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There's No Such Thing as The General Public

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There's No Such Thing as The General Public

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Nicole, Emer, Abbie and Joyce

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Nicole Farah
Abbie O'Neill
Emer McDevitt
Gemma Porter
Tom Muldoon
Nicholas Cheng
Joyce Kyeramateng
Candy Tei
Uyen Dang

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This ESA x Barbie campaign celebrates the achievements of Samantha Cristoforetti - whom the doll is modelled on - the European Space Agency's only current active female astronaut.

Samantha Cristoforetti was specially selected by Mattel as an inspiration (and role model) for young girls in the hope that they can inspire the next generation of female astronauts, engineers, and space-fairing scientists with their newest doll-range.

Cristoforetti has told Sky News that she hopes the collaboration "will help young girls and boys to imagine their future without being constrained by artificial limits".

Two variations of the Samantha Cristoforetti doll available on the new Barbie range

The campaign, which was launched ten days before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, is part of barbie's on-going Dream Gap Project and a welcome breath of fresh air from their former campaigns.

Samantha Cristoforetti holding the doll which was modelled after herself

Contact Seed to Branch about a Digital Marketing project.

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The European Space Agency has teamed up with Barbie on a somewhat unlikely collaboration... | Seed To Branch Digital Marketing

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This ESA x Barbie campaign celebrates the achievements of Samantha Cristoforetti - whom the doll is modelled on - the European Space Agency's only current active female astronaut. Samantha Cristoforetti was specially selected by Mattel as an inspiration (and role model) for young girls in the hope that they can inspire the next generation of female astronauts, engineers, and space-fairing scientists with their newest doll-range.

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http://puls.podlaskie.travel/ First polish travel brand  on LinkedIn

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http://puls.podlaskie.travel/ First polish travel brand  on LinkedIn

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https://www.linkedin.com/posts/podlaskie-travel_sp%C4%99d%C5%BA-weekend-w-modnym-miejscu-podlaskie-activity-6593111496723570688-vzVq

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Popeyes viral campaign which popped off on twitter.

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Popeyes viral campaign which popped off on twitter.

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https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/how-twitter-turned-popeyes-chicken-sandwich-into-viral-phenomenon/

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Eye Health

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Sydney-based agency Messy has brought an innovative new health campaign to life for MyHealth1st's eye care initiative, EyeHealth1st.

'Look Deeper' provides a digital experience that allows users to take a deeper look beneath the surface of the eyes to discover the asymptomatic eye diseases that only an optometrist can detect and prevent. The campaign's hero "Eyesberg" highlights the difference between what an individual sees versus what an optometrist sees, while its interactive elements guide users through for maximum effectiveness.

Messy creative director, Jason Yagan, who helped bring the concept to life, says the campaign has been built specifically to capture and maintain the attention of consumers who otherwise might not engage with such a message.
VIEW THE CONCEPT
Says Yagan: "It was important to find the right balance between a bold idea, a striking aesthetic, and a great user experience. And it's the site's simplicity and the metaphoric iceberg that makes the message so strong. It takes little explanation - people immediately understand the visual trope and this is emphasised by the clear facts and strong calls to action.

"It was critical the interactive elements were simple to navigate so users of all ages could easily engage with the website and discover the content that's so pertinent to them."

Klaus Bartosch, chief executive officer and managing director of 1stGroup Ltd, is thrilled to have such an important campaign in-market: "This is such an innovative way to get Australians thinking about their eye health. So many people just don't have eye disease on their radar, nor do they realise that there are serious eye diseases that present no early symptoms. It can be really difficult to convince people to get a health check when they have no symptoms or pain. This campaign directly addresses this challenge. Because, when it comes to eye disease, early intervention is essential for positive outcomes."

Once users have explored lookdeeper.com.au, they're prompted to find and book a local optometrist using the integrated EyeHealth1st.com booking tool. EyeHealth1st is Australia's biggest online optometry booking platform.

The Look Deeper campaign is now live and will run across digital, social, out-of-home, print and experiential activations.

This is one of several major projects Messy has worked on for MyHealth1st.

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MyHealth1st launches new campaign encouraging Aussies to 'Look Deeper' at eye health via Messy

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'Look Deeper' provides a digital experience that allows users to take a deeper look beneath the surface of the eyes to discover the asymptomatic eye diseases that only an optometrist can detect and prevent. The campaign's hero "Eyesberg" highlights the difference between what an individual sees versus what an optometrist sees, while its interactive elements guide users through for maximum effectiveness.

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Drum OMG won an award for ' Best Use of Content on Social Platform' at The Drum Content Awards 2018. We find out what challenges and strategies they used to produce this award-winning concept.

Throughout 2017 it became clear that the newsfeed was becoming a media channel, it was an incredibly competitive space for content - publishers, brands, celebrities and your friends all competing for ever dropping attention.

If we were going to hit our targets we needed to deliver headline grabbing content. As a result we completely changed our competitive set. It didn't matter what KFC or Burger King were doing, we needed to know what was getting the headlines. What was being shared?

We wanted cultural cut through, not just marketing cut through. Via in-depth analysis of what was being shared by our audiences and the cultural trends that they were engaging with, we begun identifying the creative and content elements that were driving those results.

Social media has changed. Ad blockers, content blindness and algorithm changes have led to brands and publishers seeing organic reach dropping to less than 2% of total. If McDonalds were going to bring good times to their 16-24 audience through social, then corporate or dull wouldn't cut it. McDonald's social media would no longer be a place to complain. We would be the brand that made a positive impact, the brand that made you laugh, smile, and share.

Our goal is to keep the brand front of mind and increase brand love, by creating content that people want to enjoy, share and interact with.

Rather than viewing posts in isolation, we analyse campaign performance through a combination of metrics, including engagement, reach and clicks taking into account format, objective and targeting.

For McDonald's 'always on' social, we create sharable, engaging content for Facebook and Twitter that taps into a key brand or audience truth.

Running an 'always on' production stream means creating content on a weekly basis. For this to work as well as it does, we've developed a very close working relationship with the client, and become unrivalled experts in the millennial/Gen Z mindset.

We revamped the social platforms in 2017 following a reappraisal of the strategy. Since then, we have transformed the content from corporate, product focussed posts into relevant entertainment that reflects our audience's lives. Whether it's a love/hate relationship with gherkins, fondness for the lukewarm chips at the bottom of the bag, or contentious issue around milkshake dipping etiquette, every post uses a brand truth to communicate with our audience and keep the brand front of mind. This had lead to our posts capturing the imagination of the nation.

From simple memes and text-only tweets to envelope-pushing format hacks, each and every post is conceived as a positive interaction for any of their social fans, laddering up to the brand line, Making delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone. Our content is easy and approachable, something you want to share with your friends, just like McDonald's. Unless you're talking about sharing my McNuggets. They're not for sharing.

We create content for McDonald's social platforms that is instantly understandable and sharable and always relevant in the light-speed world of culture trends that our audience lives and breathes. We need to be ahead of the newest meme, GIF or trend to ensure our posts are relevant.

As a result, we ensure that we are ahead of the curve with newly released social network features. As well as being first to market, this also means creating content that puts the exciting features of the formats at the fore and making them part of the shareable enjoyment.

We're also first to the punch for cultural trends through memetic content. Our posts 'Not you' and 'Nailed it' were inherently part of the cultural world our audience lived in and they responded with amazing engagement. However perhaps the best example is the headline grabbing, brain-bending'bring mcnuggets' optical illusion that was talked about across the globe in headlines on national and international news sites.

We produce content that goes out on a weekly basis, always remaining relevant to what's happening in our audience's cultural sphere at that precise moment. There is a constant flow of ideas through our in-house production team through to our partners in paid media to ensure that we were never late to the online party. We work across both Facebook and Twitter ensuring the nuance of both platforms was taken into consideration and work was built with each platform's unique culture in mind.

Finally, we carefully monitor performance of our content (alongside external culture-creators) to understand exactly what's working and why. All of our findings are funnelled straight back into the creative process, ensuring that next week's content is even better.

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Drum OMG: Increasing brand love by creating sharable, engaging content for McDonald's

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Drum OMG won an award for ' Best Use of Content on Social Platform' at The Drum Content Awards 2018. We find out what challenges and strategies they used to produce this award-winning concept.

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This ESA x Barbie campaign celebrates the achievements of Samantha Cristoforetti - whom the doll is modelled on - the European Space Agency's only current active female astronaut.

Samantha Cristoforetti was specially selected by Mattel as an inspiration (and role model) for young girls in the hope that they can inspire the next generation of female astronauts, engineers, and space-fairing scientists with their newest doll-range.

Cristoforetti has told Sky News that she hopes the collaboration "will help young girls and boys to imagine their future without being constrained by artificial limits".

Two variations of the Samantha Cristoforetti doll available on the new Barbie range

The campaign, which was launched ten days before the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, is part of barbie's on-going Dream Gap Project and a welcome breath of fresh air from their former campaigns.

Samantha Cristoforetti holding the doll which was modelled after herself

Contact Seed to Branch about a Digital Marketing project.

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The European Space Agency has teamed up with Barbie on a somewhat unlikely collaboration... | Seed To Branch Digital Marketing

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This ESA x Barbie campaign celebrates the achievements of Samantha Cristoforetti - whom the doll is modelled on - the European Space Agency's only current active female astronaut. Samantha Cristoforetti was specially selected by Mattel as an inspiration (and role model) for young girls in the hope that they can inspire the next generation of female astronauts, engineers, and space-fairing scientists with their newest doll-range.

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Hey snowflake. Offended by bad stuff happening in the world? So are we. You're #notpowerless - DO something! https://t.co/S1gqWpTlCt

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Hey snowflake. Offended by bad stuff happening in the world? So are we. You're #notpowerless - DO something! https://t.co/S1gqWpTlCt https://t.co/dQ9pkwIx7N

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Hey snowflake. Offended by bad stuff happening in the world? So are we. You're #notpowerless - DO something! https://t.co/S1gqWpTlCt https://t.co/dQ9pkwIx7N

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Hey snowflake. Offended by bad stuff happening in the world? So are we. You're #notpowerless - DO something! https://t.co/S1gqWpTlCt https://t.co/dQ9pkwIx7N

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Hey snowflake. Offended by bad stuff happening in the world? So are we. You're #notpowerless - DO something! https://t.co/S1gqWpTlCt

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We believe phones have been getting too hard a time recently. Far from bringing an end to humanity, we think they bring people together. Think about it. These pocket rockets help us plan our social lives, find love, build relationships and make memories.

That's why we believe phones are good and even better on the Best Network for Data.
Join us

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We believe phones have been getting too hard a time recently. Far from bringing an end to humanity, we think they bring people together. Think about it. These pocket rockets help us plan our social lives, find love, build relationships and make memories.

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Movember's Global Marketing Director, Paul Mitcheson, spoke on day one of the Festival of Marketing 2019 last month and shared the steps the organisation took to become a global movement for men's health, and how he thinks Movember will have a lasting impact in the future.

Movember has raised more than $900m for men's health and three key causes - prostate cancer, testicular cancer and men's mental health and suicide. It uses a mixture of humour and education to communicate with its audience, using moustaches to drive the movement.

Although moustaches weren't fashionable back in 2003, when four friends from Melbourne, Australia started the organisation, the group decided this had to change and started the movement with 26 friends as a challenge for one of the groups' birthday, culminating in a celebration.

Mitcheson emphasises the importance of "celebration" as part of Movember, reiterating "that celebration is still absolutely fundamental" and it's a key part of the month that it ends with a celebratory moment.

Initially there was no cause attached to Movember, something Mitcheson believes allows people to have a good time and participate pressure-free, with fun being the "central beat of the organisation".

Mitcheson explained how Movember came to be, what the charity is in 2019 and what it will look like in the future.

Early ingredients for success

Movember's earlier successes, according to Mitcheson, can be attributed to the campaign's intrinsic ability to encourage creativity, as anyone and everyone can get involved in the fun, but he also talked the audience through some of Movember's earliest challenges and successes.

"Counterintuitive, counterculture"

Mitcheson discussed the challenges around running a charity for men and a feeling of being a counterintuitive movement.

From a counterculture perspective, he harks back to the genesis of the movement, back in 2003, when moustaches weren't in fashion. He speaks to the "social bravery" it took for people - in the earlier days of the movement - to grow their moustache for an entire month but said this courage "created fuel for the movement", with more people taking part year-on-year.

Although Movember became hugely popular throughout November, the movement also "became a bit like Fight Club" to its members and when it wasn't November, members disappeared and weren't spoken to again for another 11 months.

"Social media arrived at absolutely the right time for Movember"

Having successfully created their movement, and garnered a "cult-like" following, Mitcheson went on to talk about how Movember planned to engage with its members all year round.

Movember is a visual campaign with men encouraged to share photographs of their moustaches online, which Mitcheson explains happened in tandem with the rise of social media - the graph above shows the rising number of Facebook users and Movember members since 2003, and their obvious correlation.

Mitcheson says that Movember started to see the parallels with Facebook between 2003 and 2004; 2005 is when it really started taking off.

Outside of social media, Movember also created its own digital fundraising platform, which allowed its members to make donations, enabled updates (sharing pictures and statuses) and fuelled "friendly rivalry".

Success to significance

Mitcheson moved on to talk about how Movember was going to turn the success of its first few years as a movement, to an operational business or, as he put it, "going from being a successful phenomenon toward being actually a significant organisation, doing good in the world".

Development of the Movember app focused on switching from an information delivery app, with no two-way communication to a revamped experience built around the ethos that personal creativity had to be at the core.

In other words, Movember wanted to create a platform for its most loyal members to share their moustache creativity and give them a space for exclusively Movember content.

More ways to join the movement

Back in 2016, the company moved beyond strictly facial hair-related content and moved to include women in the conversation and movement. This came as a result of 10 and 15% of its members being women, a demographic the charity felt were underserved.

Instead of focusing solely on facial hair, Movember introduced 'Move' to help breakdown gender boundaries and get people active, moving and participating in physical activity through "move challenges" - which is proven to help with mental health illnesses.

Pointing to the organisation's grounding in innovation and keen to ensure a technology element was embedded in Move, Movember allows Bros and Sistas to track their move challenges on FitBit and other devices.

'Host' was also born, out of reflection upon the organisations beginning - "guys having a good time, getting together, conversations and celebrations". Host allows Movember members to host their own fundraising events (quizzes, BBQs, sporting events etc.) and raise awareness for the movement in their own way.

Feedback to inform innovation

Mitcheson explained that both 'Move' and 'Host' were both born out of community feedback, and so was one of their newest tech creations: contactless donation badges, launched in 2018.

The clever idea stems from the idea that UK members can be "too British to ask for donations", so Movember created contactless donation badges for thousands of its most loyal members. People with the badges could accept donations via contactless mobile payment.

Mitcheson says that "it's not quite Apple Pay at the moment", pointing to the fact the badge only activates a donation page, meaning it's not fully contactless but that's "the next stage".

Engaging with its target audience wherever they are

Noticing that Facebook was making strides in the charity space, Movember became the first charity to get an integrated API to link to the fundraising page on Movember's website through to Fundraiser on Facebook and one of the first to trial the donate button, live fundraisers and gifting donations as Facebook birthday presents as donation.

Movember is also one of the handful of charities that partners with Facebook for Good - allowing them special access to create new fundraising models and ways of working with the social platform.

Movember has also seized its opportunity to explore new platforms such as the organisation's experiment with Twitch beginning in 2018.

After experiencing low engagement on Facebook Live, Movember pivoted to popular gaming platform Twitch to try and tap into a brand-new channel, a different audience (because "Facebook isn't for everyone").

Mitcheson notes similarities between the gaming community and Movember, pointing out both of their foundations being "built around one passion".

The experiment on Twitch was successful with in-game integration, Movember merchandise sales and influencer fundraising on the platform all highlighted by Mitcheson. However, the activity wasn't without its negative feedback - mostly around toxic masculinity and the potential negative mental health effects associated with gaming.

Mindset and approach to innovation

Lastly, Mitcheson spoke about the organisation's mindset and approach to innovating in the charity space and approaching new audiences.

Having recognised the difficulty Movember would have "paying their way" to get new audiences, the charity turned to partnerships as a way of tapping into new demographics.

In 2018, Movember teamed up with Formula 1 Racing for a joint activation. By working with all aspects of the company (e.g. working with drivers and engineers at the Mexico Grand Prix) and by connecting with F1's male dominant and older audience (who are at higher risk of health problems) Mitcheson says Movember can authentically "embed" itself in the Formula 1 culture and the minds of its audience.

Mitcheson also spoke about Movember creating new media properties.

One such media property and content "template" was Movember's 3-part documentary series called Man-Up. Based in Australia the initiative aimed to get to the bottom of the male suicide crisis and create real social change and save lives, using the voice of Aussie radio personality Gus Worland.

Mitcheson affirms that the next step for Movember is to "embed in culture by creating media properties of our own" and lead the charge through authentic campaigns and initiatives.

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How Movember grew to five million Mo Bros and Sistas - Econsultancy

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Movember's Global Marketing Director, Paul Mitcheson, spoke on day one of the Festival of Marketing 2019 last month and shared the steps the organisation took to become a global movement for men's health, and how he thinks Movember will have a lasting impact in the future.

