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The Weekly Round-Up: 07.12.18

Is Bing replacing Google? Is shellfish-themed meditation the latest 2019 mindfulness trend? Find out here in the Weekly Round-Up.

That’s a Wrapped

Source - Spotify Source - Spotify

 

Spotify has released their annual marketing campaign, Wrapped, an initiative that outs platform listeners’ musical quirks in all their splendour. The yearly campaign which is sprawled across both traditional and digital channels aims to celebrate the intricacies of 83 million-plus subscribers, while simultaneously thanking them for another year of custom.

Though 2017 brought some real gems such as the user-generated playlist ‘I love Gingers’ that featured 48 Ed Sheeran songs, topping the charts this year is a playlist titled ‘It’s the royal wedding is tomorrow!!!’ which, despite the enthusiasm of three exclamation marks, was created 22 days after the royal wedding. Other notable contenders for the coveted top spot include the 20,141 playlists entitled ‘Baby Shark’, followed by a sole user who longs for a little barnacle-themed downtime with 'Clam Meditation'.

Here come the girls

Source - Visa Source - Visa

 

Visa has made a ‘groundbreaking’ play this week in signing on as the first-ever sponsor of UEFA women’s football. The deal is a multi-year partnership which will run until 2025, will spread across a multitude of leagues and divisions, and will also support their marketing platform, Together #WePlayStrong, aimed at getting more females into the beautiful game.

Good news all around so? Perhaps. However, we can’t help but grimace a little at the fact that this deal is considered ‘groundbreaking’ in 2018. Not just considered, but actually is groundbreaking. As mentioned above, before this week, UEFA women’s football never had a partnership, a slightly meager statement when put alongside the long-running partnerships of male football and Heineken, Pepsico, Playstation, Adidas and McDonald's...need we go on?

Past pretty

Source - Shutterstock Source - Shutterstock

 

They say looks are only skin-deep and the same seems to be true of aesthetically pleasing content according to a recent article in The Drum by columnist and Wilderness content producer, Dennis Korycki. In the piece, Korycki suggests that content creators should not feel pressured by the digital displays of their competitors and rather focus first and foremost on the message or information that they are trying to communicate.

He states that “the whole point is not how it looks, but what the content contains.” And that while visuals can be imperative in telling a story, they do not need to be a work of art so to speak. For him, “the key for engaging content – finding situations that are relatable on a personal level but universally understood among a mass audience and translating it visually.”

Joy to the world...of advertising

Source - John Lewis Source - John Lewis

 

That’s after the release of a recent study by System1 Research, which revealed that Holiday ads are considered to have more effect on ROI than any others. The study, which evaluated 220 television commercials in the UK over the month of November, found that audiences were up to 33% happier watching festively themed slots as opposed to the average ad. This happiness stat lead to the ads being rated out of five. Holiday ads received an overall average score of 2.8 stars out of 5, an almost 50% improvement on the 2 stars awarded to non-seasonal campaigns.

But what does all of this mean to the advertiser? Well, according to System1 Research, this positive human emotion indicates how an audience regards the product or service advertised. In short, System1 reckons if we are happy watching then we will be happy buying too. With the festive season upon us all we can do is wait and see – perhaps there will be an influx of piano purchases from John Lewis over the next 12 months. Watch this space.

Back with a bing?

Source - Search Engine Journal Source - Search Engine Journal

 

Before you retreat back to the other 95% of the market who use Google as the one-and-only search tool, hear us out! According to a recent article on digital publication, Entrepreneur.com, European brands and advertisers could genuinely be missing out by not utilising Bing as part of their SEM strategy.

Why? Well, first and foremost, “Bing has 3 billion monthly searches in Europe and 12 billion monthly searches worldwide.” Not too shabby for a brand looking to drive acquisition. Better still, Bing Ads is a lot lighter on the pockets than Adwords, 32.5% lighter to be exact. Moreover, Bing Ads allows highly segmented device targeting, allowing users to get closer to their audience members and optimise their communication with them. “Bidding can be controlled based on targeting the best performing devices and excluding the underperforming ones.”

Still not sold? Check out the article in full here on Entrepreneur.com.

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