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Best global brand awarded to Apple for fourth consecutive year…
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Despite attracting some questionable headlines of late, the ‘Best Global Brands’ report devised by Interbrand has voted Apple as the ‘Best’ for the fourth consecutive year – taking into account its influence on customers, the strength it has to command a premium price, and overall financial performance.

After experiencing a 5 per cent increase in growth this year, Apple narrowly beat Google to secure the top spot; in addition to Coca-Cola (-7 per cent), Amazon (+33 per cent) and Samsung (+14 per cent). The top 29 positions were filled by automotive and technology brands, as well as the financial sector maintaining a strong performance with a total of 12 inclusions.

Interbrand’s global chief executive officer, Jez Frampton, commented on this year’s report: “These brands clearly understand their ‘anatomy of growth’ – that it’s complex, nuanced, and personal. For each brand, growth means something different, and every story is unique. The best brands are looking inward and outward, expanding into new markets, creating better experiences. They’re not just weathering change, they’re driving it.”

 

View the full Best 100 Brands list here

LinkedIn joins ASOS and John Lewis for marcomms campaign…
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The world’s largest online professional network, LinkedIn, has joined forces with retail companies John Lewis and ASOS with the launch of its new international B2C and B2B marcomms campaign, designed to drive awareness of its ‘Jobs’ function as well as support engagement amongst its global members.

‘The Way In’, which is a content-led marketing campaign, focuses on delivering inspirational stories from LinkedIn members who love their jobs, and details how professionals can achieve greater fulfilment from their careers. The integrated campaign features dedicated content, social and PR elements that will run from throughout the month of October, and marks the brand’s biggest UK campaign of the year.

Content is hosted on the campaign’s microsite and includes member and recruiter interview videos from ASOS and John Lewis. Additionally, ASOS UK headquarters have opened their doors to produce 360 degree videos that provide a behind-the-scenes look at the eTailer’s operations.

Director of consumer marketing, EMEA at LinkedIn, Peter Maxmin, explained how the campaign was created: “Being fulfilled in your job plays a big factor in both your personal and professional happiness and development. It seemed natural for us to develop a campaign that inspires professionals to think about what they love about their jobs and how to be more fulfilled in their careers. It’s great to be teaming up with some of the world’s biggest and most recognisable brands to help people find the way into their dream career.”

‘The Way In’ will also include comprehensive research conducted across eight markets: the Netherlands, UK, the US, Germany, France, Australia Canada and Singapore.

To find out more about campaign, visit: lnkd.in/thewayin.

 

You can also join the conversation on Twitter using @LinkedInUK #TheWayIn

UK marketers lacking in essential skills, new research claims…
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A recent industry test developed by the Digital Marketing Institute has discovered that just seven per cent of UK-based marketing professionals hold the proficient skills required – with the average participant scoring just 37 per cent in a test where 60 per cent marked ‘entry-level’ competency.

Welcoming participants from all over the world, the results were detailed in a report and showed the significant differences and similarities between nations; where the UK was in line with marketers in Ireland and the US (both scoring an average of 38 per cent). UK marketing professionals scored the lowest in display advertising and email marketing, meanwhile scoring the highest in digital strategy.

Founder and director of the Digital Marketing Institute, Ian Dodson, expressed his disappointment in the report’s findings: “People are at the heart of the digital economy globally, but if their basic skills sets are not keeping pace with digital developments, the economy may be storing up problems for the future.”

He continued: “It raises question marks over the sturdiness of the UK’s digital economy and its ability to maintain its current growth rates over the medium term. In the post-Brexit era, it will be imperative that the UK is able to hold its own fiscally. Addressing the skills deficit in the area of digital marketing is an obvious challenge for the UK in this regard.”

A surprising conclusion from the report demonstrated older marketers slightly out-performed their younger counterparts when it came to mediums such as mobile skills; as marketers over the age of 50 scored 38 per cent, those between 34 and 49 scored 37 per cent, and under 34’s scored 31 per cent.

 

Download the full report here

Brits’ high smartphone use leads to infinite marketing opportunities…
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A new Verto Analytics survey – which studied the differences in smartphone usage between UK and US consumers – found Brit marketers to have a more onerous job compared to their US counterparts, after revealing 81 per cent of Brits use a smartphone, compared to the US at 68 per cent.

The findings, which were collected via the organisation’s ‘single-source audience measurement solution’, acknowledge the mass opportunities for UK marketers to take full advantage of the medium and its growing popularity.

Additionally, social media apps were found to be the most popular component of the platform; with every UK consumer using at least one and spending an approximate two hours per day.

CEO of Verto Analytics, Dr. Hannu Verkasalo, said: “We are delighted to provide the UK market with a way to better quantify and measure consumer behaviours and usage patterns. For example, knowing how one consumer uses multiple apps or websites, across several devices, in one day is helping companies make more informed decisions around marketing, advertising, and product development.”

Read more on the survey here

Guest Blog, Keren Lerner: Social media in business – who’s responsible?
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Social media is undeniably a key factor in business success.  In an era where prospects and supply partners will Google both company and management team before even considering any further interaction, social media content has evolved to be more than a shop window: it is the chance to display the essential voice and vision of the business – and who better to deliver this than the senior managers that define them?