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https://www.drapersonline.com/retail/ecommerce/asos-launches-as-seen-on-me-community/5060648.article

https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/asseenonme/

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German Rail

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Campaign Of The Week: How German Rail convinced Germans to Staycation

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72% of Germans fly abroad for their holidays. So how to make them consider traveling within Germany using German Rail? The company used a smart algorithm that matched far-flung pretty locations with local look-alikes. Then automated video-ads showed users the real-time flight price from their location, compared with local rail fare.

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https://www.buzzfeed.com/audreyworboys/times-companies-burned-roasted-internet-funny

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Snapchat. It's your business - on mobile. Reach a unique audience, grow your business, get results and optimize your campaign in real time with the most creative mobile platform to drive results for your business.

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Used models etc. to advertise a festival that was nothing like what was marketed online.

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Fyre Festival was the most talked about festival experience of 2017, but not because anyone had any fun there.

Advertised by famous faces including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin, it was billed as a glamorous party on a deserted island.

Tickets cost up to $100,000 (£75,000) and guests who booked were promised luxury accommodation and "the best in food, art, music and adventure" in the Bahamas.

Instead they turned up to mattresses on rain-soaked floors, meals of cheese slices on bread and their luggage thrown into a unlit car park.

Fyre Festival is now the subject of two new documentaries, one of which premieres on Netflix on Friday.

Seth Crossno, a blogger and podcaster, and his three friends spent $45,000 (£34,785) on tickets, travel and luxury accommodation.

But when they turned up they found it was still practically a building site.

"There were still workers, pick-up trucks and 18-wheelers everywhere," he tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

"I tweeted out a picture of a planning notebook we found on the ground and it's hysterical.

"There's a list of things the organisers wanted to order and it's things like 6,000 Skittles sweets and 9,000 glow-lollipops. Did anyone think about planning the actual festival?"

Seth, who blogs under the name William Needham Finley IV, live-tweeted his experience and his videos have now had millions of views.

The Netflix documentary, Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, focuses on the disastrous build-up to the event - which was organised by businessman Billy McFarland.

A rival doc was released earlier this week on US streaming service Hulu.

While Fyre was promoted as an exclusive party for wealthy Instagram influencers, Seth says there were more ordinary people at the event than Insta-famous models.

"Everyone watching assumed everyone there was an influencer who was wealthy, who had been flown down and was expecting this life of luxury but was being slapped in the face with reality," says Seth.

"Some people I talked to had spent $500 (£386) on their tickets and it was their spring break from college. They thought it just looked like a cool trip.

"Watching on Twitter you think all of these influencers are getting a taste of the real world here.

"I think it's just human nature to see people who are in that situation and laugh or get some sort of pleasure from seeing somebody taken down a notch.

"But there's so much more to the story than rich kids of Instagram meets Lord of the Flies."

While the chaos of the festival was mostly told on Twitter, the Netflix documentary focuses on what went on behind the scenes on the island of Great Exuma in the Bahamas.

"The organisers had six to eight weeks to pull off something that should have taken close to a year," says Chris Smith, who directed the documentary.

"But what was most surprising to me was going to the Bahamas and seeing the aftermath of what was left behind and the effect on the people there."

Fyre Festival wasn't just a miserable experience for the people who paid to party, it also had a major impact on the local people of the island who helped organisers build the festival.

"They had engaged with so much of the local community to try and pull this off. There were hundreds of day labourers working," says Chris.

"Fyre had such a high profile that I don't think anyone could have assumed that it wouldn't work out."

One restaurant owner in the documentary admits she stumped up $50,000 (£38,500) of her life-savings catering for Fyre Festival in the build up to the event.

"She put in a huge part of her savings to try and live up to the obligations she had made to them," says Chris.

"In the end, when things fell apart everyone just left. She was left having to deal with this.

"Nobody went back to deal with that and that people moved on and came back to living their lives in New York and didn't own up to the responsibility of their actions."

Organiser Billy McFarland failed to pay workers on the island for their time or resources.

He's the one man missing from the documentary - Chris says he refused to be interviewed unless he was paid for his time.

"We just didn't feel comfortable with him benefitting after so many people had been hurt based on what he had done," he adds.

Following Fyre's collapse, Billy was convicted of fraud and jailed for six years in October last year.

Rapper Ja Rule was originally described as a co-organiser of the event - but was not arrested or charged in connection with the fraud. His lawyers have argued that McFarland used his name and connections to promote the event.

"Six years doesn't seem to fit with what he did and the impact he had on everyone else," says Seth.

He successfully sued Billy for $2.5m (£1.9m) - but expects to wait up to 20 years to get his money back as the fraudster must pay back $27m (£20m) to investors before settling other debts.

"I'm not in a position to say he should spend 20 years in prison but six years doesn't seem like a lot.

"I don't think we've heard the last of Billy - at all."

Seth hopes money gets to the people on Great Exuma first, and believes attention from the new documentaries could be what helps get them repaid.

"Hopefully we can work on getting the people in the Bahamas paid back too," he adds.

"With people like Netflix involved and these influencers, there's no reason why some money can't be raised to make it right for those people."

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 every weekday on BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra - if you miss us you can listen back here.

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Inside the world's biggest festival flop

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Fyre Festival was the most talked about festival experience of 2017, but not because anyone had any fun there. Advertised by famous faces including Kendall Jenner, Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin, it was billed as a glamorous party on a deserted island.

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I have fallen down a social media rabbit hole. I've been scrolling through the feed of an online influencer called "Lil Miquela", and watching her videos on YouTube.

Her Instagram is just like any other influencer account. There are pictures of her on nights out with friends, several of her posing in trendy clothes, even a post about breaking up with her boyfriend. She's fairly successful, having appeared in a Calvin Klein ad alongside supermodel Bella Hadid, and has 1.6m followers on Instagram.

The only thing is, she is not real. She's a fictional character, created using computer-generated imagery (CGI). Miquela doesn't hide this fact - she calls herself a "robot" in her bio.

She is the invention of LA-based media studio Brud, which describes itself as creating "digital character-driven story worlds". As well as Miquela, Brud is behind the virtual avatars Bermuda and Blawko.

Miquela and her CGI colleagues are the most prominent examples of an emerging category in the influencer marketing space: the virtual influencer. But they are not the only ones. There's Shudu, who claims to be the world's first digital supermodel, with 189,000 Instagram followers, and Noonoouri, who has over 300,000 followers and is described as a "digital character, activist, and vegan".

Despite the uncanny valley reaction triggered by their dull eyes and shiny, plastic-looking skin, these virtual characters do appear unnervingly realistic. But what's the purpose of these CGI creations - and why are they rising in popularity?

Lil Miquela. Instagram following: 1.6m

Some have been created as art projects, drawing attention to the absurdities of social media. Others appear to be PR stunts, allowing studios like Brud to advertise their capabilities to potential clients.

But many work exactly like their human counterparts, created with the intent to promote products. Virtual characters can be superimposed into any scene, wearing any clothes and holding any item, appearing alongside human models or other CGI avatars - and thus make money from the booming influencer marketing industry.

And for brands, virtual influencers do offer advantages over their fleshy competition.

"CGI influencers will always look immaculate," says marketing expert Scott Guthrie. "There is no need for them to succumb to perpetual dieting, gruelling beauty regimes or cosmetic surgery. They do not age or fluctuate between dress size, and they'll always turn up for photoshoots on time."

There's also very little chance for a virtual influencer to go off-message and embarrass a client - an important benefit, given the stories of influencer-related scandals, which can create a reputation risk for brands.

"When working with a real person, there is a slight risk that that person might come out at a later date and make a comment or behave in a way that does not align to the brand's ethos," says Ben Jeffries, co-founder of marketing platform Influencer.

"Also, content featuring virtual influencers can be perfectly edited to fit the brand's requirements. Should content be produced and the brand want to change something, the designers can go back into the CGI and make those edits - something they'd likely be unable to do had they worked with a human being."

But that doesn't mean working with virtual influencers is risk-free. As Jeffries points out, characters like Miquela are still created and managed by real people.

"It could be argued that a mistake by a virtual influencer is more damaging than a human one, as responsibility lies more heavily with the brand that created the campaign," he adds.

Regardless of the risks, these CGI celebrities are proving popular, and some brands are now creating their own digital characters. For instance, in April KFC created a virtual-influencer version of Colonel Sanders.

"What KFC has done is an extremely smart way for a brand to work with a virtual influencer. They have created their own perfect influencer - one that embodies their brand, but for his lack of body," says Jeffries.

The most prominent brand-owned virtual influencer is Daisy, who was created by online fashion retailer YOOX - part of the YOOX NET-A-PORTER Group.

Originally designed as an avatar for the brand's AI-powered virtual styling app, Daisy has now "taken over" YOOX's Instagram account, and is able to interact directly with its customers and followers, according to Giuseppe Tamola, the company's brand and marketing director.

"Since her takeover of the Instagram account, as a result of her friendly and direct tone of voice, we have seen an incredible upsurge in the number of followers and in the engagement rate, which is exactly what we wanted to achieve," he says.

Functionally then, is there any difference between a virtual influencer and a brand mascot like Tony the Tiger or Compare the Market's meerkats? Yes, says Carlos Gil, author of new book The End of Marketing.

"Pre-social media, your brand mascot didn't have a way to interact with your customers," he says. "Today, with the rise of social media, the face of your brand should be... a face. Whether it's an artificial influencer or a human, having a real face that resembles the likeness of your customers and who can interact with your customers can go further to driving brand loyalty than a cartoonish mascot ever did."

The oddest part of this trend is that characters like Miquela are objectively not real, and yet are very popular, while a human influencer's career could be ruined if they were accused of being fake or inauthentic. But Guthrie doesn't see the problem.

"I'd argue that Lil Miquela is more real than many influencers on Instagram," he says. "She promotes positive social change, and her backstory and life arc are expertly curated to communicate what it means to be human."

Yet these virtual influencers raise some uncomfortable questions. For a start, is there the potential for automated avatars to put their human counterparts out of a career?

More troublingly, do Miquela, Daisy, and Shudu reinforce unrealistic beauty standards, with their stick-thin figures and flawless skin? Should we be concerned that people are so quick to follow and trust these fundamentally fake creations? Could brands misuse virtual influencers in some way to trick and misguide consumers?

Perhaps these are overreactions, but they are the fears that spring to mind whenever I see the never-ageing, ever-perfect face of Lil Miquela.
Main image: YOOX Disclaimer: this article was updated on 1 October 2019 to say that YOOX is part of the YOOX NET-A-PORTER Group, and not a subsidiary of Net-A-Porter.

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Uncanny valley: Explaining the rise of virtual influencers - CityAM

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I have fallen down a social media rabbit hole. I've been scrolling through the feed of an online influencer called "Lil Miquela", and watching her videos on YouTube. Her Instagram is just like any other influencer account. There are pictures of her on nights out with friends, several of her posing in trendy clothes, even a post about breaking up with her boyfriend.

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https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/virtual-influencers

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https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/nike-giannis-antetokounmpo-mt-olympus-wieden-kennedy-amsterdam/1589387

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Drum OMG won an award for ' Best Use of Content on Social Platform' at The Drum Content Awards 2018. We find out what challenges and strategies they used to produce this award-winning concept.

Throughout 2017 it became clear that the newsfeed was becoming a media channel, it was an incredibly competitive space for content - publishers, brands, celebrities and your friends all competing for ever dropping attention.

If we were going to hit our targets we needed to deliver headline grabbing content. As a result we completely changed our competitive set. It didn't matter what KFC or Burger King were doing, we needed to know what was getting the headlines. What was being shared?

We wanted cultural cut through, not just marketing cut through. Via in-depth analysis of what was being shared by our audiences and the cultural trends that they were engaging with, we begun identifying the creative and content elements that were driving those results.

Social media has changed. Ad blockers, content blindness and algorithm changes have led to brands and publishers seeing organic reach dropping to less than 2% of total. If McDonalds were going to bring good times to their 16-24 audience through social, then corporate or dull wouldn't cut it. McDonald's social media would no longer be a place to complain. We would be the brand that made a positive impact, the brand that made you laugh, smile, and share.

Our goal is to keep the brand front of mind and increase brand love, by creating content that people want to enjoy, share and interact with.

Rather than viewing posts in isolation, we analyse campaign performance through a combination of metrics, including engagement, reach and clicks taking into account format, objective and targeting.

For McDonald's 'always on' social, we create sharable, engaging content for Facebook and Twitter that taps into a key brand or audience truth.

Running an 'always on' production stream means creating content on a weekly basis. For this to work as well as it does, we've developed a very close working relationship with the client, and become unrivalled experts in the millennial/Gen Z mindset.

We revamped the social platforms in 2017 following a reappraisal of the strategy. Since then, we have transformed the content from corporate, product focussed posts into relevant entertainment that reflects our audience's lives. Whether it's a love/hate relationship with gherkins, fondness for the lukewarm chips at the bottom of the bag, or contentious issue around milkshake dipping etiquette, every post uses a brand truth to communicate with our audience and keep the brand front of mind. This had lead to our posts capturing the imagination of the nation.

From simple memes and text-only tweets to envelope-pushing format hacks, each and every post is conceived as a positive interaction for any of their social fans, laddering up to the brand line, Making delicious feel-good moments easy for everyone. Our content is easy and approachable, something you want to share with your friends, just like McDonald's. Unless you're talking about sharing my McNuggets. They're not for sharing.

We create content for McDonald's social platforms that is instantly understandable and sharable and always relevant in the light-speed world of culture trends that our audience lives and breathes. We need to be ahead of the newest meme, GIF or trend to ensure our posts are relevant.

As a result, we ensure that we are ahead of the curve with newly released social network features. As well as being first to market, this also means creating content that puts the exciting features of the formats at the fore and making them part of the shareable enjoyment.

We're also first to the punch for cultural trends through memetic content. Our posts 'Not you' and 'Nailed it' were inherently part of the cultural world our audience lived in and they responded with amazing engagement. However perhaps the best example is the headline grabbing, brain-bending'bring mcnuggets' optical illusion that was talked about across the globe in headlines on national and international news sites.

We produce content that goes out on a weekly basis, always remaining relevant to what's happening in our audience's cultural sphere at that precise moment. There is a constant flow of ideas through our in-house production team through to our partners in paid media to ensure that we were never late to the online party. We work across both Facebook and Twitter ensuring the nuance of both platforms was taken into consideration and work was built with each platform's unique culture in mind.

Finally, we carefully monitor performance of our content (alongside external culture-creators) to understand exactly what's working and why. All of our findings are funnelled straight back into the creative process, ensuring that next week's content is even better.

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Drum OMG: Increasing brand love by creating sharable, engaging content for McDonald's

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Drum OMG won an award for ' Best Use of Content on Social Platform' at The Drum Content Awards 2018. We find out what challenges and strategies they used to produce this award-winning concept.

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Balmain Has a New Army of Models—​And They're All Digitally Created

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Balmain Has a New Army of Models—​And They're All Digitally Created

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They are mad a new nation and now recruiting citizens.

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- Experts predict that by 2050 it will reach such epidemic proportions that there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish. - Campaigners believe the solution to tackling this plastic epidemic is for the United Nations to recognise the Trash Isles as an official country and award it the environmental protections offered to all member states. - As a symbolic gesture, former US Vice President Al Gore becomes the Trash Isles' first honorary citizen, describing the issue as "completely outrageous" - British Olympic great, Sir Mo Farah, is also lending his support.
An area of accumulative plastic trash the size of France is polluting the Pacific Ocean. In some places, it is so dense that it's begun creating landmasses.

The situation has reached such epidemic proportions that it is predicted that by 2050, there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish.

Against this backdrop, a campaign is launching on LADbible this week to lobby the United Nations to acknowledge the plastic in our oceans as a country, in order to force the issue to be addressed.

The Trash Isles, an environmental campaign by LADbible and Plastic Oceans Foundation, is gathering immediate momentum with former US Vice President Al Gore and British Olympian Mo Farah lending their support.
Al Gore, the first honorary citizen of the Trash Isles
Accepting the position of first honorary citizen of the Trash Isles, Al Gore says: "We want to shrink this nation [Trash Isles]. We don't want any more plastic added."

"Let's come up with biodegradable materials instead of this junk! 50 billion tons over the last 60, 70 years. It's completely outrageous"

"It is absolutely harming the oceans and actually some of it shows up in the fish people eat now. It's disgusting"
Recruiting Citizens
Having met all the basic criteria to become a country - defined borders, forming a government and setting up communications - campaigners submitted an application to the United Nations to declare the Trash Isles as the world's 196th country.

With the UN application pending, the campaign is encouraging supporters to sign up to become citizens of the Trash Isles.

Stephen Mai, Head of Marketing at LADbible Group, who is leading the campaign says: "The ambition of Trash Isles is to garner the support of tens of thousands of people around the world, to become citizens by signing our online petition. We will present this to the United Nations to get them to approve the Trash Isles application."

