Mike's Industry View - Issue #85
Creativity
BuzzFeed is selling its own line of Tasty kitchen tools at Walmart — www.recode.net
Spatulas and other cookware gadgets are coming to 4,000 stores. Ben Kaufman from Buzzfeed's commerce group believes that kitchen tools will make up approx 25% of the group revenues this year (!)
Marketing/Advertising
WPP to ramp up consolidation as Sir Martin Sorrell says 2017 'not pretty' for agency giant — www.thedrum.com
"In this environment, the most successful agency groups will be those who offer simplicity and flexibility of structure to deliver efficient, effective solutions – and therefore growth – for their clients. With this in mind, we are now accelerating the implementation of our strategy for the group.”
Interestingness
Unilever and IBM's blockchain experiment: a silver bullet for digital or a 'glitzy' quick fix? — www.thedrum.com
Unilever’s new collaboration with IBM will see the FMGC brand harness blockchain to reduce ad fraud.
Dolce & Gabbana used drones to carry handbags down the runway instead of models — www.theverge.com
Dolce & Gabbana used drones to carry handbags down the runway because human models are so 2017.
Video
'A big resurgence': Publishers get a boost from Twitter video — digiday.com
Across its top brands, magazine publisher Bauer found that Twitter video views increased fivefold from October to December 2017.
Platform News
Instagram Gives Brands New Way to Sell in 'Collection' Ads — adage.com Instagram launched e-commerce 'collection' ads, which are videos mixed with product catalogs, so advertisers can sell products right from the app.
Snap Combats Morale Slump After a Rough Year — www.bloomberg.com
The year involved a complete rethinking of the advertising business, an exodus of top executives, a broadly critiqued redesign of the Snapchat photo-sharing application and stiff competition from Instagram.