Fries, freelance photographers, and the death of the fad diet – here’s what’s been happening in the world of marketing this week.
Kids’ meals just got a whole lot happier
Source: Gizmodo
Fast food joint, McDonald’s, has gotten the go-ahead from the British Advertising Standards Authority to continue to run their ads during children’s broadcasting, despite complaints from the public. Under U.K law, children cannot be targeted with adverts featuring products high in fat, sugar, and salt during their primetime Peppa Pig viewing. Having realigned their meals and their ads to feature more fruitful snacks and fewer cheeseburgers, McDonald’s remains on our children’s screens.
However, for breakfast favourite, Kellogg’s, it’s a different story. Despite the product itself not falling into the fatty-bracket, the recent Coco Pops’ ad for granola has been pushed out of our children’s view, with its focus on making “the milk go chocolatey” being perceived as a promotion of junk food.
Sex still sells
Source: Chatime
Sometimes you just have to go back to basics. That is exactly what Australian bubble tea brand, ChaTime, have done in their latest Out Of Home ad campaign that promotes their latest line of hot beverages.
“Blow Me, I’m a hot-tea” is the message being received by Australians from billboards and methods of public transport across the country. An age-old tactic to say the least, this tame display of smut is no big step forward for the world of advertising. However, head of marketing, Tim Paton, hopes it will be effective nonetheless.
“This campaign supports our efforts to increase awareness of Chatime as a fun and cheeky brand that wants to be noticed, increase awareness of our hot drinks category for winter, while elevating and supporting our ambitious growth plan to reach 200 locations across Australia by 2020.”
The people’s platform
Source: Instagram @natgeotravel
The secret to the world’s most engaged non-celebrity Instagram account? Give the power to the people. Or so says National Geographic who, rather than run the account of almost 90 million followers themselves, uses the talents of 140 freelance photographers.
This is all part of a plan by senior vice president of digital content and audience development, Jonathan Hunt, who has kept the 130-year-old brand out of the dark ages and, also, out of the darkroom. Hunt believes that “What you don’t want is this over-filtered Instagram experience. The magic of the Instagram channel is the fact that you have raw access to a photographer while they are in the field – in a baby elephant orphanage, climbing Mount Everest, or 20,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. It must be real-time and tell the story of what is happening at that very moment.”
The Oprah Effect
Source: POPSUGAR Australia
After years of slimming profits, Weight Watchers’ (WW) margins are beginning to balloon once more, as the Oprah Effect takes over. The Oprah Effect refers to businesses gaining or, in this case, regaining success once the billionaire media mogul associates herself with it. For Weight Watchers this meant acquiring over one million new members, and an increase of 20% in revenue, since Oprah bought 10% of the company and, more importantly, become a spokesperson for the diet cult. Though Oprah has since sold some of her stake, WW continues to grow, having swapped its focus from fad-diets to a more holistic, healthy lifestyle approach.
And the winner is...Data
Source: America Retail
GroupM may have won the client, but it seems the winner on the day has to be data. That’s at least according to chief marketing and customer officer of Mars, Andrew Clarke, who stated that when it came to re-pitching for their global media planning, the agency, owned by WPP, came out on top by proposing a custom operating model, which would allow Mars to put data "at the heart of its decision making."
Better still for the marketing and advertising giant, Clarke also added that,“this partnership will be a crucial accelerator in our ambition to be quicker, bolder and even more innovative when it comes to meeting our consumer needs. It brings thought leadership and actionable use of data and insights to meet our media needs."
Mars previously had a three-pronged approach to its media, using agencies GroupM, Publicis and Omnicom for its media needs.
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