News round-up: 20th July 2010
- Added:
- Jul 20, 2010
This week’s movers and shakers in the digital industry: Publicis IAB video council | Blue Barracuda | BBC Brian Pern Comedy | Doovle | Youth Media | Yomego | shopstyle | Adconion | Henri-Lloyd | Variety The Car People | Carrentals | Belgacom | Callcredit | InvisibleHand | Hot Cherry | R.O.EYE | .FOX Networks | HRS | TagMan | Locker Room | Nokia | Qype
Publicis snaps up Chinese ad agency G4
Publicis Groupe announces today that it has acquired G4, a Bejing-based full-service advertising agency. Effective immediately, the agency will rebrand as Publicis G4, and will be joined by the Publicis Beijing Nestle team to service Nestle throughout Greater China.
Current G4 Managing Director, Laurent Beloeuvre, will head the new entity, and will have the additional role of Greater China Director on the Nestle account. Launched in 2009, G4 with 28 advertising professionals offers design and creative expertise, event management and consulting for Nestle in China. China has one of the most dynamic and fastest-growing advertising markets in the world. According to ZenithOptimedia forecasts (March 2010), the Chinese ad market is expected to grow by 11.5% in 2010. Publicis Groupe is present in China through all of its global networks. The Groupe employs more than 3,700 professionals throughout more than 50 cities (including Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou).
New chair for IAB video council
The IAB’s video council has elected Ooyala’s regional sales director, Bill Gash as chair of the council for the next 12 months. Chosen due to his extensive online video experience as well as his drive and enthusiasm to push the council forward, Gash will lead the monthly meetings, manage future council initiatives and work with the council to promote best practice amongst the industry. The core objective on the council’s agenda is to educate and excite advertisers, agencies and publishers on the role of online video advertising. In the last 12 months the council have completed various important initiatives such as the VAST 2.0 (Video Ad Serving Template) standard in the UK. At the beginning of the year the council partnered with Sky on effectiveness research and hosted its first conference as well as participating in a number of influential industry events.
Gash has put forward his plan for the next 12 months, with a view to create further cross council collaborations, promote best practice as well as working to drive better ROI for the industry. He also plans to bring VPAID (Digital Video Player Ad-Interface Definition) to the UK and to continue to release educational resources in the form of guidelines, events and publications. The council is hosting a buyer v seller video debate on 28th July as well as releasing a video buyer’s guide later this year to educate the industry further. The video council is one of the IAB’s working groups consisting of broadcasters, publishers, technology providers and media and creative agencies. An IAB working group for video has existed for almost five years, but it became a permanent council in 2008 led by outgoing chair Robert Black of EyeWonder. Gash is currently regional sales director for video technology and analytics, Ooyala. Prior to this he worked as a consultant for video and server technology provider Videoplaza. His experience with online video stretches back to 2004 when he led Entriq’s first forays into the UK.
Blue Barracuda appoints Adrian Nicholls as Managing Director
Adrian Nicholls is joining the board of independent digital agency, Blue Barracuda as Managing Director. Reporting to CEO Martin Talks, the former Deputy Managing Director of Good Technology will manage the day-to-day operations of the agency including directing the creative, production and media departments to ensure they work together most effectively, innovation, finance and profit, and staff management and growth including further recruitment for the agency. Founded in 2002, Blue Barracuda offers full service digital strategies for clients such as Pizza Hut, Getty Images, Zoopla! Danone and the UK Film Council.
Nicholls leaves a board level role working closely with the UK Managing Director and European Managing Director at Good Technology on shaping the business and overseeing the production, new business and creative services department, integrated with the digital arm of Y&R brands. Blue Barracuda - founded in 2002 by Martin Talks, Marcus Exall, Client Services Director, and, Nick Berry, Planning Director - delivers full service digital strategy ranging from designing, building and marketing Pizza Hut UK’s online ordering site – YUM!’s most successful worldwide, to advising the UK Film Council on a strategy to change consumer behaviour towards piracy and illegal film downloads and managing the online display advertising for BAA and search engine marketing for Zoopla!
BBC to broadcast Brian Pern Comedy exclusively online
BBC will broadcast the second series of Brian Pern exclusively online from this Friday, July 16th. Brian Pern, an ITV Studios production for BBC, is about an ageing rock star more interested in video blogging to talk about his own interests and political views than making music. The new series of Brian Pern broadcasts exclusively online on www.bbc.co.uk/comedy this Friday July 16.