The application has to be read by all members of the UN Council and if the Trash Isles becomes a country and a member of the UN, it will be protected by the UN's Environmental Charters, which state:

"All members shall co-operate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the earth's ecosystem"

Which in a nutshell means that by becoming a country, other countries are obliged to clean up the Trash Isles.

The Trash Isles launches with everything an official country needs - an official flag (as presented to Mo Farah), currency called Debris, and passports created from recycled materials.

"We are just getting started", Mai says. "There may well be a national anthem, general elections and even a national football team."
Case studies: Trash Isles grassroots ambassadors
The Trash Isles campaign is working closely with ambassadors who are making a difference on a grassroots level.

Sarah Roberts, who has campaigned about plastic pollution at education institutes up and down the UK - and is a Trash Isles ambassador says:

"Plastic is one of the biggest threats to our planet today and you only have to take a walk to your local stream, river or beach to see evidence of this for yourself. With so much hype about environmental issues, it's easy to become desensitized, but the truth of the matter is we are on the verge of an environmental catastrophe.

"Right now, there is enough cumulative plastic in the oceans to circumnavigate Earth more than 400 times. This indestructible material upsets every level of the food chain. If our oceans can't function properly, they won't be able to support fish stocks, absorb carbon to protect us against global warming or generally do any of the things that our lives are dependent on."

Full details about how to get involved in supporting Trash Isles can be found at www.ladbible.com/trashisles and www.change.org/trashisles
Notes to Editors
Press contact: Peter Heneghan: [email protected]

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LADbible Calls On UN To Declare Trash Isles An Official Country

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Experts predict that by 2050 it will reach such epidemic proportions that there will be more plastic in our oceans than fish. - Campaigners believe the solution to tackling this plastic epidemic is for the United Nations to recognise the Trash Isles as an official country and award it the environmental protections offered to all member states.

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The fast food behemoth is ditching all plastic toys from junior meals from today and commemorating the move by melting a giant toy - an oversized jeep-driving bunny called Beep Beep - on Southbank.

It is a major step away from Burger King's use of single-use plastics and is predicted to save 320 tonnes of plastic each year.

In its 'Meltdown' campaign - by PR shop Frank, as well as Coolr and JKR - BK has invited the public to donate old plastic toys to amnesty bins in the UK between 19 and 30 September. The plastic collected will be transformed into 'interactive play opportunities for families' at Burger King restaurants.

Each plastic toy donation, even if it is not from Burger King, will be rewarded with King Junior Meals.

"It is impossible to ignore the growing problem excessive plastic waste is causing and we are glad to be taking action. At Burger King we know we can positively contribute to finding new, more sustainable solutions, long term," Burger King UK marketing director Katie Evans said.

"We're inviting customers to donate their unwanted plastic toys and working with Pentatonic, we're excited to give them a fresh start. We recognised that by replacing them with a more sustainable solution there was an opportunity for us to make a radical change with Meltdown - one of the first of many."

Burger King was quick to encourage its 'friendly' rival McDonald's to join the plastic-free movement.

Dear @McDonaldsUK welcome to the #Meltdown - good to have you on board! If you need help getting rid of your plastic toys - you know where we are! (We'll even give you a free meal to say thanks!)
- Burger King (@BurgerKingUK) September 19, 2019

Burger King's global CMO Fernando Machado said the chain is looking to completely move away from non-biodegradable plastic toys by 2025.

Burger King® UK is melting down plastic toys for good.

All plastic toys will be removed from @BurgerKingUK King Junior Meals from tomorrow.#bk #meltdown #welcometofrank ??????

For media information contact: burgerking@welcometofrank.com pic.twitter.com/0qR3dHk8RM
- Andrew Bloch (@AndrewBloch) September 18, 2019

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Burger King has major meltdown (of its plastic toys)

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The fast food behemoth is ditching all plastic toys from junior meals from today and commemorating the move by melting a giant toy - an oversized jeep-driving bunny called Beep Beep - on Southbank. It is a major step away from Burger King's use of single-use plastics and is predicted to save 320 tonnes of plastic each year.

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https://www.instagram.com/lilmiquela/

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Cadbury is launching a digital content series for its Heroes brand that it hopes will build engagement and brand love.

Cadbury is launching a campaign for its Heroes miniatures range that will focus on digital content in a move it hopes will engage consumers more than a traditional media plan.

Its first advertising campaign since 2013 features parents trying to reconnect with their teenager children by getting involved in their hobbies. Created by VCCP, the 'Families Reunited' activity features a series of digital content shorts, including one showing a father learning to ride a BMX bike.

"We are pushing something out that's a bit more entertaining rather than a pure advertising message because engagement has never been as important as it is now," Cadbury Roses and Heroes brand manager Aislinn Campbell tells Marketing Week.

Cadbury ditches joy positioning after six years to go 'back to brand roots'

The digital-content series is a first for Heroes, which wants to ensure its marketing stands out in an increasingly competitive market.

Campbell explains: "The key thing for us is evolving from one key message and talking one way at consumers, to getting them to choose to engage with something they think is engaging and links to our campaign.

She adds: "It creates a much deeper connection and a richer consumer experience than they would get from a traditional media plan."

Heroes' target audience is families with teenagers and the hope is this series will tap into the reality of modern family life, as well as reconnecting teens and parents by watching the series and eating Heroes.

"We know modern family time isn't really how it used to be. Nobody really sits around the TV anymore on Saturday night. Teens are often doing their own thing and on their phones and probably watching something on their laptop at the same time as their parents on TV."

Cadbury's brand purpose is just 'woke-washing'

Cadbury is pushing consumers to engage with long-form format in order to build more brand love and ensure that Heroes cut through the noise online.

Campbell explains: "What used to be really new and different can become wallpaper quite easily now. It takes a lot more to cut through and to catch people's attention. The value of a campaign and a brand connection is so important."

The campaign comes as Heroes introduces new packaging, with a carton that becomes a sharing tray. It also updated the range earlier this year with the addition of two new chocolates - Dinky Deckers and Crunchie Bits.

"It was so well received. We were blown away by the response from consumers in the press and the sentiments and comments. It was so lovely to see people so happy about Heroes, especially as we hadn't supported the brand for so long," she says.

"We hoped but we weren't sure that brand love was still there."

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Cadbury hopes to avoid 'wallpaper' marketing with digital-first campaign

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Cadbury is launching a digital content series for its Heroes brand that it hopes will build engagement and brand love. Cadbury is launching a campaign for its Heroes miniatures range that will focus on digital content in a move it hopes will engage consumers more than a traditional media plan.

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If you're a big KFC fan -we mean a KFC fan that even follows the food chain's account, you sure have met Colonel Sanders.
The CGI generated - Instagram guy is not even a real person. Yet, he already has his own audience because of his good-looking guy persona on Instagram. The posts of him include a secret recipe for success tattoo, show off his styled gray hair and altogether a modern take on Colonel Harland Sanders' signature white suit and black tie, and include lines such as always try to inspire like I do when I'm making amazing fried chicken.

Digital influencers are one of the odder ways companies are thinking about brand safety. These artificially generated personalities have the clout of flesh-and-blood social media stars, without all that pesky human unpredictability (ignoring, of course, the fact that virtual influencer accounts are also run by humans).

W+K and KFC are getting in on the virtual influencer action just like Renault KADJAR's new ambassador, Lil.

Colonel, newest in the ongoing litany of reimagined reboots, and probably the alter ego of entrepreneur Harland Sanders, has taken over KFC's Instagram feed, where he's showing off his aspirational lifestyle, espousing vapid words of regrammable advice and generally enjoying all the worldly benefits that being an artificial construct has to offer.

Clearly he's living his best life, or at least the best that can be digitally rendered for him. When he's not showing off his abs, branded tattoos or philosophies on doing your thing, he's connecting with nature in that self-centered, cringey way that only true influencers have mastered.

But what about an influencer with only one client is really an influencer, or just branded content? Referring to this, Colonel suuposedly needs other brands to collaborate.

And he, of course has his own media kit,
If you're looking for some inspirational brand collaborations with Colonel, he's already on the Dr. Pepper ad payroll!

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If you're a big KFC fan -we mean a KFC fan that even follows the food chain's account, you sure have met Colonel Sanders. The CGI generated - Instagram guy is not even a real person. Yet, he already has his own audience because of his good-looking guy persona on Instagram.

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https://metro.co.uk/2013/03/14/luton-airport-posts-facebook-joke-about-chicago-plane-crash-which-killed-boy-3542850/

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https://www.joincatapult.com/looking-for-work

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Much of Skittles advertising is built around the candy's rainbow profile. But to honor the LGBT pride celebrations in London this past weekend, the brand stripped off its colors.

"So this is kind of awkward, but we're just gonna go ahead and address the rainbow-colored elephant in the room," reads an uncharacteristically monochromatic open letter from the marketer, addressed to revelers, published in print on Friday. "You have the rainbow ... we have the rainbow ... and usually that's just hunky-dory.

"But this Pride, only one rainbow deserves to be the centre of attention-yours. And we're not going to be the ones to steal your rainbow thunder, no siree."

See the letter here. Click to enlarge:

The day after its launch, instead of the classic red packaging with its rainbow streak and multi-colored candies, Skittles and agency adam&eveDDB handed out a limited-edition run of white bags (with black lettering) containing white candies at the Pride parade in London, where they also appeared in an all-white float.

An animated video brought the same message to viewers:

It's a clever twist on the brand's usual marketing, even if it's a bit disingenuous: Contrary to its rhetoric, Skittles' precise goal here was to steal some of Pride's "rainbow thunder," as the brand describes it, by leveraging interest in the event to draw more attention to itself.

Then again, that's part of the company's job, and it does it relatively tastefully here.

And the more mainstream marketers who loudly support the LGBT community, the better. Because what better proof of acceptance is there than becoming another demographic that corporations openly (and proudly) target?

CREDITS

Client: Mars/Wrigley

Brand: Skittles

Project name: Give the Rainbow

Vice President Marketing, Europe: Rankin Carroll

Confections Marketing Manager: Daniel Newell

Brand Manager: Charlotte Kerr

Agency: adam&eveDDB

Chief Creative Officer Ben Priest

Executive Creative Directors Ben Tollett, Richard Brim

Creatives: Matt Fitch, Mark Lewis

Integrated Producer: Maebh Kelly

Experiential Producer: Emilie Verlander

Project Manager: Caroline Tripp

Managing Partner: Fiona McArthur

Account Director: Brittany Lippett

Account Manager: Matt Dankis

Joint Head of Planning: Jessica Lovell

Senior Planner: David Mortimer

Design: Stanley's King Henry

Head of Design: Alex Fairman

Media agency: Mediacom

Media planner: Lindsey Jordan, Eloise Huntingford

Content production company: cain&abel

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Skittles Sheds Its Rainbow to Celebrate London Pride

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Much of Skittles advertising is built around the candy's rainbow profile. But to honor the LGBT pride celebrations in London this past weekend, the brand stripped off its colors. "So this is kind of awkward, but we're just gonna go ahead and address the rainbow-colored elephant in the room," reads an uncharacteristically monochromatic open letter from the marketer, addressed to revelers, published in print on Friday.

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Going back home for Christmas? Chances are your old room has been changed into a gym, a storage space, or worse, stands as a shrine to your teenage self.

So that begs the question - where are you going to be sleeping?

If you're anything like the people on Twitter then you're probably stuck in a (far too small) single bed with outdated decoration, forced to sleep in the smallest spaces like in the laundry room, or under a piano.

#DuvetknowitsChristmas is the hashtag celebrating all the weird and wonderful ways people will be falling asleep as they go home for the holidays.

The annual tradition surfaces every year after it began by writer Rhodri Marsden years ago when he asked for people to submit their worst sleeping situations.

Without realising it would become a tradition, Rhodri tweeted about his childhood bedroom that had turned into an office. He ended up sleeping in his sister's bedroom and wondered if anybody else had a similar fate.

Over the years, he's been sent pictures of people sharing rooms with terrifying dolls, washing machines, and even a shower at the foot of the 'bed'.

This year, Rhodri has decided to use the funny hashtag to shed light on a serious issue.

Not everyone has a warm room or bed at this time of year so Twitter UK has partnered with homelessness charity Shelter to raise money to prevent people living on the streets.

'It's totally shocking that 320,000 people in  Britain have been swept aside by the housing crisis and now have no place to call home,' said Greg Beales, campaigns director at Shelter.

#DuvetKnowItsChristmas is a brilliant Twitter tradition where people Tweet @Rhodri to share their often hilarious seasonal sleeping arrangements. This year we've partnered with @Rhodri and @Shelter to tell the story. Not everyone has a home at Christmas, please give what you can.

- Twitter UK (@TwitterUK) December 17, 2018

'These figures show the devastating impact homelessness  has on the lives of people right across the country - and why Shelter's services have never been more needed.

'We desperately need action now - to change tomorrow for the hundreds of thousands whose lives will be blighted by homelessness this winter.  That's why we are so pleased to partner with Twitter who will get the message out there that now is the time to act.'

You can see this year's edition on Christmas Eve as people struggle to get a wink of sleep before the big day.

Here are some submissions from previous years:

MORE: What do you argue about with your family on Christmas day?

MORE: How to host a vegan this Christmas - with food you'll really want to eat

MORE: Every Christmas I write a letter to the man that saved my life

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#DuvetknowitsChristmas returns to show people's Christmas sleeping arrangements

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Going back home for Christmas? Chances are your old room has been changed into a gym, a storage space, or worse, stands as a shrine to your teenage self. So that begs the question - where are you going to be sleeping?

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If Burger King and McDonald's can join together, so can the rest of the world. If you're a fan of burgers, it is no surprise that Burger King and McDonald's are hard-core competitors, where Burger King is often guilty of throwing some serious shade McDonald's way. But, for one-day, Burger King went a day without a whopper.

A Day Without Whopper

This week in Argentina, Burger King launched a campaign called a ' Day Without Whopper,' where it stopped selling their top-selling product, The Whopper, for a day in order to re-direct and increase sales to McDonald's. But why would the two fiercest burger competitors join forces?

The reason to initiate the campaign was to help McDonald's with their annual fundraising campaign of donating $2 to Children With Cancer for every Big Mac and signature burger that they sell.

This seemed to resonate with patrons and consumers extremely well, based on the numerous social media posts. The net impact on Burger King's sales wasn't huge, as customers already turned up to the fast food outlet and after getting annoyed, ordered something different.

Unfortunately, the same with McDonald's-they didn't go out of their way to grab a Big Mac-instead turning up to order their favorite burgers.

The marketers behind the campaign should have predicted that this wouldn't have a significant business impact from it, but again, a great marketing strategy no doubt. This only goes to show that marketers continue to market to themselves, instead of consumers.

The biggest power move of all is not neglecting your competition but appreciating them-because you never know when the tides of turned...and you want your ship to be standing tall.

Going into the healthy sector of dieting and marketing, I spoke with Paola Marquez, a Venezuelan native and certified personal trainer and fitness style blogger about the importance of appreciating your competition.

" There are many people promising and offering so many results, and unfortunately, they just haven't walked the walk," Marquez and her husband, Andy explained.

Marquez uses her business to focus on customer retention. " You can do some damage here" by neglecting your competition-" it's a personalized approach and a very in-depth relationship that works for both parties. It's not something many people do these days unless you're connected to the right people."

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Burger King and McDonald's Join Hands to Fight Cancer - Grit Daily

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If Burger King and McDonald's can join together, so can the rest of the world. If you're a fan of burgers, it is no surprise that Burger King and McDonald's are hard-core competitors, where Burger King is often guilty of throwing some serious shade McDonald's way.

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I think it's safe to say that social media has taken over (almost) everyone's life.

Think about it; how many times a day do you open Instagram or Facebook casually just to see what your friends are up to? I know I'm on there at least 20 times a day mindlessly scrolling and brands are smart. they've caught on to this behavior.

That's why while you're scrolling through your friends post you're likely to see a brand's pop in there every so often.

Typically they're easy to pass over, but then there are some that really catch your attention. that's the whole goal, right?

But, what if they catch your attention for the wrong reason? Like offending your values or making you feel totally alienated from their brand?

Brands, big and small, make mistakes on social media all the time and in today's age, they are certainly never forgotten.

When brands put a wedge between themselves and their followers, you can bet everyone is going to be talking about it.

Here are six social media fails for popular companies and how you can avoid making the same mistake for your business:

1. The United States Air Force: Yanny/Laurel

Last week the Yanny/Laurel debate probably took over your social media feed. After listening to this people began splitting into two teams, those that heard Yanny (my team) and those that heard Laurel.

Brands like Skittles, Warby Parker, and many more shared posts that put themselves into the debate most of them saying things along the lines of "#Yanny or #Laurel... am I the only one that hears BRAND NAME?"

Then the U.S. Air Force came in and really crossed a line.

They took a funny internet debate and brought the death of others into the situation.

You can have different opinions about the war itself, but to bring this insensitive tweet to the Yanny/Laurel debate did not put the brand in a good light.

After getting a ton of backlash, the post was removed and the Air Force issued this apology:

But the lesson still stands: Be careful about what and how you newsjack.

For a sensitive topic like death or even war, you should be wary about how you use humor.

