President, Corporate Marketing and Communications. Leveraging decades of experience and a widely respected career across top strategic marketing posts, Berkowitz will oversee key functions for Mediaocean, including global public relations, analyst relations, corporate messaging and content. Prior to founding and running his own consultancy, Serial Marketer, Berkowitz’s roles have included Head of Marketing at Storyhunter and Chief Strategy Officer at Sysomos (acquired by Meltwater in 2018). He was also Chief Marketing Officer at MRY, leading efforts for clients such as Johnson & Johnson, Visa and Pizza Hut. Previously Berkowitz was Vice President at 360i, crafting mobile marketing strategies for brands like Bravo, Coca-Cola and Oreo. He has also held leadership posts at iCrossing, Unicast, and research firm eMarketer, now Insider Intelligence.
Merkle, a technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management (CXM) company and part of dentsu, has appointed Floris Oranje to the position of Salesforce practice lead for Merkle and dentsu’s CXM Service Line in the UK. In this new role, Oranje will lead and evolve Merkle’s Salesforce practice in the UK market, to help clients achieve the maximum value from their investment, across implementation, integration with their existing tech stack, and ongoing management to deliver and accelerate their customer experience transformation programmes. Oranje moves to Merkle from his role as Salesforce practice lead at BluprintX where he was responsible for helping B2B businesses achieve growth from their Salesforce solutions. Prior to this, he was managing director, digital marketing for Dept Agency where he founded and built the agency’s Marketing Automation division, leading teams of strategists, consultants and technologists in designing and delivering omnichannel strategies on platforms such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Digital Envoy, a company that introduced the concept of privacy-sensitive IP-based geolocation and IP intelligence, has today announced Michael Kercher as its new General Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer. Kercher, a 20-year veteran in legal and global data privacy leadership, served as Assistant Attorney General for Florida before moving to the private sector, where he held a series of roles from General Counsel to CPO and Global Privacy Counsel in the Fortune 200.
Onfido, the British identity verification scale-up, announcing the appointment of Nate Skinner as Chief Marketing Officer. Skinner brings over 20 years of marketing and sales experience to the company’s executive team, previously holding a senior VP position within Oracle’s Advertising and Customer Experience (CX) business. Skinner’s appointment also comes in a landmark year for Onfido, having recently bolstered its leadership team with the appointment of two industry veterans in security to its board of directors.
Did you know? The latest consumer and market data
From r/wallstreetbets and the crash of the One Simple Wish website, to the Battle of the Joshes, in 2021, the most notable moments on Reddit were when redditors took their comments, comradery, conversations, and more from URL to IRL. The newly released Reddit Recap 2021 takes a deep dive into the moments and communities that inspired redditors to be catalysts for change both online and in the real world.
Key stats:
Reddit is home to more than 100,000 active communities around the world;
In 2021, redditors created more than 366 million posts, a 19% increase YoY
As of November 9, 2021, there were seen 2.3 billion total comments, a 12% increase YoY and nearly 46 billion total upvotes, a 1% increase YoY
View the video recap here:
Google has revealed its annual list of the top searches for the year and broken down what the world has been Googling in various different categories. Whereas last year’s results were dominated by the global pandemic, this year the global population turned to sport.
The global top 10 searches were:
Australia vs India
India vs England
IPL
NBA
Euro 2021
Copa América
India vs New Zealand
T20 World Cup
Squid Game
DMX
All but two of these searches relate to sports. The remaining two are entertainment media.
View a summary below
Professional marketing vacancies in England and Wales have reached record highs, with over 5,100 jobs recorded in October 2021. That’s according to new research from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo), the trade association for the recruitment sector. The data, provided by business intelligence specialist Vacancysoft, reveals that following a year-on-year drop (35.6%) in 2020, overall hiring levels for marketing professionals for 2021 to date are nearly double those recorded across the whole of last year. If vacancies continue on this trajectory, they will be set to finish 2021 up 121.8% year-on-year. APSCo’s data also reveals that London dominates the hiring landscape for marketing professionals, accounting for 64% of all new jobs published by companies across England and Wales, rising by 4.1 percentage points since 2019.
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