The show stars Simon Day (The Fast Show, Swiss Toni, Bellamy's People) as Brian Pern, and has already attracted a number of celebrity followers including Peter Gabriel, Brian May and David Gilmour. Brian Pern was created by Sony Gold Award winning actor, comedian and writer Rhys Thomas (The Fast Show, Star Stories, Down The Line and Bellamy's People). The show is being promoted by digital specialists Hot Cherry whose clients include Channel 4 and E4.
Brian Pern series 2 can be seen on www.bbc.co.uk/comedy from Friday July 16
Doovle debuts cloud-based mobile HD video platform
Doovle.com formerly Cambridge IPTV is a ground breaking, patent-pending cloud based online and mobile HD video platform enabling its clients to manage, search, store and broadcast video in an innovative and highly cost effective way. Following on from a recent restructuring Cambridge IPTV is rebranding itself as Doovle Ltd.
The company following testing overseas has moved the platform to the Amazon’s S3 cloud strengthening its global streaming HD performance. The company’s free “Movie Maker” encoder is also being updated with the new version automatically enabling video to be streamed on the IPhone and IPad; this is to be followed shortly (Sept) by a further upgrade which will enable video to be played on all key mobile platforms. Doovle has also taken this opportunity to restructure their pricing packages which now provides one of the most competitive and attractive packages in comparison to the other global platform provider’s.
Youth Media debuts recruitment app for Rent-a-Car
Enterprise Rent-A-Car, the global hire car company, has set up a branded graduate recruitment app through Youth Media, the leading independent youth media network. The app, placed on Youth Media’s state-of-the-art YouthWire Desktop Platform in university and college PCs in libraries and other study areas, explains the company background, culture and the opportunities on offer.
The app uses the YouthWire network in 34 universities to reach 650,000 students and allow them to apply for jobs online. Youth Media is now the largest media owner within education in the UK, reaching 2.5 million 14-25 year-olds through partnerships with more than 200 academic institutions. Youth Media posters are located in libraries and other areas of study such as computer clusters, departments and photocopy areas. The YouthWire Desktop Platform on college and university PCs runs a range of desktop apps for marketing campaigns and Youth Media also has a strong outdoor and ambient media portfolio. All its media are endorsed by its partner institutions. Youth Media clients include Microsoft, JP Morgan, the Army, the NHS and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
Yomego launches ‘Social Media Reputation’ analysis service
Specialist social media agency, Yomego, has launched its ‘social media reputation’ (SMR) tool, that gives brands insight and actionable analysis into its reputation across the most influential social media channels. Yomego’s SMR service tracks what’s being said about a brand, and by whom, across 29,000 social media channels, measuring data including the number of people exposed to messages about the brand and the level of positive or negative sentiment. But the real differentiator of the SMR service is that a team of SMR specialists analyse this data, providing insight and practical recommendations to boost reach and improve a brand’s reputation. It will even provide live alerts if a reputation score takes a sudden dip, and highlight its source.
This analysis can be used to track a brand’s reputation; to analyse the impact of particular campaigns (online or offline) or product launches; or to provide an early warning system of a potential issue that will effect the brand’s reputation both online and offline. Clients of Yomego’s SMR service can log in at any time to see real-time, meaningful statistics on a brand’s social media performance, including: reach; ‘satisfaction’ (ie how ‘satisfied’ consumers are with the brand); noise level; details of influential authors (including demographic information); the most common keywords associated with the brand; country; and mentions by platform (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blogs etc ). It also measures the social media reputation against that of a brand’s nearest competitors, so the brand can track its performance against market conditions. Regular insight and analysis of performance; and recommended actions for the brand to take appear on the customer dashboard alongside the live data.
www.mysocialmediareputation.com.