On the flip side, Using a playful meme to bring attention to a much more serious matter can come off badly as well. Always make sure that the news stories you try to align yourself with make sense and are on brand.

2. Would You Rather: Rihanna

Ever since they updated their layout and upset almost all of their users, Snapchat has been losing popularity.

One feature of the new update is the prominence of more ads. Now, as you're viewing stories, brands ca interject their ads between each user. Typically, they keep it to brands that are relevant to you, but then there's this ad for a game called Would You Rather?:

The ad asks users if they'd rather Slap Rihanna or Punch Chris Brown, which directly relates to the domestic abuse case from 2009 where Chris Brown physically assaulted Rihanna.

With users already criticizing Snapchat because of their recent updates, the backlash from this was huge! Snapchat removed the ad and then issued this apology "The advert was reviewed and approved in error, as it violates our advertising guidelines. We immediately removed the ad last weekend, once we became aware. We are sorry that this happened."

Even with the apology usage of the app is still on the decline and taught us the valuable lesson to be careful of crossing the line between funny and hurtful.

Rihanna even stated that she did not accept the apology issuing the following statement on her Instagram:

Rihanna is a prominent figure in society and making her look bad and then her not accepting the apology caused even more negative backlash against the app. Again, when you're referencing a very sensitive subject for most users and making light of serious allegations you're diminishing others feelings.

3. Dove: Transformation

Normally, Dove is known for empowering women and focusing on natural, realistic standards of beauty.

The company has been standing on its Real Beauty platform for over 10 years and, most of the time, it's proven successful. Take, for example, successful campaigns like " Real Beauty Sketches " and that focus on making women feel proud of the way they look.

Unfortunately, in a recent post on Facebook by the company, they've taken a ton of steps backward.

The ad in question shows a black woman transformed into a white woman after using Dove body lotion.

This totally goes against their brand message of saying that all beauty is real beauty by showing a woman transforming into an entirely different race after using their product.

It doesn't fit with their overall brand messaging and both alienates and insults a large part of their audience.

After receiving backlash from women of all races saying the ad made them angry and uncomfortable, Dove removed it from Facebook and released this statement:

As we've seen with all the other ads, the apology doesn't do much but the ad does teach us to always review your content through a critical lens. Make sure that it doesn't offend or in this case, totally go against what your brand represents.

4. Department of Education: W.E.B. DuBois

In this social media fail, the Department of Education sent out a tweet to highlight the importance of education. The tweet itself was great, but see if you can spot the issue below.

Did you catch it? Whoever sent out the tweet misspelled DuBois as DeBois and Twitter went off!

Considering that this was coming from an organization that is supposed to stand for the importance of reading, writing, and arithmetic among other things, this mistake reflected badly on their cause and values.

The Department tweeted an apology but again had a spelling error in the tweet causing everyone on Twitter to do a collective Facepalm.

The lesson learned here is, be careful of your spelling and grammar Always be sure to double check what you're posting as it can be seen as not only careless but unprofessional. In this case, the typo even took a jab at the organization's greater platform. So, always proofread!

5. New York Times: Snake People

The New York Times is known for being one of the top newspapers in the world, but that doesn't mean it's exempt from some social media fails.

As a top newspaper, you would expect them to be on their game, triple checking all content before publishing. Well, that wasn't not the case for the article, " President Trump's Exaggerated and Misleading Claims on Trade, "

The editor who worked on the article has a browser extension called "Millennials to Snake People," which changes the word "millennials" to "Snake People," which means every time the word millennial was referenced in the above article, it was changed to the phrase snake people causing a lot of people to be utterly confused as they read the article.

The article with the errors was released exclusively online across the company's social channels making it an easy target for criticism.

The New York Times and the editor himself issued an apology on Twitter:

Even big companies that you would expect to have an extreme vetting process in place can fall victim to a social media fail so make sure you learn from their mistakes and double check EVERYTHING.

6. Starbucks: Blonde Espresso

Starbucks has been the center of a couple controversial stories recently, but this campaign is more focused on a less controversial post.

If you entered any Starbucks store late last year, you saw that it was taken over by ads for their new Blonde Espresso. Not only were the stores taken over but their social media accounts as well.

One ad that really stuck out to myself and a lot of others was this one:
... What?
I've read this post over and over again and it still doesn't make sense to me.

I get the overall point, but the wording is so confusing and the message doesn't make any sense for the product. I know I'm not alone because this ad was made fun off all over the internet.

Starbucks has yet to update their content and when you go , this post is still front and center.

While they haven't done anything, learn from their mistake and make sure your ad is clear and effective. Have others outside your company review it before posting to make sure it doesn't come off like an inside joke or weird riddle.

Key Takeaway

In today's world, social media can be a highly effective way to increase brand awareness and bring in customers -- but only if it's used the right way.

As you're creating your social media campaigns, keep these lessons in mind to make sure you're not offending your audience or crossing the line into being insensitive towards a wider audience.

If you're creating something and you question the content or context of the campaign, bring in a couple other opinions otherwise you may see yourself on our next social media fail list.

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6 Social Media Marketing Failures & What You Can Learn from Them

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I think it's safe to say that social media has taken over (almost) everyone's life. Think about it; how many times a day do you open Instagram or Facebook casually just to see what your friends are up to? I know I'm on there at least 20 times a day mindlessly scrolling and brands are smart.

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8 Content Marketing Tricks That Helped Dollar Shave Club Go Viral Ask any North-American male aged 17-30 whether he's heard of Dollar Shave Club (DSC).

He'll probably say, "Yeah."

And it's not just dudes who know about DSC. A lot of women know about it too because they've bought subscriptions for the men in their lives.

Dollar Shave Club is a classic example of startup that blew up-in a good way.

What was one of the first signs of their success?

A video. A viral video.

If you haven't seen it, you ought to check it out:

The company's launch video, casually titled "Our Blades Are F**king Great," quickly became a sensation on the web.

With punchlines and gags to suit a variety of tastes, the video racked up nearly 5 million views within the first 90 days.

The company's founder, Michael Dubin, had a few aces up his sleeve to help create a professionally cut video.

The CEO studied performing arts at Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB) in New York, where he learned to use the power of comedy to capture the attention of an audience.

He also leveraged his contacts from his time at UCB to bring on a director and connect with a production studio that helped keep costs low. The original DSC launch video was only $4,500.

Most brands trying to produce a tightly choreographed video like the one DSC produced would expect to spend closer to $60k.

But the viral video wasn't pure luck. The whole thing was carefully orchestrated. But let's be honest, most startups aren't Dollar Shave Club.

You probably don't have a background in theater to help you be as funny as DSC's CEO, and it's not likely that you'll create something that goes on to secure over 7 million views.

But don't get caught up on the view count. You can still be successful without trying to chase the same numbers if you break down what DSC did in their quest for a successful launch.

Here are 8 tricks you can pull from their viral campaigns to help you boost your own content strategy.

1. The power of video

Simply put, video is the best format for telling stories. You can connect with a consumer and establish a powerful emotional connection with your audience through the use of video more so than any other content format.

You can flesh out that one concept that resonates with an audience and deliver it with a voice and personality that captivates them through a one-on-one connection.

DSC use of video was a smart move, especially given video usage statistics. HubSpot shares a number of compelling stats that show why diversifying content marketing to include video is a smart move:

92% of mobile video consumers share videos with others

More than a third of all online activity involves watching videos

More than a third of consumers trust video ads

80% of users can recall a video ad they viewed in the last 30 days

Enjoyment of video advertising increases purchase intent by 97% and brand association by 139%

2. Great storytelling

I'm convinced that great storytelling is crucial to a brand's viral success. This happened at DSC.

Here's the story (about the story) from Adam Weber, Dollar Shave Club's CMO.

"What we've really focused in on since our launch video has been all about finding which new stories to tell, to what consumers, and then finding the right distribution platforms to tell them. We take our video storytelling to the obvious places. We do a lot of investment in television, which is a great place to tell a narrative with video."

Here's more of his explanation:

I think in the long term, as you get more into the digital places, the social outlets like YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter - those types of venues are great venues for telling stories via video. Those have become an increasingly larger part of our game plan. They offer a lot of unique capabilities that something like television doesn't offer.

Not every aspect of a marketing strategy needs to contain storytelling, but it should be a part of your marketing strategy, and DSC's success is proof of that. There are three reasons why it works.

First, stories grab the attention of the audience. When you have an impressive and captivating narrative, people will want to satisfy their curiosity-especially if the story is relatable.

Second, having a strong narrative helps build the trust with your audience. People trust you more when you open up and share personal stories with them. It works very similarly when brands share their narratives, and it brings the audience back for more.

And third, stories simply do a better job at grabbing the attention of most people over raw content like statistics or facts. Not to say those aren't interesting at all, but you're guaranteed to capture more interest if you can tell a story around facts and data.

3. They knew their audience

Another thing that stands out with Dollar Shave Club is their knowledge of their target audience. DSC talks to men in a pretty relatable voice, providing something that never existed when it comes to men's grooming products.

Prior to Dollar Shave Club, a lot of the razor content and brand positioning either used a highbrow "gentlemanly" approach or painted men as hairy Neanderthals who needed blades with the edge of a katana to stay smooth.

But how long can you sell products pushing the "closer shave" approach?

Dollar Shave Club shows that when you take the time to unearth what your audience wants, you learn how to talk to them. You can create content that uses language they can relate to, with ideas that make sense.

Every content marketing strategy should begin with good, deep buyer research so you know what they want, how they want it, where to find them and how to get it to them.

4. Focused on the value proposition

No matter how hilarious the video is, all those views won't translate into sales and revenue if you can't connect the product to the consumer in some way. Storytelling is a good start, but so is knowing your audience.

Dollar Shave Club knocked it out of the park by staying focused on the value proposition with their messaging and content, from landing pages to videos.

When you watch the videos, you understand the convenience of never having to shop for replacement blades, and you also appreciate the price. I know, like many men do, the frustration of watching the price of blade replacements climb constantly.

Dollar Shave Club didn't have a unique product. Razors are everywhere. Still, they developed a unique value proposition around their products and made sure to keep that front and center throughout their content marketing campaigns.

5. Easily sharable

Dollar Shave Club includes traditional media placement, like television, in their marketing strategy. But the success of the launch and rapid growth can be attributed to the shareability of their digital content.

By creating a variety of video content, along with stop-motion animations, promoted through social media, they made it easy for prospective customers and consumers to share that content with their friends and family.

It was, and still is, a perfect formula for getting content to spread. Simply create content that triggers positive emotions.

Awe-inspiring content, humor, and strong stories make any piece of content engaging and shareable.

6. Every word has a purpose

Early in the production process, Dubin had a sizable script that ran upwards of four pages. Part of the creative process meant trimming that down. It's an approach you have to take with content, no matter the format.

If content isn't 100% essential to delivering the message, it needs to be cut. Every word, moment, and frame of a video must have a purpose or a point.

Once the content was stripped down to its bare bones, focused only on the brand messaging, the team went to work scripting humorous content to keep the video light-hearted, but sharp-witted and funny.

People understand brand messaging, and when you subvert that, they recognize the risk you took,

says Lucia Aniello who directed the launch video for Dollar Shave Club and worked with Dubin to craft the script.

Learn to trust the funny. If you take a risk, you may get a reward.

A perfect example is the unofficial tagline of the company that acts as the title for the first video. While trying to establish a solid line that would hit the audience hard at the beginning of the video, Aniello suggested "Our blades are f**king great."

I remember Mike's face when I first said that line,

Aniello recalls.

There was a half a second of concern, and then whatever angel sitting on his shoulder-or devil maybe-said, "Go for it."

7. Strategic content release

There are plenty of marketers who will tell you that Dollar Shave Club just got lucky with the content. Some would say the same for the Old Spice commercials that mixed randomness with wit and humor.

Luck certainly plays a role in any piece of content going viral, but timing is important as well. Dollar Shave Club knew this much, which is why they had some strategy for the release of their content.

In fact, the video was technically live online before it was a viral hit as the team showed it around to attract investors and to gauge reactions.

When it came time to launch, the video piggybacked on a funding announcement Dubin knew would gather plenty of media coverage. That pushed a lot of traffic toward the content and ensured it wouldn't disappear among the countless hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day.

You have to think strategically to give your content a fighting chance. Don't try to release content into a vacuum.

8. The content was funny

People don't share content just for the sake of sharing it. Think about the content you've shared most recently. There are likely one or more reasons you did so:

The Dollar Shave Club video, and much of their content marketing, revolves around an amusing, witty, self-deprecating sense of humor. It's compelling in a Jackass/Knoxville kind of way (minus the violent shots to the groin.)

But you don't need to have raw comedic talent or formal training to make a strong connection with your audience. In fact, if you try too hard, your message could come off as forced.

The content resonated with you on a personal level through a common thought or belief

It was inspirational and connected with you emotionally

It was funny or educational-or both

You found value in it and felt your connections would also enjoy it

It worked for DSC because they knew their audience, but more importantly, it was the personality of the brand. There was consistency in the brand messaging and the content itself.

DSC wasn't funny just for the sake of being funny.

Conclusion

The success of Dollar Shave Club's content can be replicated, but it shouldn't be duplicated.

With the right strategy, you can develop content that will captivate your audience. You just need to understand what they want and discover how to talk to them.

With that information, you can diversify and produce content in formats that will be most successful with the people you're trying to target.

You don't need to be funny. You just need to be authentic, sincere, consistent, and willing to listen.

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8 Content Marketing Tricks Helped Dollar Shave Club Go Viral

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8 Content Marketing Tricks That Helped Dollar Shave Club Go Viral Ask any North-American male aged 17-30 whether he's heard of Dollar Shave Club (DSC). He'll probably say, "Yeah." And it's not just dudes who know about DSC. A lot of women know about it too because they've bought subscriptions for the men in their lives.

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PR Table - Disney's Omni-Channel Experience

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PR Table - Disney's Omni-Channel Experience

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Now you can choose MagicBand colors and characters that make it more fun than ever before! Premium MagicBands offer popular designs featuring some of the world's best-loved Disney friends, from Mickey Mouse to Super Heroes and beyond. Or, show your true colors with complimentary MagicBand options in 8 solid hues: pink, red, purple, orange, yellow, green, blue and gray. Pick a different look for each family member or style the gang with matching MagicBands for all-the choice is yours!

Disney Resort hotel Guests and Walt Disney World Passholders can place their MagicBand order by taking the following steps:

Create or sign into your Disney account.

Link your reservation or annual pass to your Disney account. Your pass may have been linked automatically when you purchased it on disneyworld.com.

If you are an Annual Passholder, activate your pass at any Walt Disney World theme park ticket window or Disney Springs Guest Relations location. Please bring your exchange certificate and a valid photo ID, such as a driver's license or passport. Once your pass is activated upon first admittance into the theme parks, your MagicBand order will display in your My Disney Experience account.

To order your MagicBands at pre-arrival prices, visit My MagicBands and Cards. Remember to place your order at least 11 days before your arrival if you would like your MagicBands shipped to your home and at least 6 days before your arrival to have them shipped to your Resort hotel.

For additional options, Guests can purchase MagicBands at Tomorrowland Light & Power Co. in Magic Kingdom park and customize with various image and color combinations.

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MagicBands & Admission Cards | Walt Disney World Resort

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Now you can choose MagicBand colors and characters that make it more fun than ever before! Premium MagicBands offer popular designs featuring some of the world's best-loved Disney friends, from Mickey Mouse to Super Heroes and beyond. Or, show your true colors with complimentary MagicBand options in 8 solid hues: pink, red, purple, orange, yellow, green, blue and gray.

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Over the past three decades, marketing has had to keep up and contend with leaps in technology and our relation to it ever since. While the Sales Era witnessed the invention of the telephone, swiftly followed by the rise of television and the Marketing Department Era. The industry evolution of the Marketing Company Era saw arguably the biggest change in the history of marketing: the first commercially available personal computers.

But what do these developments mean for the future of marketing? Our new Digital Skills report found that many marketing professionals are unsure of their future and believe that digital marketing will be critical to their organization over the next two years. Despite this when marketers were asked about their roles in 30 years' time, 68% in the USA and 61% in the UK believe that their current digital role will definitely or probably still exist in its current form.

Without a crystal ball, it's impossible to see what the future holds, but to look forward, we need to look back. Here, we look at the three major technological developments that have changed the way we look at marketing: the internet, big data and smartphones and predict how they can set the scene for the future.

The advent of the internet

31% of U.S. marketers and 30% in the UK believe that in the next 30 years robots will do much of the digital marketing they currently do

The mass adoption of the internet into everyday life is the single biggest event that has affected marketing over the last three decades. Although early desktop publishing software in the first PCs caused a surge in print marketing in the 1980s, the computers were little more than a glorified typewriter. Launched by Tim Berners-Lee and his team in 1991, the World Wide Web project didn't really take off until the first successful mass-market browser, Netscape, was released in 1994. In the following two years, the number of people using the web soared from 16 million to 70.

As users increased, the landscape evolved, from email to search engines like Yahoo! (1994) and Google (1997) and e-commerce sites like Amazon (1994) and eBay (1995). For marketing, this was a goldmine. Email became a new outbound marketing tool, joining the traditional arsenal of TV, radio and print advertisements and telephone sales. While search engines cataloged the new websites that were being created and allowed users to find the information, products and services they desired from the comfort of their own home.

