Best of Me- 

Millennial’s block ads?

According to Nielsen’s “Global Trust in Advertising” report, Millennials (21–34) showed “the highest levels of trust in online and mobile formats. Yet, they are the heaviest users of ad blocking with over 30-60% of them relying on some type of ad blocking software. Is ad blocking the end of advertising as we know it? It’s great news for native advertising solutions and we may finally see more intuitive creative solutions from brands. The IAB in the US has taken a somewhat controversial stance to this issue and accepts the blame for rising popularity of ad blocking. So it’s launched an effort called L.E.A.N. Ads an acronym for Light, Encrypted, Ad choice supported, Non-invasive.  The L.E.A.N initiative focuses on concerns such as frequency capping on retargeting. 

Apple’s Anti bullying campaign

Recently, Apple added a mysterious emoji symbol consisting of an eye inside of a speech bubble in beta versions of iOS 9.1 and OS X 10.11.1. Turns out, this all seeing eye is Apple’s way of supporting an anti-bullying campaign. The “I Am A Witness”  campaign aims to empower teenagers to speak up whenever they see bullying, with the emoji Apple implemented, serving as a way to show support for someone who is being bullied. The approval process for this initiative took a staggering 2 years  – quite crazy in our agile development world. This initiative reminds of our work with the CRC in the Safe and Well project where we launched an anti-bullying cyber bullying campaign to promote young people’s safety and wellbeing online.

Digital Marketing: more than just websites & social media

Here’s a comprehensive 110+ page guide that looks at the evolution of digital advertising, how to structure your digital advertising team, testing and optimisation. Loaded with checklists, charts, and thought leadership from digital advertising experts, The Definitive Guide to Digital Advertising is a great downloadable resource to have a flick through and requires an email sign up. 

 Segmenting for better email performance

 Smart email segmentation goes beyond simply sorting out your audience by demographics. The trick lies in using dynamic content. This lets you send different content to each of your segments from a single mailing, which in turn helps you send more personalised content to your audience. The more you understand your audience’s behavior, whether its how they ended up on your list to those who are your brand’s biggest fans, the easier it gets improving your email marketing results.

A vending machine that makes you reconsider cheap fashion

Everyone loves a hopping bargain, especially when you come across a vending machine that offers T-shirts for just 2 euro.  But what is the actual price you’re paying? A German non-profit called Fashion Revolution placed a vending machine that was selling T-shirts for just 2 euros. When passes-by inserted a coin, a video popped up showing young children in textile factories, working for 16 hours, earning just 13 cents an hour. Reconsidering a purchase decision has never been so impactful!

 Dominos pizza delivery car

In the past, Dominos have tested drones, allowed customers to order through sending an emoji, but now it’s poised to disrupt the market. Last week, Domino’s announced that it has partnered up with GM.  Dubbed as the DXP, this car comes with an oven inside, space for drinks, napkins and wings!!

Now you can buy off Facebook. Well almost!

A few days ago, Facebook introduced two new features; a dedicated shopping feed to give people a place to find products outside their News Feeds and an immersive ad unit that loads catalogues that people can buy off. Both of these features strive to disrupt the buyer journey and ultimately make it easier for the end user to buy things off Facebook. This move is quite similar to what Twitter and Pinterest are doing.

YouTube Red: the ultimate YouTube experience

Today, YouTube will roll out it’ new membership platform- YouTube Red. For $9.99 a month, users can watch content across the channel without the ads, save videos to watch offline and play videos in the background. The membership also applies to YouTube Gaming, a new content site where gamers upload clips and broadcast live play sessions. This move might potentially give Spotify and Apple Music a run for their money as it doesn’t just offer on-demand music, but everything on YouTube is accessible without the pre-rolls. While Apple Music and Spotify are trying to make strides into video, YouTube has been dominated this space for a decade. If the future consists of subscription marrying all media types together, YouTube Red might make its competitors green with content envy.

Bits & pieces

• Tracking your online to offline conversions just got a tad easier. Tactics such as PCC ad clicks, call tracking and Click & Collect can provide you with a sneaky insight into your store traffic. Great article by Econsultancy!
• Network Effect is an art project that explores psychological effect of Internet use on humanity.
• From live streaming fashion shows to previews on Instagram, fashion brands have been slowly opening their exclusive doors to consumers on social media. Burberry is doing just this and previewing its Spring 2016 campaign live on Snapchat.
• Here’s how Google’s penalizing resellers for publishing duplicate content.
• I absolutely love Barbie’s latest tvc  that features a group of adorable young girls trialing out their favourite future professions. The best thing about this ad is that Barbie herself doesn’t make an appearance until the very end!