Shopstyle.co.uk launches fashion shopping application
Fashion shopping site Shopstyle.co.uk has launched a new fashion shopping application for the iPad. Called ShopStyle Mobile, this free application gives style conscious shoppers the chance to shop on the move from over 2000 fashion, home and beauty brands, including Top Shop, Dorothy Perkins, Marks and Spencer, My Wardrobe, New Look, House of Fraser, John Lewis and many more. Launched in September 2008, the site is developing rapidly. In April this year ShopStyle introduced ‘ShopSense’ a free service which enables media owners and bloggers to generate revenue from their online content. The ShopStyle Mobile application is also available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Adconion helps charity 1GOAL and Xbox 360 with ‘Education Beats Poverty’ campaign
Adconion Media Group, a content monetisation and distribution platform, has teamed up with global marketing communications agency UM to assist charity 1GOAL and Xbox 360 with the ‘Education Beats Poverty’ campaign. Fronted by celebrities including Queen Rania of Jordan, Bono and Jessica Alba, the campaign harnesses the reach and scale of Adconion’s online video advertising solution, the Joost Video Network. Adconion’s creative services also produced the 300x250 in-banner campaign videos. UM planned and bought all the media for the campaign.
The campaign, which aims to get 30 million people worldwide to sign its digital petition and pledge their support for 1GOAL, features four videos, run across the Joost Video Network in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The video creatives drive traffic to the petition site at http://www.youtube.com/join1goal. The video campaign and creatives are also supported by standard display banners across the Adconion audience network. Leveraging the recent 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, 1GOAL brings together politicians, celebrities and world-famous footballers to petition for education for children in poverty-stricken regions worldwide. Their efforts aim to put pressure on world leaders to ensure that every child in the world has the chance to go to school and build a better life for them and their family. The 1GOAL campaign also included a month-long ‘experience’ on Xbox LIVE coinciding with the World Cup, including events, content and offers for existing and prospective Xbox LIVE members. Xbox also raised awareness of the 1GOAL campaign with branding and messaging across all Xbox channels, as well as 1GOAL video content. Xbox LIVE members were encouraged to support 1GOAL by downloading a free 1GOAL Avatar T-shirt – this is how Xbox LIVE members ‘sign’ the 1GOAL petition.
Henri-Lloyd launches new website
Leading pan-European integrated marketing and technology company, Amaze, has launched a new website for iconic marine clothing and international lifestyle brand, Henri -Lloyd. The agency has also designed a range of email templates for Henri-Lloyd’s eCRM programme and will be rolling out bespoke versions of the global website to six countries in 2010. Following a three-way competitive pitch in the summer of 2009, Amaze was briefed to replace Henri-Lloyd’s suite of brand and e-commerce websites with one site that seamlessly merged their different ranges, offering one cohesive brand experience with each sub-brand informing and supporting the other.
Amaze developed a digital brand and shopping experience that allows users to browse the product ranges and delve deeper into technical information for marine wear, create a ‘styled’ look and discover which garments complement those chosen, and then purchase online through newly-developed and easy to use forms. Built using the Umbraco content management system, Henri-Lloyd will be able to manage the site’s dynamically changing content, while the Storefront e-commerce system sits behind the online shop providing the technology to fulfill shoppers’ orders.
Variety.com Debuts Newstogram Technology to Personalize Web Experience for Visitors
Variety.com, the top online destination for entertainment trade news, announces today it has adopted DailyMe’s behavioral tracking and recommendation technology Newstogram. Newstogram generates data on user’s interests to deliver visitors content, advertisements and e-commerce opportunities tailored specifically to them, based on their specific interests and behavior. Newstogram operates in the background of Variety.com, tracking and analyzing the news users read at a granular level to understand visitors’ specific interests and consumption behaviors. The technology does not gather personal information about users. The data generated enables Variety.com to both offer personalized news recommendations based on each visitors’ news interests, and better understand their audience when it comes to content, e-commerce and advertising.
The Car People revamps website
North of England motor retail group The Car People has launched a new website, www.thecarpeople.co.uk, designed and built by Code Computerlove. The new-look site is part of a comprehensive digital marketing push which includes social media, channel marketing and online campaigns. The Car People retails a wide selection of new, nearly new and used cars and prides itself on its rejection of the traditional 'hard-sell' approach often associated with used car dealers, instead offering salespeople that are there to help if and when required.
Code was responsible for a complete end-to-end build of the site, which has been designed to bring The Car People's strong "hassle-free buying" positioning to life and support the group’s three showrooms in Manchester, Wakefield and Sheffield.