Marketers used early SEO techniques like keyword stuffing, excessive tagging and backlinks to generate high rankings. One successful company at the time, renowned for its aggressive marketing tactics was Razorfish. Now one of the biggest interactive media agencies, Razorfish was a key player in early SEO, as well as a pioneer of the "server push" possibilities of the Netscape browser.

Big data

All this online activity was - and still is - stored as digital information. A 2000 study found that digital information was the most rapidly growing type of unique information produced, with most text-based information "born digital." This information is also known as big data.

Why? Because there's so much of it! In 2000 it was already replacing its physical counterparts: paper, film and optical (DVD and CD). New discoveries in data recording and storage technology made big data a new and irreplaceable resource for marketing departments.

After the early hype of the internet, the dot-com bubble burst in 2001 and marketing tactics shifted. A greater emphasis was then placed on inbound marketing through information sharing, user- centered design and collaboration. The introduction of social media sites LinkedIn (2002), Myspace (2003), Facebook (2004) and Twitter (2007) made this all the more possible as internet users started sharing more and more personal data online.

Big data has made it possible to track patterns and trends of human behavior, and its role in marketing is only set to increase. Data-driven marketing has gathered enough momentum that a number of companies have emerged that specialize in harnessing this technology, such as Domo, Oracle and Optimove.

For example, Optimove specializes in digital precision marketing using the power of predictive analytics. Its marketing cloud uses big data to acquire the emotional intelligence necessary to connect with customers more effectively and at all times. This has allowed marketers to come up with better strategies that strengthen customer relationships.

Smartphones

Where would we be without smartphones and tablets? These new devices have exploded in the last decade and marketing departments are still catching up. Today, smartphones have overtaken personal computers as the primary digital device for going online with the daily time U.S. adults spend with mobile media on the increase from 46 minutes in 2011 to 258 minutes in 2017.

To evolve into the smart devices that they are today, the early cellphones of the 1970s and 1980s were mainly meant for use in cars while attempts at hand-held computers throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s never really made it. The first true modern smartphone was produced by BlackBerry in 2003 and supported email, text messaging, phone calls and web browsing, but were mainly used by business professionals. It was not until 2007 that smartphones entered the mass market following the ground-breaking release of the iPhone. Look to today and smartphone ownership in the UK alone was 76%, with rapid increases in the proportion of 4G users and a quarter of smartphone owners making no traditional voice calls.

The world has moved online and into our pockets. So, where do we go from here? A future of transparency, personalization and agile marketing.

Transparency

Information is everywhere. According to Unilever's Senior Vice-President of Marketing, Marc Mathieu, marketing used to be about creating a myth and selling it and is now about finding a truth and sharing it.

Customers are now smarter and able to research products in seconds, easily comparing competitors and reviews and unearthing any myths along the way. For sales professionals, this shift is proving a challenge as 70% of the buyer's journey is complete before a buyer even reaches out to sales. SEO improvements have made keyword stuffing and spammy backlinks a thing of the past, paving the way for real value and good content to become the new marketing style.

The need for transparency is obvious when you look into customer perception of brands. Across social media, 19% of consumers find it easy to tell the difference between marketing communications, advertising and branded content and non-commercial content on social media, while 30% have little or no trust in the content they see on Facebook.

In an era where customers are in the driving seat, marketers need to engage consumers in an ongoing conversation, creating real relationships and brand loyalty.

"When consumers get used to transparency, they're also more interested in the quality of what you sell, and are more likely to willingly pay extra. And once people start moving in that direction, the cost of being an unethical provider gets so high that you either change your ways or fade away." - Seth Godin

Personalization

Sharing is everything. It is a huge part of the new internet landscape and the upcoming generation of digital natives is changing the way information is viewed and shared. As the first truly mobile-first generation, Gen Zers as they are known, place a big emphasis on personalization and relevance. Their habits have also evolved compared to Millenials who currently interact with three screens on average, compared to Gen Zers who use five: a smartphone, TV, laptop, desktop, and iPod/iPad.

Personalization can be achieved through using big data or user-generated content. While big data can be used to create a unique experience for individuals, user-generated content empowers customers. This form of content marketing gives marketers an infinite supply of creative input while creating a bond between brand and consumer. Millennials are especially influenced by user generated content campaigns with 84% reporting that user generated content on company websites has at least some influence on what they buy.

A successful example of a user generated campaign is GoPro's Photo of the Day social media campaign, where GoPro features a customer's photo on their social media sites every day to prove to a wider audience the merits of the camera. The public can then vote for their favorite on the GoPro Award page, incentivising people to send in their photos and driving engagement.

Agile marketing

Agile marketing is a measure of how efficient an organization is at achieving its marketing goals. A marketing team that is agile provides a lot of strategy and theoretical results to their stakeholders with a view to executing it quickly. ROI is also a key factor, with agile marketers realizing that new business is more important than new material. In essence, it's about the speed in which new products can be developed or finessed to capitalize on an opportunity and drive a business forward.

One of the reasons for agile marketing being on the rise is social media, where brands have spent the last few years figuring out how to communicate on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. These channels have provided insight into what can work and the type of content that resonates. In addition, many established brands have a personality on social media in terms of tone and voice along with fostering that all-important transparency for consumers. The speed of social media has also shown organizations that a quick response - if done correctly - can be very effective across a range of mediums.

An example of this type of marketing is at the Superbowl when the lights went out. Using this as an opportunity, a few brands took to Twitter to promote their products on the back of the SuperBowl's temporary misfortune. Enter Oreo and Tide.

This type of marketing is on the up and with consumers having an expectation of immediacy, it could go a long way to cultivating conversations and creating a user-brand relationship. Marketers can run real-time dialogues with their customers and are able to listen and connect in ways that feel relevant to their audience.

While the internet has changed everything, it is worth remembering that the old forms of marketing still carry weight. Despite the growth in digital advertising, TV still takes a third of ad spend in the US and continues to grow, albeit at a slower rate. Embracing digital trends does not mean discarding traditional marketing methods. Keep up with the trends while integrating the old for solid marketing success.

Senior Content Specialist

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The Evolution of Digital Marketing: 30 Years in the Past & Future

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Over the past three decades, marketing has had to keep up and contend with leaps in technology and our relation to it ever since. While the Sales Era witnessed the invention of the telephone, swiftly followed by the rise of television and the Marketing Department Era.

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Disruptor bank Monzo doesn't care about traditional media, marketing or banks. The challenger says it cares only about consumers and it's a focus that seems to be working: the bank now has more than 1.2 million users since it was founded in 2015.

Monzo recently toppled First Direct from its near decade-long reign as Britain's best bank for customer service, according to a Which? annual survey. And it has just raised £20m in just three hours in a crowdfunding campaign it will use to fund research, development and marketing.

Yet that growth has not come without difficulties. Despite nearly 336,000 customers taking part in the crowdfunding, its decision to allow customers to go overdrawn to take part has been widely criticised, according a to report by The Times.

Companies are banned by the Financial Conduct Authority from granting loans to customers to buy shares but overdrafts are not covered by the rules.

However, when customers are risking losses, is the bank doing enough to educate their often young and inexperienced consumers about investment? Thomas says the company always tries to be upfront, although admits its mentality of "fixing things and moving on" might need rethinking.

Speaking to Marketing Week at Madfest London last week, the bank's head of marketing, Tristan Thomas, says: "It's really difficult when things go wrong because even internally our natural tendency is to say, 'let's not tell anyone and just fix it and move on', because you know making a big song and dance about it will make it bigger whether it's in the media or with customers and will mean more people know about it.

"Every time we have this internal battle, and every time we share the mistakes and the problems that we've faced the feedback we get is incredibly positive. We have to try to build that into the future when we do make mistakes. Sharing those and how we're going to fix it is how to help customers trust you."

Crowdfunding is a crucial part of its marketing strategy: "For us [the crowdfunding] is all about customer engagement and letting them be a part of it so we don't open it up [to people who aren't customers]."

Building a business on 'radical transparency'

In the rest of the business, it adopts a "radical transparency approach". That means it makes every email sent between colleagues and to customers (although some private conversations and anything containing customer data isn't share) available to anyone in the business so they can see what the company is working on and spot any mistakes. It also sends every customer a copy of it's earnings report.

Thomas explains: "Radical transparency is about two things for us: changing the way that businesses normally interact with customers and also just building the business we want to build."

This is us going from a company that just uses word-of-mouth to one that also uses traditional marketing to supercharge that.

Tristan Thomas, Monzo

He adds: "It's really important we have this radical transparency inside the company so employees at every level know what's going on. They can see the mistakes we make and the success we have and use that as their own building blocks for the future."

That transparency extends to the product. Customers can set monthly budgets for items such as grocery or shopping, while transactions can be seen immediately on its app and notifications set up so customers can keep track of their spending.

Expanding marketing

Not only is Monzo adding more than 100,000 customers a month, it is also growing rapidly internally. It has 550 employees now but that will likely double next year.

In one year the marketing team has tripled from just four staff at the start of 2018 to 12. As the team grows, Thomas say marketing will go from one core team to multiple different teams.

Some 80% of Monzo's marketing is focused on growth through word-of-mouth, with the brand focusing on community meet-ups and hackathons to spread the world. But as the brand grows it is starting to adopt a more traditional marketing approach.

Thomas explains: "All of those activities bring people close to the brand and we're still doing that but we're also looking into traditional marketing as well. We've been running Tube ads in the last couple of weeks and ads on Facebook and Google.

"This is us going from a company that just uses word-of-mouth to one that also uses traditional marketing to supercharge that," he explains.

Thomas joined Monzo not long after the brand launched as community manager before going on to take roles as product manager and interim head of marketing before taking on his current role. While he hasn't worked in either banking or marketing for long, he is at times scathing about both, questioning the budgets some of the big brands have for marketing.

He says: "I am not a trained marketer and before I started at Monzo I was very sceptical of marketing in general because so much of it is spending money and budget for the sake of it. It seems to be about getting status and success because you spent budget or you ran a really innovative campaign but never connecting it to the results at the end.

"The most important thing is being able to say that these activities we ran, whether they were £10 or £1m, this is the impact they had in a really measurable way."

One area where Thomas has changed his mind about marketing is in the use of agencies. Up until now, it has done almost everything in-house but is beginning to look for external help.

Thomas says: "We've been on a journey where two years ago we would say we'd never use agencies and now we're just starting to. In the long-term it will probably be a combination. In general we'd prefer to do everything in-house but I can really see the benefits for agencies providing specialist support."

The future of banking

Monzo's aim is to be more than just a bank or a "butler in the background" and to change the way people think about their money.

Thomas explains: "It's going to take away the stress of money. When you think about the way people interact with their money it's often sitting down at the end of the month and putting a cold towel over their head and saying 'I don't want to look at my bank account'.

"We want to flip that on its head so Monzo works for them. [For example it could] help to tell them when they're spending too much on their energy and helps them switch provider so they tap one button and switch."

Monzo also sees innovation as key and releases new features nearly every week. However, Thomas argues the key is to integrate innovation throughout the business.

Thomas explains: "Innovation is such a buzz word now it's very hard to tell what it means. You see this a lot with big banks where they have whole innovation teams and chief innovation officers and that kind of misses the point, like when companies have a digital team as if the rest of the company is analogue. Digital and innovation should just be key part of you do and be a baseline."

Major banks such as Lloyds are now adopting some of the features that have made Monzo so popular, such as categorising transactions and freezing cards (where users can temporarily suspend a card if it has been lost).

Does Monzo worry it'll lose its edge? "Not really. It's great that traditional banks are building features that challengers innovated on but the thing to remember is they are building features now that we built three years ago. They are trying to build Monzo as it is today and we're much more concentrated on building how Monzo will look in two or three years' time."

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How Monzo's 'radical transparency' approach is disrupting banking

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Disruptor bank Monzo doesn't care about traditional media, marketing or banks. The challenger says it cares only about consumers and it's a focus that seems to be working: the bank now has more than 1.2 million users since it was founded in 2015.

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Tik Tok is helping independent musicians obtain viral success. Linked to personal branding.

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‘Old Town Road’ proves TikTok can launch a hit song

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‘TikTok helped me change my life,’ says Lil Nas X

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3 major shifts in marketing paradigms in the 21st century and where we are going next

"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten." -Bill Gates

One of the best examples of how we both overestimate and underestimate changes in the future is the evolution of consumer behavior throughout this century.

Take a minute and imagine the world we were in 10 years ago (it's hard to believe 2007 was 10 years ago). Facebook was still competing with MySpace for traffic, Amazon was primarily known for selling books, and the iPhone was just released.

Back in those days, the way we shopped for products was drastically different from the way we shop today. Most of us still trusted brick-and-mortar stores, we didn't have price comparison services, and we were at the mercy of large corporations for discounts.

Remember a time before Netflix and iTunes, when we used to rent VHR tapes from Blockbusters? Good times. Video via The Onion.
How did we go from that "primitive" world of shopping to the consumer experience we have today in the digital age? More importantly, where are we going?
That will be the topic of this article.
Today, we will examine three primary paradigm shifts in the marketing world in the last 10 years due to the emergence of digital technologies and platforms such as Facebook, Amazon, and smartphones.
More specifically, we will talk about how, in just 10 years, we went from a linear, retail-focused model (the "first moment of truth"), to today's iterative, digital-centric model of customer behavior (the "accelerated customer decision journey").

But the goal of this article is not merely to explore the history of marketing frameworks. It's also to project the future of marketing and consumer behavior. Based on the three paradigm shifts I mentioned, we will take a glimpse into the next decade to see how we, as business owners, can adapt to this new and ever-shifting world.

Imagine yourself as a customer in the year 2005. You just walked into a grocery store to buy a bottle of shampoo.

You look down the aisle and see over 10 shampoos of different brands and types, and you need to make a decision on which one to purchase.

You may consider several factors when making this decision - the design of the label, the position of that shampoo on the shelf, and the detailed explanation on the label.

The decision process you are going through right now is what marketers at P&G call the " First Moment of Truth."

Coined in 2005, the "Moment of Truth" model is one of the most celebrated marketing frameworks because it so accurately captures the customer's decision process when buying a product (First Moment), experiencing a product (Second Moment of Truth), and eventually becoming loyal to the brand.

You can see an overview of these "moments" in this graphic:

As the shampoo story illustrates, the original "Moment of Truth" model does not incorporate digital technologies or the internet into customers' shopping behavior.

For the purpose of this article, it serves as a starting point.

Now let's add digital to the mix.

Let's go back to the shampoo story again, but in the year 2011.

Now, as a customer, you have sufficient access to smartphones and the internet to go beyond the shelf when evaluating the product.

In fact, you might not be at the physical store at all since ecommerce stores like Amazon and Walmart.com have also become significantly more popular, serving as viable alternatives to the physical retail store.

Therefore, when you need something like a shampoo, you are unlikely to go directly to the store to purchase, but rather go online to search something like "the best shampoo in the world" - and that's the Zero Moment of Truth.

Coined by Google in 2011 ( the entire ebook is linked below), the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) describes how digital channels such as social media and search influence the customer decision journey.

The significance of ZMOT is that it is perhaps the first marketing framework that emphasized the importance of digital channels as a critical part of the customer decision journey. This encouraged companies to start considering "buzzwords" such as SEO and SEM (search engine marketing).

Whereas ZMOT signaled a turning point of the digital age in marketing, a new model popularized by McKinsey in 2009 gave marketers an even more up-to-date way to think about the new, iterative customer journey created by new technologies.

Under the traditional marketing mindset, customers behave in a funnel. They start by becoming aware of the product and brand. Then, they eventually go through several steps to purchase a product and become loyal customers.

In each of the stages, customers may "drop off" in the funnel. The marketer's job here is to prevent these drop-offs by optimizing their messaging in each step of the funnel.

However, with an enormous amount of decision power and information unlocked by smartphones and the internet, customers no longer interact with companies in the linear manner described above.

Instead, the modern customer's decision process is much more iterative. Customers today hop between different stages of the funnel between multiple companies, thanks to the power granted by the internet. Their decision journey looks closer to something like this:

The significance of this new McKinsey model is that it no longer views the customer's journey as their interaction with one individual company.

Instead, it introduced the idea of a "consideration set": a basket of products that customers are considering that may meet their needs.

This "consideration set" model showed companies the importance of providing their customers with enough information for them to make the purchase decision, instead of "plugging the funnels."

This framework, combined with ZMOT, is the most popular marketing framework of this decade. It has been evangelized by countless online courses, and used by businesses ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small ecommerce stores.

However, even these two models are being challenged by digital acceleration.

One of the biggest problems of the two previous frameworks is that they are too slow.

Nowadays, customers are bombarded with thousands of pieces of information every single day over the internet, and their attention span has deteriorated rapidly.

What this means to marketers is that a customer's evaluation cycle is significantly crunched from a stage of multiple days or hours to a matter of minutes or seconds. If your product does not convince customers to buy right now, you have lost that customer's attention forever, and they will probably not come back no matter how much you bombard them with ads.

