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Search engine giant Google celebrated its 19th birthday yesterday (September 27th), marking the occasion by repurposing some of its content from the past two decades. Google made 19 of its past 'doodle games' available again for just one day as part of the celebrations. The move gained a huge response across social media, demonstrating the power that content repurposing can have. From this, brands should learn never to underestimate the power of repurposing digital content; something new doesn't...

Jamie Bartlett, author and director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos kicked off proceedings by saying that, in the ‘90s, we thought the Internet would make us ‘kinder, smarter, wiser’. However, ‘weird and difficult’ sub cultures have emerged, he said, predicting that the web will become even more ‘difficult to control’. “More direct democracy in politics is almost inevitable,” he added. “There are going to be all sorts of strange moral questions we have to answer,” he went...

Image-sharing app Instagram has announced the launch of new campaign centred around kindness and building a caring community for its users. In a blog post, it was revealed that walls across the world will be painted with murals that keen snappers are being encouraged to visit and take a photo with, before posting it on the app with the hashtag #KindComments. New heart-shaped 'stickers' that can be added to photos have also been released as part of the campaign. The idea behind this is that it...

With Christmas fast approaching – not to mention Black Friday and Cyber Monday – Facebook’s session focused on how brands can achieve cut through and growth in an increasingly fast-paced world. Next up was Nick Morris, Founder and Managing Director of behavioural insights company Canvas8, who declared: “There used to be a time and a place for things. For news, it was The News at Ten. For shopping, it was Saturday afternoon. Now we’ve gone to anytime, anywhere - and over 20% of online sales are...

Speaking of a digital world which looks ‘shiny, bright and full of promise’ but faces challenges around fraud, poor viewability and brand safety, Hugh announced that The Telegraph’s ‘joined up, company wide’ strategy will provide an attractive destination for advertisers. Having joined from Yahoo in January of this year, Hugh is heading up the media owner’s first brand campaign for ten years. Referring to its strapline, ‘Word are powerful. Choose them well’, he said that in a world in which...

In 2009 – as mobile became the preferred digital device for consumers and accounted for one-third of digital ad spend – we launched Mobile Engage. But as it’s pervasiveness increased and became a marketing mix mainstay, it no longer made sense to hold a mobile-only event, so we expanded our flagship Engage conference to encompass the breadth of digital advertising without siloing channels. Our industry is once again at a turning point. It’s not that measurement, effectiveness, viewability, or...

The state of the blocked web. A new PageFair report estimates that 615 million devices — 11% of the global online population—now block ads. Mobile adblock usage reached 380 million active devices and desktop adblock usage reached 236 million active devices. In the United Kingdom there are 11 million total devices blocking ads on the web. 16% of internet users in the United Kingdom are using adblock software on desktop and laptop computers, whereas only 1% of internet users are blocking ads using...

Teens are more likely to enjoy interactive ads than older web users, but they are also more discerning and less patient when it comes to some digital advertising methods. This is the conclusion of research conducted by Kantar Millward Brown that has been analysed by eMarketer, which showed 17 per cent of 16 to 19-year-olds feel positively about adverts that have interactive features, a figure that falls to 12 per cent among the 35 to 49 demographic. The option to close an ad was also positively...

Twenty years ago, the world was a very different place. Leonardo di Caprio had just gotten his big break in Titanic, while homes had internet access you were lucky to have broadband, and the iPhone was still ten years away from being invented. So why is the advertising industry still relying on a twenty-year-old relic like the cookie to target consumers? No longer – according to our recent study, over half of marketers say cookie-based ad campaigns will be dead by 2018. Turning to a people-based...

As well as being the biggest day in the NFL calendar, yesterday (February 5th) was one of the biggest for the advertising world. Super Bowl LI took place in Houston, Texas, with the New England Patriots defeating the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 following a stunning second-half comeback. As well as the action on the field, eyes were on the advertisements broadcast throughout the game, and this year many brands made use of social media to tease campaigns and reach an even wider audience. Fast food chain...

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK has today announced the appointment of Roisin Donnelly to spearhead its advertiser engagement work. Newly appointed CEO, Jon Mew said, “Primarily my aims as CEO are to re-assert positivity around digital marketing and to increase our engagement with brands and agencies. Roisin is supremely qualified in this space to help us promote and simplify digital for advertisers. Not only has she managed some of the biggest budgets in marketing, she brings a wealth...

Snapchat needs to prove to marketers it is a viable platform for reaching a broad demographic of users in order to get more brands on board. Snap Inc, the parent company of the social imaging app, filed for a $3 billion (£2.42 billion) IPO last week, but Marketing Week notes some brands still have reservations over using the service for marketing purposes. In the past it has targeted a demographic of teens and young adults, but the app is looking to broaden its appeal as it seeks to make its IPO...

YouTube is bringing live mobile streaming to users with at least 10,000 subscribers, along with a new monetisation feature called Super Chat. The Google-owned site has supported live streaming since 2011, and is now bringing it to mobile devices as it looks to keep up with similar features offered by the likes of Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and Periscope. In a blogpost, YouTube explained the functionality is being built into the mobile YouTube app, meaning live streams have all the same...

As brands embrace “digital transformation” in 2017, the evolution of the performance marketing landscape continues to accelerate. This was a key focus at the inaugural Internet Advertising Bureau’s (IAB) Performance Affiliate Marketing Conference last week in London. Over one hundred marketers representing leading brands and agencies including BT, Tesco, PwC, Maple Syrup Media gathered together to discuss how digital transformation is forcing businesses to rethink their marketing processes and...

“Ensuring ads don't appear alongside inappropriate or illegal content is one of the biggest issues we face in the rapidly evolving online ad industry and one of our highest priorities. The IAB has worked with the industry to drive action in this area through the Digital Trading Standards Group (DTSG) and JICWEBS, who've created an accreditation system for companies involved in serving online ads. By auditing whether participant’s processes meet guidelines designed to reduce ad misplacement...

Retail marketers are planning to increase their spending on email marketing in 2017, with relatively few looking to invest in new technology such as virtual reality or beacons. Recent research from Yes Lifecycle Marketing analysed by eMarketer reveals 68 per cent of respondents in the retail marketing industry expect their spending on email marketing to rise this year, followed by 54 per cent for social and 37 per cent for display ads. In contrast, just seven per cent expect their budget for...

Data no longer plays an ancillary role in how businesses practice marketing. The GDMA and Winterberry’s Global Review of Data-Driven Marketing and Advertising attests to how companies around the globe now leverage data to engage consumers more than ever before. The third edition of the report surveyed more than 3,000 marketers in 18 global markets to see how they are using data in their marketing efforts. The study shows that the practice of data-driven marketing and advertising (DDMA) is being...