Carrentals.co.uk Launches Online Video Challenge
Car hire comparator Carrentals.co.uk is launching an online competition to find the best car-related video clip. The competition, which is entitled ‘The Carrentals.co.uk Video Challenge’, is free to enter and will run until 30th September 2010. To be in with a chance of winning a 16GB Apple iPad, entrants are required to upload a ‘car themed’ video to their own YouTube account that is no longer than 90 seconds in length, which they must then submit to the Carrentals.co.uk YouTube page for judging. All approved videos will be displayed on the Carrentals.co.uk YouTube page for the duration of the competition and the winning entry will be announced on 14th October 2010.
www.carrentals.co.uk/video-comp.
Belgacom Gets Apps Using GetJar’s App Catalogue Express Solution
App store GetJar has partnered with Belgacom, the leading Belgian supplier of integrated telecommunication services, to make its entire library of 75,000+ free mobile applications available to Belgacom customers using GetJar’s App Catalogue Express (ACE) – a white label mobile app catalogue solution for carriers, aggregators and partners to launch or add to their own app stores quickly and easily. Belgacom customers gain immediate access to GetJar’s massive library of applications via a GetJar link on the Belgacom Application portal accessible from the mobile Internet on their mobile phone.
Research recently released by Juniper forecasts that the global app market will be worth over $30 billion by 2015 with a significant part of this opportunity for publishers coming from multiple platforms. GetJar is uniquely positioned to help mobile operators ride this trend given its open, cross platform approach to providing consumers with a one-stop “Walmart-type” destination to find everything they want on any handset regardless of platform. As consumer demand for apps explodes and GetJar’s own store surpasses 1 billion downloads, App Catalogue Express is designed to make the delivery of applications easy for any third party that want to populate an existing app store with more apps.
Callcredit to manage Guardian subscription services
Callcredit Information Group will be providing direct delivery subscription services for The Guardian Newspaper. Callcredit will build and host a CRM database of customer details, whilst its Interaction Centre will handle all subscription-related customer communications. These will include both online and off-line consumer contacts for new subscriptions, enquiries and renewals, utilising both trained customer advisors and a specifically designed front end website, which will link through from the Guardian’s existing website.
InvisibleHand includes postage and package costs
InvisibleHand, the real-time browser extension that automatically finds and alerts shoppers to the best prices on the web, will now incorporate postage and packaging costs into its price comparison notification. This will make online shopping even easier by taking the hassle of calculating p&p costs out of the shopping experience, and giving consumers another way to quickly find and secure the best deals online.
Running on all four major browsers, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome and Apple Safari, the feature was created in response to demand from consumers, who want a more complete picture of prices online.
The Princes’ Mayday Network enlist Hot Cherry to help UK businesses tackle climate change
The Prince’s Mayday Network the UK's largest group of businesses committed to taking action on climate change founded by HRH The Prince of Wales in 2007, has commissioned social media specialists Hot Cherry to raise awareness and increase online buzz among UK businesses. The campaign aims to raise awareness of The Mayday Network and the free, structured support it can offer to businesses; ignite positive word of mouth about the brand among the most influential communities and create online buzz.
Hot Cherry, whose clients include BBC, NSPCC and Sony Playstation, will roll out a social media programme which will target green online communities to demonstrate the value of being part of the Mayday Network and starting the journey towards a sustainable future. The campaign is aimed at raising awareness and reaching new audiences that could be benefitting from simple, cost effective changes but don’t yet know what the possibilities are.
R.O.EYE appoints Nicky Iapino as Commercial Director
R.O.EYE is expanding its workforce and has appointed Nicky Iapino as Commercial Director as demand for affiliate marketing among big brands grows. The UK’s largest affiliate marketing agency, which counts Scholl, eBay and Santander among its clients, is increasing staff numbers in response to a raft of recent high profile brand wins. R.O.EYE picked up Virgin Holidays’ account last month, while other wins are due to be announced.
Recently appointed non-Executive Director Nicky Iapino will now take up a full time role at R.O.EYE as Commercial Director, responsible for strategy alongside Managing Director Mark Kuhillow. Three account managers covering affiliate recruitment, programme management and technical support have been hired, with two others being recruited. Iapino is a former AdLINK Europe Managing Director. She will continue to oversee and expand R.O.EYE’s blue-chip client base. Digital veteran Philip Hunt remains a non-executive member of the company’s board. He was previously CEO of digital agency Wheel.