This simple fact led McKinsey to update their customer decision journey to an updated model, illustrated below:

The significance of this new "accelerated loyalty journey" is that it doesn't just focus on providing information to help customers evaluate the company's products.

It also emphasizes the importance of delivering that information in the shortest amount of time to the most targeted customer segments. This allows marketers to get these customers to take immediate action and convert.
In other words, having the information is not enough. You need to push that information aggressively in front of the customers at the exact moment their needs are generated.
Enabled by advanced technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, more and more companies have started to conduct this type of "hyper-speed targeting" to their audience. This marks a new age of marketing automation and acceleration.

Now that we have examined the three shifts in marketing paradigms in the last 10 years, it's time to talk about where we are going next, and what we can do as modern marketers to stay ahead of these trends.

While these shifts in marketing may seem very different, the underlying theme is the same: customers are becoming more powerful in making their own purchasing decisions.

Gone is the time when we could say, "advertise it and they will come." Now is the time when we have to make products WITH and FOR a specific customer audience in order for them to become a loyal customer.

As the information available to customers proliferate, this trend will only accelerate in the next decade, making "customer-centric" marketing even more important for companies to succeed.

So as marketers, here are some key steps we should take to prevail in this new digital age:

Co-create our brand and product with customers: it's time to talk to our customers face-to-face to understand what they need, what drives them, and how we can best serve them. It is time to stop hiding behind the facade of digital ads. We must develop genuine conversations and relationships with these people that we truly care about.

Invest in employees that really care about your cause: the key to modern marketing is to be authentic and genuine. You cannot achieve true authenticity until everyone in your company deeply cares about what you build and believe in your values. Only by hiring these people who are aligned with your identity can you build deep connections with your customers.

Invest in technology to accurately target your audiences: the only way to make sure you send the right message to the right audience at the right time is using technology. Machine learning and artificial intelligence platforms are getting cheaper and easier to use every day for non-technical marketers. Take advantage of these technologies and elevate your marketing to the next level.

Experiment constantly: the great thing about digital platforms is that they are inexpensive and easy-to-use. This opens up opportunities for a large volume of testing and experimentation in your company. So leverage these new testing opportunities to figure out the best way to reach the people you want to reach.

Do you have any other ideas on what else we can do to stay ahead of the upcoming paradigm shifts in marketing? Comment below!

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The evolution of consumer behavior in the digital age

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3 major shifts in marketing paradigms in the 21st century and where we are going next "We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten."

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Digital marketing is constantly evolving. That makes it more difficult for marketers to determine how best to distinguish themselves when planning their digital marketing campaigns.

What channels will work best? Should I be funny or serious? Is it really all about video? The questions are endless, but the answers can sometimes be simple - if you know where to look. Here are six of the most successful digital marketing campaigns and the lessons you can learn from them.

1. Tell a Story with Emotional Triggers - Heineken

Heineken chose an interesting way to tell a story. Instead of focusing on a single person or narrative, the brand used political conflicts trending in the news to bring people from very different lives together.

Heineken reps first had individuals state their point of view on common items in the news including transgenderism, feminism, and global warming. Then, those with opposing views were paired together and had to complete a number of tasks. It was not until all of the tasks had been completed that they were shown the interviews given by their opposite. After they worked together and watched the interviews, the pairs were told they could stay and discuss their differences over a beer, or they could leave.

The video received more than 17.7 million views and had over 138,000 shares and 324,000 engagements on Facebook. Of 22,000 tweets about the ad, 85% were positive. Heineken also received tons of publicity and appeared in over 625 magazine articles, adding legs to the already successful digital campaign.
Lessons Learned:
Storytelling, especially stories that can inspire an emotional response, can easily go viral. You don't have to focus on your brand to get brand attention. In fact, often using a completely roundabout way to introduce your brand allows more time for people to become engaged, so you can finally get your message out in the end. With 17.7 million views and growing, this video had an emotional approach that encouraged people to consider Heineken as their beer of choice.

2. Create a Safe Space for Less Glamorous Brands - Tena

Not every brand has a socially comfortable stance to take during a digital campaign. In fact, that discomfort can cause many brands to shy away from social media. However, Tena, an adult incontinence brand, decided to embrace its product by creating a safe place where people who share the same challenges can meet.

Incontinence is not charming and is something most people don't talk about. It is for this very reason that Tena decided to showcase the condition so that those with it can see they are not alone. The company's YouTube channel features helpful videos with tips, and if you venture onto the UK site by accident, humorous ads can also be found.

Tena took sharing helpful tips one step further with the launch of its app: My Pelvic Floor Fitness (pff) app. The brand used social media with videos and a contest to get the message out about the app. Tena's audience is offered a place where incontinence is normal, providing them with a community who feels comfortable to share their experiences. The addition of a contest encouraged engagement by asking entrants to share a selfie using the app and doing the exercises.
Lessons Learned:
Social media can work for any brand because your audience shares the same pain points and challenges. It's the great equalizer bringing people together to share their experiences. Even if those experiences are embarrassing or difficult, social media provides a place where people do not feel alone. An app that addresses issues your product does not can raise brand awareness. Contests that go beyond an email entry encourage engagement.

3. Multi-Channel Strategy - Single Grain and Eric Siu

It is never enough to have one forum to share your content. It takes multiple channels and platforms to build brand awareness. Single Grain uses the inherent knowledge of CEO Eric Siu to generate content that works across a number of platforms. That includes a marketing podcast, which he co-hosts with another digital marketing wizard, Neil Patel. "Growth Everywhere" is a series of interviews with various entrepreneurs and thought leaders. Single Grain also has a strong hold on YouTube where it has introduced a new series "Leveling Up," sharing tactical ideas with marketers and business owners.

Single Grain publishes fresh content on a blog four times per week, offering in-depth information in 2,000-word articles. And of course, the brand is also active on social media leveraging relationships through strategic collaborations and showing live webinars or hosting speaker events.
Lessons Learned:
Customers use different platforms, so you have to do the same if you want to reach them. People also respond differently to each platform, and by spreading yourself across multiple channels, you can reach them in a manner that they prefer. Repurposing your topics across all channels provides the most value from the content you create while saving you time and money.

4. User-Generated & Influencer Content - ASOS

ASOS created a #AsSeenOnMe campaign on Instagram that encouraged customers to post images of themselves wearing ASOS outfits. It worked not only to show off products but was also an excellent way to encourage user-generated content.

User-generated content (UGC) is genius as it is self-perpetuating, free, and also showcases a brand through the appreciation of its own customers. Using the hashtag allowed ASOS to share those posts on the ASOS Instagram feed. The company took it two steps further by a) adding product descriptions and numbers to the posts and b) providing a special #AsSeenOnMe section on its website so people could click it and find the product to purchase.

ASOS also uses influencer marketing to promote its latest products and styles. That is an excellent strategy allowing the company to create "fashion insiders" who can promote the brand. Insiders created a community where they engage with each other as well as tag each other in their posts.
Lessons Learned:
User-generated content is an excellent way to have access to exceptional posts that will, in turn, generate sales. Always use a branded hashtag in order to track these types of campaigns. Combine your UGC efforts with an influencer marketing strategy to forge strong relationships and build a community that will promote your product organically. Strong influencer relationships nurture your brand with authentic partnerships that promote and share.

5. Leverage Your Customers' Interests - Wholesome Culture

Using your customers' common interests to generate content for your digital campaigns allows you to stand out in competitive industries. That is the approach used by Wholesome Culture, a fashion brand that specializes in cruelty-free clothing. It uses a plant-based eating and environmentally friendly message in content, as it is something Wholesome Culture share with its customers.

Wholesome Culture approaches content with a few strategies that work well, including pop culture references and viral memes. The memes help the brand gain momentum, so it can then introduce content about its products. All of the messages, including memes, are always animal-friendly to help leverage customers' concerns and interests.

One of those interests is vegan diets. Wholesome Culture caters to this interest by posting vegan recipes with video instructions on Instagram. That is far from fashion content, but it does tie into the brand's philosophy and the philosophy of its customers. Helpful recipes support the plant-based diet and make life easier for customers while also encouraging them to follow the brand. It boosts engagement by speaking the same language as the audience.

Instagram hashtags also lead to discovery such as #veganlife, which draws the right audience to the Wholesome Culture channels. The brand, of course, also has a blog that is rich with vegan tips and more.
Lessons Learned:
Using your audience's interests in your digital marketing efforts allows you to build a community. Pop culture items create interest, allowing you to showcase more brand-related content once you gain followers. Creating content that ties in not only with your audience's philosophy but also your core values will work well across social channels.

6. Add a Touch of Experiential Marketing - Uniqlo

Taking your digital marketing beyond the confines of a handheld device can encourage brand engagement in a completely different way. Uniqlo, a Japanese casual apparel company, launched an interesting digital campaign to get people to see the company in a different light.

The brand developed a unique global image campaign that worked in hand with 100 physical locations. Customers were told to take photos of a series of billboards with moving images to capture product codes. The five-digit code was then uploaded to the campaign website where customers could redeem a clothing sample.

The billboards added an experiential marketing element that was almost event based. People were also encouraged to share their photos on social media to enlist their followers to participate in the promotion. Over 4 million people were reached with the campaign, creating 35,000 new customers for Uniqlo.
Lessons Learned:
Digital marketing can be used to get people out there, wherever "there" might be. You choose where you want to send them, whether it is to an event, a pop-up store or, in this case, a series of billboards that eventually direct them to your website. The key is to use a new approach and reward with experiential marketing to engage customers in an unexpected way.

Final Thoughts

These lessons are designed to help raise the bar in your digital marketing strategy. Finding new ways to engage your audience through effective digital marketing tactics will help you build your customer base.

Distinguish yourself and plan successful digital marketing campaigns with a Professional Diploma in Digital Marketing. Download a brochure today!

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6 of the Best Digital Marketing Campaigns You Can Learn From

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Digital marketing is constantly evolving. That makes it more difficult for marketers to determine how best to distinguish themselves when planning their digital marketing campaigns. What channels will work best? Should I be funny or serious? Is it really all about video?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQovoot_ZUM

Result:
1. Engaged more than 177 thousand times of user.
2. Coke brand market share has gown 20%

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Personalised shopping experience app

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From Levi's to Sephora - we've seen a number of retail brands launch AI-powered chatbots (for the purpose of offering styling tips and advice).
These chatbots are usually built within Facebook Messenger in order to target and communicate with shoppers through social media.

This can have its drawbacks, with nascent technology often delivering rather simplistic results. The fact that the experience is also separate from the brand itself (i.e. within a third party app) means that users may be less inclined to actually buy.

Japanese clothing retailer, Uniqlo, has recently launched a new AI-powered assistant - the difference here being that it is integrated into its own mobile app in Japan. What's more, it is designed to be an all-round 'digital concierge', providing everything from product recommendations to voice-enabled customer service.

So, is Uniqlo IQ a step up in terms of what AI-powered bots can offer? Here's more on the tool and what it offers shoppers.

All kinds of inspiration

Uniqlo IQ is mostly about style inspiration. Instead of shoppers aimlessly browsing through categories and product pages themselves, the app offers a variety of ways for users to search and discover new products.

It does this by presenting clothes through a number of different verticals. For example, by hourly product rankings, occasion type, or items featured in Japanese monthly magazines.

It also offers recommendations and styling advice based on personal preferences, as well as quirkier factors such as the day's 'lucky colour' which is correlated to the user's horoscope. The latter sounds like a particularly fun feature, and nicely balances out the app's highly functional nature.

Overall though, the app is cleverly designed to make the shopping experience more personalised, tailoring recommendations to people and their individual needs. With one in three shoppers said to desire personalised products and services, this strategy doesn't only enhance the user experience, but it can also help to convert browsers into buyers.

Google-powered voice integration

One feature which sets Uniqlo IQ apart is its voice capabilities, as it is integrated into Google Assistant's Japanese app.

By saying "Uniqlo IQ" or "Uniqlo FAQ," users can talk to a Google-powered voice assistant to find out the answers to customer queries, such as shipping times and stock availability.

According to Uniqlo, it is the first example of a brand working so closely with Google and using Google Assistant to create a brand-specific solution.

That being said, voice-powered services within retail is nothing new. We've previously seen the likes of Walmart and Target partner with Google on voice-powered services, with the technology allowing users to order and re-order products just by speaking.

However, Uniqlo IQ's voice-powered assistant is unique in how it aims to fill a customer-service gap. The ability to ask queries rather than manually search for them is another quick-win for users, making voice an integral part of the over-arching brand experience (and customer service) rather than just a transactional one.

There is a question of whether users actually want this voice-powered feature. The Google Assistant integration also means that shoppers will need to know about the service and actively seek it out. Meanwhile, with Uniqlo being a rather niche brand - not exactly a place people go for every day essentials like Target or Walmart - there might not be enough customer need for it to be of real and long-lasting value.

Perhaps Uniqlo will see some uptake from users who already use voice technology on a daily basis. Comscore suggests that one in three voice technology users do so daily, but again, this depends on how much they value this type of service in the context of a retail brand such as Uniqlo.

Online-to-offline commerce

It's been estimated that 81% of shoppers conduct online research before they commit to a purchase, meaning that a large proportion of shoppers might not yet be in the mind-set to make a purchase. Meanwhile, a CRBE survey found that 70% of millennials prefer brick-and-mortar retail than shopping online.

This highlights the conundrum faced by multi-channel retailers, with the fractured nature of consumer behaviour making it even harder to know how to bridge the gap between online and offline retail.

While Uniqlo IQ allows users to purchase products within the app (and continually prompts them to do so), it also aims to turn digital window shoppers into offline buyers. It does this by providing directions to the nearest Uniqlo stores where products the user has been looking are in stock.

This is where Uniqlo IQ is particularly clever, as it caters to all kinds of shopper mindsets, and aims to hook in users regardless of purchase intent and preferred channel. By prompting browsers to head to a nearby store, Uniqlo instils the notion of choice, and helps to prevent 'window shoppers' from abandoning their journey entirely.

Personal customer service

A final point to note is how Uniqlo IQ aims to create a more personal connection with consumers. Founding partner, Rei Inamoto, said to Venture Beat: "There has been a lot of talk about AI in the last few years but most use cases have been toys, not tools. Available through chat, search and even voice activation, this iteration of Uniqlo IQ is the foundation of how Uniqlo will provide customer service on a personal level not just reactively but also proactively."

This means that, whether users want help or inspiration, they can access it in a far more accessible (and actionable) way than ever before.

With increased investment in the use of AI within retail, Uniqlo IQ certainly marks a step up from the disappointing chatbots of old.
Related reading: Readers who want to find out more about the latest innovations in mobile and retail should visit the AI & Innovation stage at the Festival of Marketing 2018, October 10-11 in London.

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How Uniqlo is personalising the shopping experience with Google-powered app - Econsultancy

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From Levi's to Sephora - we've seen a number of retail brands launch AI-powered chatbots (for the purpose of offering styling tips and advice). These chatbots are usually built within Facebook Messenger in order to target and communicate with shoppers through social media.

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Nike x Kaepernick Digital Marketing Strategy

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Nike x Kaepernick Digital Marketing Strategy

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Image credit: Angela Weiss | Getty Images

7 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Nike sent shockwaves around the world in a matter of minutes with its 30th anniversary ad campaign. Television commercials, print and digital pieces featured Colin Kaepernick, a former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. During the 2016-2017 season, the NFL star famously used his public platform to make a bold statement against racial injustice and police brutality: He knelt as the national anthem played before each game.

The act was a form of protest, and it generated great controversy. Political leaders and spectators responded in force. Some boycotted the NFL altogether, and many of them haven't returned. Voices from the business world joined in, too, commenting on what other brands -- and the NFL is a giant -- could learn from the ordeal. The league's ratings took a dive in that first season, when Kaepernick was actively protesting. Later, as Nike released its anniversary campaign, many industry watchers predicted that Nike's stock could see a similar effect.

As it turns out, Nike's stock reached an all-time high by mid-September. The athletics-gear company also saw hefty gains in sales revenue throughout the month. The marketing campaign reinvigorated the controversy around Kaepernick's protest and the issues behind it.

A little more than a month later, a few key takeaways have emerged as branding lessons for the rest of us.

1. Approach controversy wisely.

Kaepernick's protest season was polarizing because it activated two bases. First, it fired up people who claimed he was disrespecting the American flag and those who serve in military. Second, it rallied those who saw a need to defend the First Amendment right to expression through peaceful protest.

With so much heat surrounding Kaepernick, why would Nike take such a gamble on its 30 th anniversary ad?

A certain degree of risk is inherent when a brand approaches any sort of public controversy. But there's a right way and a wrong way to get involved. Remember Pepsi's infamous Kendall Jenner protest ad, which was pulled roughly 24 hours after it first aired? Pepsi and Nike addressed related issues, yet Pepsi's version was a miserable public failure. Contrasting analysis abounds online: Articles about the Pepsi debacle advise brands to stay out of politics and focus instead on cultural trends, while posts on Nike's campaign encourage brands to affirm their values by taking a stance.
Related: 3 Lessons From Pepsi's Controversial Kendall Jenner Protest Ad
The crucial difference between these two ads? Relatability and alignment. Popular figures or influencers must have a real connection to the issue at hand.