Yet far too many innovative, exciting businesses now mask their true nature by opting to delegate all responsibility for social media channels away from the team’s founder, owner or leaders – often due to the mindset: “I’ll leave this to the experts, it’s not my field, and I am too busy anyway.”

Granted, experienced marketers have the skills and techniques required to create content and manage social media output, but it is the voice of the business owner or managing director that needs to be heard, and the role of the marketer to ensure responsibility isn’t abdicated entirely, but intelligently.

 

Mechanics plus vision

Most businesses that do recognise the need to embrace a dynamic and interactive approach to social media – and, unfortunately, far too many don’t – assume the entire process can be delivered by marketers, either in house or via third party agencies.

But this is not an out-of-the-box, one-size-fits-all scenario.

Marketers are fantastic at putting the right mechanics in place, ensuring social media feeds are integrated and link back to original content. But does the marketer have that essential business vision or understand what led to the creation of the company in the first place? Not unless the marketer was the founder.

It is only the owner who fully understands why the business was set up, the problems it was designed to solve or the customers it wants to help. And a failure to communicate that message is a real missed opportunity.

 

Capturing the voice

The voice of the company should have an interactive social media strategy, coupled with an engaging website, well-written blog posts and content marketing. But it is also important to gain input from across the business – so the founder and the leadership team coming together to discuss ideas in keeping with the company ‘voice’ is invaluable.

The right line of questions and facilitation can prompt new insights and make it easier for a marketer to harness the essential nature of the business.

 

And it doesn’t end there

Following an initial discussion, senior management needs to stay engaged with this key aspect of business success and identity. It doesn’t need to be onerous – a scheduled time each week or month discussing ideas, from customer issues to market change, is essential to ensure published content and messages truly reflect the nature of the organisation.

 

Conclusion

Marketers must steer senior management to re-evaluate how they approach their company’s social media presence. This is a portal to the business, a way to drive engagement with prospects and customers, suppliers and business partners – and it needs to be as compelling and engaging as possible – with real insight, real stories and real experiences.

Although it is widely thought that business leaders are typically driven, opinionated and focused – that is what underpins success. So, harness that uniqueness. Generic content completely masks the true nature of the company – make sure the critical business lens of social media channels such as Twitter and LinkedIn are a true reflection of its core beliefs, passion and expertise.

 

 

Keren Lerner is founder and managing director of London-based design and marketing agency, Top Left Design and holds regular social media workshops,  with her next event – ‘Nine things you need to do on LinkedIn for business’ – taking place at Soho House on September 23,  2016, at 1pm. Email keren@topleftdesign.com for more information.

Industry Spotlight, Apple iOS 10: What do brands need to know?
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Product marketing manager for Urban Airship Engage, Diana Laboy-Rush looks at the implications for brands following Apple’s recent iOS 10 release , with its support for Rich Notifications, where images, video, audio, GIFs and interactive buttons are embedded directly within push notifications.

For businesses, iOS 10 brings massive changes to Apple’s operating system that place better and richer app engagement front-and-centre. If past adoption rates hold steady, it won’t be long before all of your iPhone app users gain richer experiences that offer deeper insight into what they care about. Here are some key points that businesses should be aware of…

 

Reap before you sow with key improvements

iOS 10 solves existing barriers that will make current engagement efforts more effective. A Raise to Wake feature means TouchID users won’t blow past lockscreen notifications when unlocking their phones. Notifications are immediately visible as users pick up their phones. Notifications also become the default view for the Notification Center, a chronologically-ordered archive that makes messages easier to find later.

 

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, then a GIF or video could be worth more

Rich Notifications can include images, GIFs, audio, video and interactive buttons embedded directly within push notifications. Grab the attention of your audience with notifications that inspire action. Recent Android data analysis found a 56 per cent higher response rate to notifications with pictures versus those without.

 

Better visibility for richer, actionable notification experiences

With iOS 10, users get visual and written cues that there’s a richer notification experience awaiting them. Lockscreen notifications arrive with rich media thumbnails and an instruction to either “Press for more” or “Slide for more” depending on whether Force Touch is available on the device.

That’s in stark contrast to previous Apple operating systems, which had businesses building these instructions into notification text to help ensure interactive buttons were discovered.

 

Mind your media, or risk ruin with too much of a good thing

Apple provides maximum file sizes for images, audio and video that would be best to undercut dramatically. Rich media will impact consumers’ data plans, ranging from barely noticeable with judicious use of images, to potential reasons to delete an app for sending files that are too large or too frequent. These files will impact your bandwidth costs too. Think about opt-in campaigns where users can get a taste and choose to receive these richer, more immersive and data-heavy experiences.

 

Don’t be a blockhead with Rich Notifications

With brands running to emojis for a quick if quirky engagement hit, it would be easy but wrong to approach Rich Notifications in the same manner. When rich media is tailored to specific users’ interests it adds immersive depth not interpretive color to messaging campaigns.