.FOX Networks Wins Top 50 Global Publisher Demand Media
Fox Networks, (pronounced “dot-fox”), the leading global online network from Fox International Channels (FIC), continues its publisher growth in the Video and Entertainment field through the signing of Demand Media. Demand Media, a comScore top 50 global publisher of premium online brands, is a breakthrough Internet content studio and an enterprise social media platform deployed on the world's leading digital destinations. Demand Media makes it possible for over 100 million people each month to engage in conversations and form passionate communities around relevant content.
The core UK sales focus will be around eHow and Cracked.com. eHow.com empowers people to succeed at life’s everyday projects with a library of nearly two million articles and videos. Cracked.com is one of the fastest growing comedy brands online, with an educated, tech-savvy audience.
HRS turns to dynamic online personalization to improve customer service
HRS.com, a hotel booking firm , has become the first customer for new online marketing company Magiq. HRS.com will target corporate customers with a level of personalization previously unavailable. HRS provides an online booking system giving its customers access to the largest online portfolio of bookable hotels.
Magiq’s technology will be used on the company’s corporate site, HRScorporate.com, to help it provide a self service website for its corporate market. It asks each visitor to categorise themselves into one of the four HRS customer bases, enabling the marketing team to target each visitor with offers relevant to them. The result is that HRS doesn’t lose its audience by trying to sell the wrong service to the wrong person. The services are built around a suite of easy-to-use, pay-as-you-go tools that allows HRS to offer visitors to the site dynamic online personalization for a fraction of the cost of traditional approaches.
Air New Zealand appoints TagMan for campaign tracking
Air New Zealand is working with TagMan, the universal tag, to manage and track the online campaigns it has running across its European websites. TagMan replaces Air New Zealand's existing site analytics system as the company's universal container tag, a single page tag that houses all the tags used to track Air New Zealand's online campaigns, including display, paid and natural search, affiliates and site analytics on these sites.
The system will allow Air New Zealand to view customer journeys, tracking the entire path to conversion that any user takes to buying from one of its European sites. TagMan will enable future spend with affiliates to be apportioned more accurately, 'deduplicating' between channels that claim commission from the same sale. The company will gain instant savings in this way.
Fenchurch Selects Locker Room Media To Run Digital Marketing Strategy
Fenchurch Clothing, a UK based fashion manufacturer and retailer, has selected Locker Room Media to manage its digital marketing activity. The streetwear label will use Locker Room to put in place a complete digital marketing strategy that will encompass search, affiliate marketing and partnership channels.
Fenchurch was founded in 2000 when a group of friends set up their own brand, named after the area of London where they used to skate, and started designing clothes. Ten years on and the brand has come a long way, opening flagship stores in Covent Garden and Cardiff, as well as generating a loyal global customer base. Despite having a strong web presence for years, Fenchurch has turned to Locker Room Media to increase online customer relations and ensure the web channel is working hard to drive sales.
Nokia sponsors World basketball championships with new app
Nokia is sponsoring the 2010 FIBA Basketball World Championship with a new app – Bball - which will provide exclusive coverage, videos on demand, news, quizzes and prizes, a special fans’ page and also information on the nearest basketball courts for fans to play.
The upcoming 2010 FIBA World Basketball Championship in Turkey has attracted a record-breaking $30 million sponsorship from some of the biggest brands in the world. Nokia, Mercedes-Benz, Tissot, Champion, Molten, Turespaña and Turkcell are among the major companies aligning themselves with the event because of its mass global popularity, its clean image and the demographic of its audience.
http://www.fiba.com
Qype to bring iPhone users local recommendations that suit their tastes
A new version of the free Qype iPhone application is now available on the App Store, offering users on-the-move recommendations for restaurants, bars, hotels and many more types of businesses based on their likes and dislikes. For the first time, social network enthusiasts will also be able to check-in to places using Qype and publish their whereabouts to their Facebook and Twitter pages, making it easy to share recommendations with friends. The app includes new social features like an activity feed that displays contacts’ reviews, check-ins and photo uploads as they are posted so users can stay up-to-date with what their friends are doing and discover new places to visit.
The new, free Qype application is available from the App Store on iPhone and iPod touch or at www.itunes.com/appstore/. Android and Blackberry users will benefit later in 2010.