Pepsi chose pop-culture figure Jenner, a white woman born into family wealth and celebrity. Many viewers were turned off by the incongruency of Jenner as a stakeholder in the movements against police brutality and racial injustice.

Kaepernick, on the other hand, is biracial. Born to a single mother who made an adoption plan, he was raised from infancy by white parents. As a person of color with a foot in both worlds, he has a believable personal investment in the causes the two ads championed. Kaepernick also narrates the commercial, literally giving him a voice amplified by Nike's massive marketing reach.

2. Embrace the backlash.

In the age of social media, backlash isn't always a terrible thing. Even Pepsi's colossal failure generated enough buzz to help drive a boost in profits. With the right premeditation, brands can wield backlash as a powerful tool to gain exposure and support.

The 2016 presidential election stands as perhaps the greatest proof of the no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity model. On the campaign trail, Donald Trump generated an enormous amount of free press. The big news networks covered it all, nearly every hour -- and even before he'd secured the Republican party's nomination. His brash, unfiltered attitude and blunt words created all sorts of public backlash. Look where he is now.
Related: 7 Things Brands Can Learn From Trump's Social Media Strategy
The same snowball effect holds true in social media marketing. The various platforms give everyone with a device and an internet connection the opportunity to provide his or her two cents on any given issue. You must be aware that when you approach a controversial topic, you'll have a lot of supporters and a lot of detractors. The more the two sides debate, the more your company's name comes up in public discourse.

Nike's Kaepernick ad reignited the media circus that had surrounded much of the 2016-2017 NFL season. An extreme closeup of Kaepernick's face featured prominently in the campaign, and news outlets plastered his image with nearly every headline about Nike's 30th anniversary marketing effort. Supporters voiced their affirmations, and naysayers voiced their strong disapproval. Nike's brand was front and center through it all as revenue soared.
Related: 'Fit Mom' on Strategizing After Online Backlash
3. Know who will rally behind you.

Kaepernick's protest shined a spotlight on the contrasts found within America's population itself. Many of his opponents are primarily older, white conservatives. A good share of his supporters are young, liberal-minded individuals -- many of them people of color.

Nike's leaders anticipated the campaign's ripple effect likely would include a serious boycott from the opposition, but they took a calculated risk. Outraged customers posted videos of themselves burning Nike products and cutting or ripping the company's logo from their gear. But the ad ultimately strengthened Nike's dedicated customer base. Buying Nike products became its own statement of support for the causes Kaepernick represents.
Related: 10 Tactics for Increasing Your Customer Value and Loyalty
4. Never sacrifice values.

Nike's gamble was much bigger than its sizable following of individual customers. The outfitter is one of the NFL's biggest sponsors and produces all the players' jerseys. In fact, the two giants inked a new, eight-year partnership extension in March 2018.

Two months later, the NFL enacted a new policy that all players on the field must stand for the national anthem or be subjected to penalty fines. The rule likely was a reaction to the NFL's drop in ratings and public pressure. From a branding perspective, the Kaepernick ad was a golden opportunity for Nike to cement its values. These principles center on mindsets such as never giving up, rising to the challenge, sacrificing for the greater good and serving a purpose.

A line from the commercial Kaepernick narrates became the headline on still-frame ads featuring his face: "Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything." It's a powerful symbol of living one's values, given that Kaepernick opted out of the final year of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers, becoming a free agent in March 2017 -- before the team could release him. He hasn't played in the NFL since. Kaepernick alleges that the League's team owners have colluded to keep him off the field, and his legal case against the NFL is pending.
Related: A Case Study in Why Core Values Are Crucially Important
The big picture

There are endless ways to craft your messages. Success comes down to how well you can predict the big picture and gauge the ripple effects. Take a page from Nike's playbook next time you contemplate taking on a controversial topic to gain exposure. Done right, it can build unbreakable trust bonds with the loyal customers who identify with you the most. In the process, you'll solidify your company values in a big spotlight.

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4 Branding Lessons From Nike's Colin Kaepernick Ad

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The initial outrage cost Nike some customers but sealed its relationship with a much larger, and growing, customer base.

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Snoop Dogg has partnered payment provider Klarna to become the unlikely face of its latest campaign, called "Get smoooth".

The company, which offers buy-now-pay-later services, joined forces with the Drop it Like it's Hot rapper to bring its "Smoooth payments" motto to the next level.

Klarna's chief marketing officer, David Sandström, told Campaign: "We asked: 'Can one of the smoothest people in the world be even smoother by using our product?' Banks are seen as stiff and we're trying to change that with Snoop Dogg.

"His whole persona has been around entrepreneurship over the last two years, so it is a perfect match for us."

In the first of a series of films by Nord DDB, which debuted today, a one-minute spot unveils the coronation of "Smoooth Dogg", with the musician being presented with a set of flashy knuckle-dusters emblazoned with his new name.

Snoop Dogg can also be seen feeding his dogs a banquet of gold peanut butter and relaxing on his bed which he will "pay for later". The ad was created by Clara Uddman and Petter Swanberg at Nord DDB and the media agency is OMD.

While working on the ads, Snoop Dogg (real name Calvin Broadus) grew increasingly fond of the banking brand - this "ended up with him investing" in Klarna as part of his European investment strategy.

"I've been looking for an opportunity to expand my tech investment portfolio to Europe and seeing the way Klarna operates and how they challenge the status quo, I think it's a match made in heaven. I'm very excited about this partnership," Snoop Dogg said.

Sebastian Siemiatkowski, chief executive of Klarna, commented on the partnership on Twitter: "Snoop is not only a rap legend, but also a successful businessman, with a genuine interest in tech, retail and e-commerce. He has a great understanding of consumer behaviour and is exceptional when it comes to branding and marketing.

"Teaming up with one of the smooothest persons alive opens new doors to Klarna as we grow and develop as a company,"

Following the "Get smoooth" campaign, Snoop Dogg and Klarna will reveal a range of items enabling anyone to "Get smoooth" in the next step in their collaboration.

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Snoop Dogg becomes 'Smoooth Dogg' in Klarna collaboration

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Snoop Dogg has partnered payment provider Klarna to become the unlikely face of its latest campaign, called "Get smoooth". The company, which offers buy-now-pay-later services, joined forces with the Drop it Like it's Hot rapper to bring its "Smoooth payments" motto to the next level.

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Using already established social media accounts to reach an audience not necessarily reached by the brands own account

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Back in the days of three TV networks, AM radio, and newspapers, advertising was a competitive industry that gave us some of the most entertaining marketing campaigns ever.

In today's data driven world, the medium has changed, but the need to get attention, drive a purchase, and shift people's impression of a brand or company is alive and well.

Creating iconic marketing campaigns today might mean going viral, but the basic elements of good marketing haven't changed as much as you might think.

What Is a Marketing Campaign?
via GIPHY
Basically, they're a business' strategic efforts toward promoting a specific company goal.

They're meant to reach customers through a combination of media platforms and influence either their perception of the brand or entice purchasing from them.

A campaign is a many layered thing too. Composed of design elements, like CTAs and landing pages, and sales focuses, like forms and email marketing strategies, all aspects of a great campaign work together to form this singular, original idea.

Advertising plays in as well since you have to get the message out there somehow.

Why Are Marketing Campaigns So Important?

Marketing campaigns contribute a lot toward a company's bigger picture. Even though they can vary in size and scope, they all typically deliver the same benefits when executed well.

It Boosts Brand Awareness.

No matter what medium you advertise your message through, you're exposing your audience to your brand. People will become more and more familiar with your company and your products.
via GIPHY
If your sales increase and customers decide that they like your goods, they'll start sharing it with their friends and family, boosting awareness even more.

A good campaign gets people talking. As long as they're saying good things, take as much free press as you can to supplement your campaign efforts.

It's Budget Friendly.

Unless you're planning on featuring a new commercial on the Yankee stadium jumbotron, then you can keep the cost of your campaign relatively low.

The digital assets needed to build your messaging can be integrated across campaigns and shared over channels. This saves you money that you'd be putting forth on duplicating content, graphics, and the like.

It Attracts New Customers.

A great marketing campaign that engages leads across different platforms will definitely get a lot of positive attention.

It's easy to forget one commercial that you saw out of the corner of your eye while washing dishes. But if you see another ad from the same campaign while scrolling through your Instagram feed, then you've come to recognize the brand

If you're exposed one more time and the product actually has some value or interest to you, you just may be tempted to see what all the hype is about.

Next thing you know, you're giving your payment details.

With online marketing, you now have access to a much larger pool of customers that you wouldn't normally be able to reach, and the right campaign will draw them in.

7 Simple Steps for Running a Successful Marketing Campaign

The perks of outreach and new leads all sound well and good, but planning and launching a successful campaign isn't a quick snap of your fingers. It's not extremely difficult either, though.

There are some pretty simple steps to act as a guide for executing a marketing campaign that's going to yield exciting results for your business.

1. Define Your Objectives and Goals.

Doing so will help align all of your efforts and make sure that your teams are on the same page every step of the way. Objectives will also give you a means to assess your campaigns effectiveness after it's launched.

2. Set a Budget.
via GIPHY
Some campaigns are larger than life and it can be inspirational to try and meet the challenge. But you can easily expend more resources than your business can handle. Setting a budget helps you plan wisely while still meeting your goals.

3. Define Who Your Target Audience Is.

Who is your ideal customer?

A marketing campaign can be introduced to a variety of demographics, but not everyone will be interested in your product or services. Identifying your intended audience will help you target your content and draw in leads who will actually convert into customers.

4. Create and Design Your Marketing Content.

This is the fun part. It requires all of the appropriate teams to work in tandem, crafting engaging content that's going to strengthen and define your brand and bring in new business.

5. Choose What Channels and Mediums You Will Run Your Campaign On.

Keeping your budget in mind, do research on what channels your target audience regularly uses. Certain mediums have more influence over specific demographics than others.
via GIPHY
Look into what's going to have a better ROI for your campaign so that you're maximizing your efforts.

6. Launch the Campaign, and Keep a Close Eye on Metrics.

Monitor the appropriate KPIs for your benchmarks and the intended goal of your campaign. Perform reporting regularly so that you can have true insight on its progress and performance.

7. Analyze the Results and Make Notes for Future Campaigns.

At the end of it all, you should have solid numbers that will indicate what worked and what didn't. No matter whether your campaign went viral or flopped terribly, there should always be some actionable takeaways that you can apply to future campaigns.

25 of the Best Marketing Campaign Examples You Know and Love

Through the years, there have been an astounding number of campaigns introduced to the world. And although not every attempt has performed well, there are some that are so successful that they're still going.

Here are some of our favorite marketing campaign examples of all time.

1. Nike: Just Do It

In 1988, Nike sales were $800 million. They introduced their iconic "Just Do It" campaign.

Within a decade, sales topped $2 billion. "Just Do It" is a core message that still works 30 years later.

2. Apple: Get a Mac

One of the most iconic brand development marketing campaigns, Apple's Mac vs PC campaign of 66 spots ran from 2006 to 2009.

Simple and powerful, this campaign was entertaining and informative, and it helped build Mac into the brand it is today.

3. Pepsi: Is Pepsi OK?

Using celebrity endorsements in Super Bowl ads isn't exactly a new trend, but Pepsi pulled some serious star power in their 2019 campaign.

Steve Carrell, Lil John, and Cardi B finally put an end to the debate on if Pepsi is OK or not.

4. IHOP: IHOb

One of the greatest tricks in recent years, the International House of Pancakes had everyone up in arms over its new commitment to... burgers?

It never wound up actually happening, but it did generate so much buzz that social media went a little insane.

5. Absolut Vodka: The Bottle Campaign

This print campaign began in 1980 and made the Absolut bottle the most recognized bottle in the world. The campaign consisted of 1,500 ads and ran for 25 straight years.

When it began, Absolut had a 2.5 percent market share. By the time it ended, the company was importing 4.5 million cases a year, which made up half of the vodka market!

6. Red Bull: Stratos

The Red Bull Stratos campaign is an example of marketing for the modern age!

Skydiver Felix Baumgartner flew 24 miles to the edge of space over New Mexico and jumped. He free-fell for over six minutes before deploying his parachute and floating back to earth. This publicity stunt was one of the most live streamed events in the history of the Internet.

7. Marlboro: The Marlboro Man

The Marlboro man ads started in 1995, and they were one of the most powerful, and hated, marketing campaigns of the 20 th century.

The campaign showcased the "can do spirit of the American cowboy" and made Marlboro one of the best selling cigarette brands in the world.

8. Dos Equis: The Most Interesting Man in the World

Until this campaign started in 2006, beer advertising was about drinking the right beer to get attractive women to like you. The Most Interesting Man in the World positioned Dos Equis as the beer for the sophisticated drinker.

The ending - "I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis" - brought the message home.

9. Progressive Insurance: Flo

The traditional approach to advertising insurance ranged from staid to sappy. That is until 2008.

Progressive introduced the world to "Flo." After over 100 commercials, she's achieved cult status and changed the way insurance is marketed forever.

10. California Milk Processor Board: Got Milk?

Got Milk? is one of the most identified worldwide marketing campaigns EVER. Between 1993 and 1994, consumption increased seven percent by 13.5 million gallons.

The first ad appeared in 1993 and was just retired after 25 years.

11. Kay Jewelers: Every Kiss Begins with Kay

Everyone knows that "every kiss begins with Kay," right? Like, every kiss.

Kay Jewelers definitely found a good slogan back in 1985. The line is incredibly popular and often quoted when referencing diamonds in general.

12. Dove: Campaign for Real Beauty

In 2004, Unilever's research found that only four percent of women considered themselves beautiful. After working with Ogilvy and Mather, Unilever launched the Campaign for Real Beauty.

It exploded.

Talk shows, women's magazines, and TV news began discussing modern female beauty standards. The campaign evolved into a series of viral videos, commercials, and print ads that changed how we all look at beauty.

13. Chipotle: Back to the Start

Originally conceived as an introductory video for their loyalty program, the "Back to the Start" campaign made a huge splash!

The reaction was so overwhelming that it became the chain's first national spot. The full two-minute video ran during the 2012 Grammy Awards and ushered in the "branded-content" era.

14. Budweiser: Wassup?

Beer brands have been using humor forever. But few have accomplished what Budweiser did with a single word.

Wassup?

The famous campaign ad was first broadcast in 1999. It only ran for two short years, but it became the most memed ad of the early 21 st century.

15. American Legacy: Truth

What the Marlboro Man did for cigarettes back in the '90s, the American Legacy "Truth" campaign is undoing 25 years later. The concept is to push back against the lies of big tobacco, and it's working.

Smoking rates in the U.S. are at the lowest levels in history, thanks in part to this campaign!

26. Old Spice: The Man Your Man Can Smell Like

This campaign debuted in 2010, as sales for Old Spice were declining. Old Spice determined the path to growth lay with women.

This simple, funny campaign sold directly to women. It was a success and the star Isaiah Mustafa took it to social media. The company rolled out 186 video responses that gained 11 million views on social media, taking the campaign viral.

17. Apple: 1984 Super Bowl Ad

This ad, a groundbreaking introduction to Apple, is their most famous commercial, and it aired just one time, during the 1984 Super Bowl.

It brilliantly introduced the world to Apple Computers.

18. Avis: We Try Harder

This campaign rocked the advertising world back in 1963 when it first appeared. Pointing out that they had to try harder because they were number two, Avis wasn't number two for long!

This classic campaign moved from print to TV, radio, and the internet.

19. BMW: The Hire

In 2001 and 2002, BMW created a classic online campaign that leveraged the power of the internet like no brand had before.

BMW films was a form of branded content that consisted of eight short films created by popular filmmakers from around the world and featured actors like Mickey Rourke, Forest Whitaker, Don Cheadle, and Madonna.

20. Aerie: #AerieREAL

Aerie's campaign to promote body positivity and celebrate women uniquely as they are has been a huge success for them.

With inspiring celebrity role models, the retail company is more focused on demolishing unrealistic beauty standards than pumping out sales. But they seem to be doing both just fine.

21. Target: #TargetTalent

Target recently started a new social media campaign with some of the top influencers in the game right now.

With the superstore expanding its catalog to be an all-in-one stop shop, their new friends are really boosting an already high brand awareness.

22. Coca-Cola: Share a Coke

This campaign has grown remarkably since its start in 2014. Consumers can buy Coke bottles with the name printed on the labels, which is cool enough. But the ads are endearing too.

Got a unique name? You can go online and order a custom case for yourself.

23. Bud Light: Dilly Dilly!

Bud Light may not have realized what was going to happen when they launched this campaign in 2017.

Featuring a medieval times set, the commercial quickly became viral and had customers cheers-ing with "dilly dilly" for a while. It boosted beer sales substantially for the brand.

24. Allstate: Mayhem

Started in 2010, fans have loved watching just what trouble Mayhem will start for unsuspecting Allstate customers.

It's a hilarious way of highlighting how you never know what disaster might come to ruin your day.

25. Twix: It's Time to DeSIDE

Twix renewed its appeal by creating a division among candy fans with a debate over which Twix is the better one: left or right?