Remember also that not all users will immediately upgrade to iOS 10, so messaging should be made to work without reference to embedded rich media or sent specifically to the segment of your users that have adopted iOS 10. Some solutions will allow you to provide alternative text if the rich media successfully downloads.”

Forums vs Expos – how to maximise your precious time out of the office…
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With a majority of ‘expert’ advice on Expos being somewhat outdated or, like with many businesses, asserting too much emphasis on easy routes rather than methods that actually work, it’s no wonder people get frustrated and disconcerted when they are looking to effectively network and source new connections without it lessening quality time spent in the office.

Amplified by the dominant presence of social media quick fixes such as: setting up a LinkedIn profile; increasing your Twitter presence; scheduling a large number of email marketing campaigns; and collecting as many business cards as possible at industry events – are key solution in helping you to be astute in intelligently selecting what methods best suit you and your way of working.

Expos can also have a somewhat ‘lazy’ association to it: people picture the huge halls and countless stands as a way of picking up leads and justifying their time out of the office, but realistically a large percentage of exhibitors won’t be of necessary relevance, or the person you need to speak to has decided not to attend at the last minute.

So set aside any previous experiences you may have with networking and Expos, and garner some quality connections by attending one of our Forum Events. Our formula ensures that buyers can increase their knowledge of how, why and where to invest without hanging around waiting for the wrong supplier; as well as ensuring that all suppliers are provided with qualified leads and valuable business is made as a result.

Events relevant to you may include the Marketing Business Forum taking place on November 8, 2016. Contact the team today…

Privacy concerns hindering Allo’s chance of messaging success?
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Although reports have suggested that Google’s newly launched messaging service, Allo, is already causing some privacy concerns, the multinational technology company is defiant in ensuring users can safely navigate the app – despite its integration with Google’s new artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, which requires all messages to be sent without end-to-end encryption.

As a result, not only can Google’s Assistant access and read the messages, but Google as a whole can too; as well as national security organisations. With its developers announcing back in May that Allo would include revolutionary message retention policies unheard of among other messaging apps such as iMessage and WhatsApp, industry insiders have found that all messages are linked directly to an account and stored indefinitely – failing to keep its promise of ‘transiently’ storing chat logs and making sure all conversations are not permanently placed on Google’s servers.

A Google spokesperson said in a statement: “We’ve given users transparency and control over their data in Google Allo. And our approach is simple – your chat history is saved for you until you choose to delete it.”

“You can delete single messages or entire conversations in Allo. We also provide the option to chat in Incognito mode, where messages are end-to-end encrypted and you can set a timer to automatically delete messages for your device and the person you’re chatting with’s device at a set time.”

Nielsen Marketing Cloud and i2c collaborate to deliver ‘complete omnichannel view’…
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The Nielsen Marketing Cloud has announced an ‘insight collaboration’ with i2c – an innovative partnership between Sainsbury’s and Aimia – that concentrates on data-driven strategies and insights designed to influence shopping behaviour, build brand loyalty and enhance the shopping experience for customers.

Both parties claim that this collaboration will enable brands to acquire a ‘complete omnichannel’ view of customers across hundreds of key characteristics; as well as allowing marketers to harness the data gained in order to analyse, activate and plan their marketing campaigns across media; reliably analyse campaign results and improve the relevance of their customer messages.

Previously, the Nielsen Marketing Cloud and i2c partnered to support Carling’s national ‘Great British Moments’ campaign, which resulted in a 19 per cent sales uplift and a 4.1(X) campaign ROI attributed to this collaboration.

VP and managing director of Nielsen Marketing Cloud, Europe, Matt Bennathan, commented: “The collaboration of i2c and The Nielsen Marketing Cloud has proven the impact that data-driven programmatic audience buying can have on in-store and online sales for a brand. Our award-winning Carling campaign illustrated that.”

He continued: “The Nielsen Marketing Cloud has the richest UK data available and is a perfect partner for Nectar’s loyalty card data. We can programmatically engage digital audiences at scale and close the loop, providing strong, measurable sales results.”

 

Learn more about i2c here

lastminute.com group acquires WAYN to boost content offering and audience reach…
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The European leader in the online travel and leisure industry, lastminute.com group, has confirmed that it has acquired the largest travel social networking platform, ‘WAYN, Where Are You Now?’, in a bid to garner further traction across the group’s portfolio of travel sites.

It is thought that WAYN will be integrated with lastminute.com group’s new media business, the ‘Travel People’ to mark the next step of its ‘ambitious’ strategy to help advertisers showcase stories through powerful content – engaging a captive audience with WAYN’s 20 million registered members, as well as continuing to attract lastminute’s 43 million monthly unique visitors.

Chief audience architect of lastminute.com group, Marco Corradino, said: “WAYN is the perfect fit for lastminute.com group. The WAYN team is a group of exceptional entrepreneurs who have created a vibrant community of travellers who enjoy sharing millions of travel opinions. Its business complements and expands our offering in Europe and, with its strong social travel network platform; it will become the content hub for our entire group.”

The group’s current network of leading online brands consists of: lastminute.com, Rumbo, Volagratis, Bravofly and Jetcost.