The campaign evolved over time with the company creating a new product of "all lefts" and "all rights." Whether that's actually in the wrapper or not is also up for debate, but it did its job and brought Twix back to top of mind.

These 25 iconic marketing campaigns shaped the way we market today. There's a lot to learn from them, so be sure to study them and whatever new ideas take over the world.

They'll help you understand marketing best practices, regardless of changing mediums.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
25 of the Best Marketing Campaigns of All Time That Spark Inspiration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Back in the days of three TV networks, AM radio, and newspapers, advertising was a competitive industry that gave us some of the most entertaining marketing campaigns ever. In today's data driven world, the medium has changed, but the need to get attention, drive a purchase, and shift people's impression of a brand or company is alive and well.

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Choose your own adventure thread through twitter to show how what type of decisions a Red Cross negotiator would have to make.
https://twitter.com/ICRC/status/1166008441804120064

# data[].attributes.body
Snapchat offers branded lenses as its native advertising filter, allowing companies to create filters that can be added to any selfie. Creating branded filters coincides with the platform's features.

e.g. Taco Bell using a Taco Filter for Cinco De Mayo in the US

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Back in the days of three TV networks, AM radio, and newspapers, advertising was a competitive industry that gave us some of the most entertaining marketing campaigns ever.

In today's data driven world, the medium has changed, but the need to get attention, drive a purchase, and shift people's impression of a brand or company is alive and well.

Creating iconic marketing campaigns today might mean going viral, but the basic elements of good marketing haven't changed as much as you might think.

What Is a Marketing Campaign?
via GIPHY
Basically, they're a business' strategic efforts toward promoting a specific company goal.

They're meant to reach customers through a combination of media platforms and influence either their perception of the brand or entice purchasing from them.

A campaign is a many layered thing too. Composed of design elements, like CTAs and landing pages, and sales focuses, like forms and email marketing strategies, all aspects of a great campaign work together to form this singular, original idea.

Advertising plays in as well since you have to get the message out there somehow.

Why Are Marketing Campaigns So Important?

Marketing campaigns contribute a lot toward a company's bigger picture. Even though they can vary in size and scope, they all typically deliver the same benefits when executed well.

It Boosts Brand Awareness.

No matter what medium you advertise your message through, you're exposing your audience to your brand. People will become more and more familiar with your company and your products.
via GIPHY
If your sales increase and customers decide that they like your goods, they'll start sharing it with their friends and family, boosting awareness even more.

A good campaign gets people talking. As long as they're saying good things, take as much free press as you can to supplement your campaign efforts.

It's Budget Friendly.

Unless you're planning on featuring a new commercial on the Yankee stadium jumbotron, then you can keep the cost of your campaign relatively low.

The digital assets needed to build your messaging can be integrated across campaigns and shared over channels. This saves you money that you'd be putting forth on duplicating content, graphics, and the like.

It Attracts New Customers.

A great marketing campaign that engages leads across different platforms will definitely get a lot of positive attention.

It's easy to forget one commercial that you saw out of the corner of your eye while washing dishes. But if you see another ad from the same campaign while scrolling through your Instagram feed, then you've come to recognize the brand

If you're exposed one more time and the product actually has some value or interest to you, you just may be tempted to see what all the hype is about.

Next thing you know, you're giving your payment details.

With online marketing, you now have access to a much larger pool of customers that you wouldn't normally be able to reach, and the right campaign will draw them in.

7 Simple Steps for Running a Successful Marketing Campaign

The perks of outreach and new leads all sound well and good, but planning and launching a successful campaign isn't a quick snap of your fingers. It's not extremely difficult either, though.

There are some pretty simple steps to act as a guide for executing a marketing campaign that's going to yield exciting results for your business.

1. Define Your Objectives and Goals.

Doing so will help align all of your efforts and make sure that your teams are on the same page every step of the way. Objectives will also give you a means to assess your campaigns effectiveness after it's launched.

2. Set a Budget.
via GIPHY
Some campaigns are larger than life and it can be inspirational to try and meet the challenge. But you can easily expend more resources than your business can handle. Setting a budget helps you plan wisely while still meeting your goals.

3. Define Who Your Target Audience Is.

Who is your ideal customer?

A marketing campaign can be introduced to a variety of demographics, but not everyone will be interested in your product or services. Identifying your intended audience will help you target your content and draw in leads who will actually convert into customers.

4. Create and Design Your Marketing Content.

This is the fun part. It requires all of the appropriate teams to work in tandem, crafting engaging content that's going to strengthen and define your brand and bring in new business.

5. Choose What Channels and Mediums You Will Run Your Campaign On.

Keeping your budget in mind, do research on what channels your target audience regularly uses. Certain mediums have more influence over specific demographics than others.
via GIPHY
Look into what's going to have a better ROI for your campaign so that you're maximizing your efforts.

6. Launch the Campaign, and Keep a Close Eye on Metrics.

Monitor the appropriate KPIs for your benchmarks and the intended goal of your campaign. Perform reporting regularly so that you can have true insight on its progress and performance.

7. Analyze the Results and Make Notes for Future Campaigns.

At the end of it all, you should have solid numbers that will indicate what worked and what didn't. No matter whether your campaign went viral or flopped terribly, there should always be some actionable takeaways that you can apply to future campaigns.

25 of the Best Marketing Campaign Examples You Know and Love

Through the years, there have been an astounding number of campaigns introduced to the world. And although not every attempt has performed well, there are some that are so successful that they're still going.

Here are some of our favorite marketing campaign examples of all time.

1. Nike: Just Do It

In 1988, Nike sales were $800 million. They introduced their iconic "Just Do It" campaign.

Within a decade, sales topped $2 billion. "Just Do It" is a core message that still works 30 years later.

2. Apple: Get a Mac

One of the most iconic brand development marketing campaigns, Apple's Mac vs PC campaign of 66 spots ran from 2006 to 2009.

Simple and powerful, this campaign was entertaining and informative, and it helped build Mac into the brand it is today.

3. Pepsi: Is Pepsi OK?

Using celebrity endorsements in Super Bowl ads isn't exactly a new trend, but Pepsi pulled some serious star power in their 2019 campaign.

Steve Carrell, Lil John, and Cardi B finally put an end to the debate on if Pepsi is OK or not.

4. IHOP: IHOb

One of the greatest tricks in recent years, the International House of Pancakes had everyone up in arms over its new commitment to... burgers?

It never wound up actually happening, but it did generate so much buzz that social media went a little insane.

5. Absolut Vodka: The Bottle Campaign

This print campaign began in 1980 and made the Absolut bottle the most recognized bottle in the world. The campaign consisted of 1,500 ads and ran for 25 straight years.

When it began, Absolut had a 2.5 percent market share. By the time it ended, the company was importing 4.5 million cases a year, which made up half of the vodka market!

6. Red Bull: Stratos

The Red Bull Stratos campaign is an example of marketing for the modern age!

Skydiver Felix Baumgartner flew 24 miles to the edge of space over New Mexico and jumped. He free-fell for over six minutes before deploying his parachute and floating back to earth. This publicity stunt was one of the most live streamed events in the history of the Internet.

7. Marlboro: The Marlboro Man

The Marlboro man ads started in 1995, and they were one of the most powerful, and hated, marketing campaigns of the 20 th century.

The campaign showcased the "can do spirit of the American cowboy" and made Marlboro one of the best selling cigarette brands in the world.

8. Dos Equis: The Most Interesting Man in the World

Until this campaign started in 2006, beer advertising was about drinking the right beer to get attractive women to like you. The Most Interesting Man in the World positioned Dos Equis as the beer for the sophisticated drinker.

The ending - "I don't always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis" - brought the message home.

9. Progressive Insurance: Flo

The traditional approach to advertising insurance ranged from staid to sappy. That is until 2008.

Progressive introduced the world to "Flo." After over 100 commercials, she's achieved cult status and changed the way insurance is marketed forever.

10. California Milk Processor Board: Got Milk?

Got Milk? is one of the most identified worldwide marketing campaigns EVER. Between 1993 and 1994, consumption increased seven percent by 13.5 million gallons.

The first ad appeared in 1993 and was just retired after 25 years.

11. Kay Jewelers: Every Kiss Begins with Kay

Everyone knows that "every kiss begins with Kay," right? Like, every kiss.

Kay Jewelers definitely found a good slogan back in 1985. The line is incredibly popular and often quoted when referencing diamonds in general.

12. Dove: Campaign for Real Beauty

In 2004, Unilever's research found that only four percent of women considered themselves beautiful. After working with Ogilvy and Mather, Unilever launched the Campaign for Real Beauty.

It exploded.

Talk shows, women's magazines, and TV news began discussing modern female beauty standards. The campaign evolved into a series of viral videos, commercials, and print ads that changed how we all look at beauty.

13. Chipotle: Back to the Start

Originally conceived as an introductory video for their loyalty program, the "Back to the Start" campaign made a huge splash!

The reaction was so overwhelming that it became the chain's first national spot. The full two-minute video ran during the 2012 Grammy Awards and ushered in the "branded-content" era.

14. Budweiser: Wassup?

Beer brands have been using humor forever. But few have accomplished what Budweiser did with a single word.

Wassup?

The famous campaign ad was first broadcast in 1999. It only ran for two short years, but it became the most memed ad of the early 21 st century.

15. American Legacy: Truth

What the Marlboro Man did for cigarettes back in the '90s, the American Legacy "Truth" campaign is undoing 25 years later. The concept is to push back against the lies of big tobacco, and it's working.

Smoking rates in the U.S. are at the lowest levels in history, thanks in part to this campaign!

26. Old Spice: The Man Your Man Can Smell Like

This campaign debuted in 2010, as sales for Old Spice were declining. Old Spice determined the path to growth lay with women.

This simple, funny campaign sold directly to women. It was a success and the star Isaiah Mustafa took it to social media. The company rolled out 186 video responses that gained 11 million views on social media, taking the campaign viral.

17. Apple: 1984 Super Bowl Ad

This ad, a groundbreaking introduction to Apple, is their most famous commercial, and it aired just one time, during the 1984 Super Bowl.

It brilliantly introduced the world to Apple Computers.

18. Avis: We Try Harder

This campaign rocked the advertising world back in 1963 when it first appeared. Pointing out that they had to try harder because they were number two, Avis wasn't number two for long!

This classic campaign moved from print to TV, radio, and the internet.

19. BMW: The Hire

In 2001 and 2002, BMW created a classic online campaign that leveraged the power of the internet like no brand had before.

BMW films was a form of branded content that consisted of eight short films created by popular filmmakers from around the world and featured actors like Mickey Rourke, Forest Whitaker, Don Cheadle, and Madonna.

20. Aerie: #AerieREAL

Aerie's campaign to promote body positivity and celebrate women uniquely as they are has been a huge success for them.

With inspiring celebrity role models, the retail company is more focused on demolishing unrealistic beauty standards than pumping out sales. But they seem to be doing both just fine.

21. Target: #TargetTalent

Target recently started a new social media campaign with some of the top influencers in the game right now.

With the superstore expanding its catalog to be an all-in-one stop shop, their new friends are really boosting an already high brand awareness.

22. Coca-Cola: Share a Coke

This campaign has grown remarkably since its start in 2014. Consumers can buy Coke bottles with the name printed on the labels, which is cool enough. But the ads are endearing too.

Got a unique name? You can go online and order a custom case for yourself.

23. Bud Light: Dilly Dilly!

Bud Light may not have realized what was going to happen when they launched this campaign in 2017.

Featuring a medieval times set, the commercial quickly became viral and had customers cheers-ing with "dilly dilly" for a while. It boosted beer sales substantially for the brand.

24. Allstate: Mayhem

Started in 2010, fans have loved watching just what trouble Mayhem will start for unsuspecting Allstate customers.

It's a hilarious way of highlighting how you never know what disaster might come to ruin your day.

25. Twix: It's Time to DeSIDE

Twix renewed its appeal by creating a division among candy fans with a debate over which Twix is the better one: left or right?

The campaign evolved over time with the company creating a new product of "all lefts" and "all rights." Whether that's actually in the wrapper or not is also up for debate, but it did its job and brought Twix back to top of mind.

These 25 iconic marketing campaigns shaped the way we market today. There's a lot to learn from them, so be sure to study them and whatever new ideas take over the world.

They'll help you understand marketing best practices, regardless of changing mediums.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
25 of the Best Marketing Campaigns of All Time That Spark Inspiration

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Back in the days of three TV networks, AM radio, and newspapers, advertising was a competitive industry that gave us some of the most entertaining marketing campaigns ever. In today's data driven world, the medium has changed, but the need to get attention, drive a purchase, and shift people's impression of a brand or company is alive and well.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A series of poster for Breast Cancer Foundation to raise awareness on the danger of breast cancer among young women.

# data[].attributes.body
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guC65Icfc6k

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The age-old debate of digital versus traditional has once again reared its head and this time, it involves the effectiveness of PR methods - both new and old.

The purpose of PR, on the whole, remains the same, an exercise that is used primarily by agencies to increase brand awareness, with the main goal usually to increase visibility amongst target audiences and to help generate sales.

Over time, traditional PR agencies have evolved with the ever-changing technological world and it has now split the functioning's of PR into traditional and digital.

With online consumption only getting bigger and better - can traditional PR still keep up with demand in the way that digital can?

Working Together

Of course, very few 'traditional PR' agencies are still totally traditional, with many dabbling in digital in some way or another, even if just by adding some sort of digital service on top of their traditional methods. But, the treatment of the digital sphere as just an 'add on service' in today's climate isn't enough, with an up to date knowledge of all things online proving more and more fundamental to successful marketing campaigns.

With more brands than ever finding their target audiences mainly consume their information online, it's a reality that traditional PR methods alone will probably have little benefit, with data-led digital marketing agencies being able to easily measure the successes of campaigns to find out what works and what doesn't.

However, on the other hand, neglecting traditional PR methods, such as gaining newspaper coverage, launch parties, stunts and events, and you run the risk of a reduction in brand awareness and brand loyalty, something that, arguably, is also fundamental to the success of a campaign.

The conclusion is obvious, a combination of up-to-date, digitally focused activity, alongside elements of traditional PR and comms, will help to maximise results and give a great ROI to brands!
For more information about influencer marketing or indeed info on any of our digital marketing services, feel free to get in touch with me today on 0800 011 9715 or visit our landing page for Fashion Digital Marketing.

Published By

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DIGITAL VS TRADITIONAL: Which PR style is most useful for your business?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The age-old debate of digital versus traditional has once again reared its head and this time, it involves the effectiveness of PR methods - both new and old.

# data[].attributes.headline
PR Table - Social Campaign to Increase Brand Awareness

# data[].attributes.subject
PR Table - Social Campaign to Increase Brand Awareness

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https://www.mosquitodigital.co.uk/our-work/zoflora

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https://digitalagencynetwork.com/samsungs-latest-video-makes-picture-frames-great-again/

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digital marketing is using digital channels like social media to reach target audience to achieve an organizational goal.

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(Digital marketing is) "Achieving marketing objectives through applying digital technologies and media."
Dave Chaffey, Digital Marketing: Strategy, implementation & practice

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We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵

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We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵

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We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…🧵

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Mobile & in-store experience

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We collaborated with one of the UK's biggest retailers to deliver a mobile account management solution that drives scheme interaction

The brief

Following a report produced by the Co-op, it was clear many members were craving a better way to manage their membership through a mobile solution.

The Co-op embarked on a journey to find out if a mobile app would help members to manage their memberships with greater ease and efficiency.

Members told them they wanted a digital card on their phone, with the ability to access their loyalty scheme benefits and view their transaction history all in one place.

What would the Co-op get out of this? Greater engagement with happier customers.

What we did

We worked with their team to build the Co-op Membership app for both iOS and Android platforms.

Our team worked on-site alongside the Co-op's design team, ensuring there was a constant open communication channel whenever it was needed.

Being one of the UK's most established retailers brings a plethora of legacy IT system challenges. Successfully integrating a new native mobile app solution to these legacy systems was essential, to ensure that the mobile app would work as users expected.

Far from being just a digital card and a tool to view past transactions, through the app, 1% of a member's yearly spend can be allocated to a local cause.

We developed a simple, intuitive UX/UI so members can easily review and select which local causes they would like to choose.

The results

The Co-op Membership app was launched in beta last year for review by Co-op employees and members. We provided technical support throughout this period, as well as consultancy surrounding further app features and developments for the Co-op's long-term digital roadmap. One example of this is the digital offers feature, introduced to the app towards the end of 2018.

The paperless version of coupons, it allows members to scroll through current Co-op offers and add two to their card per week, to be redeemed in-store using their smartphone. We're already expanding the future of this feature with their team, such as using AI to make these offers more "intelligent", suggesting promotions to members based on their information and buying behaviours.

Now, after 12 months of testing, improving and enhancing the original version of the app, it was successfully launched in September 2019 to the wider Co-op membership base.

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Our case study: the Co-op Membership app | Apadmi

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We collaborated with one of the UK's biggest retailers to deliver a mobile account management solution that drives scheme interaction Following a report produced by the Co-op, it was clear many members were craving a better way to manage their membership through a mobile solution.