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Instagram launches “Stories,” a Snapchatty feature for imperfect sharing

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Instagram launches “Stories,” a Snapchatty feature for imperfect sharing

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People only post the highlights of their life on Instagram, so today the app adds its own version of "Stories" to poach goofy, off-the-cuff, everyday content from Snapchat. It works exactly like Snapchat Stories, allowing you to post 24-hour ephemeral photo and video slideshows that disappear. But because Instagram Stories appear at the top of the old feed, your followers will inevitably see them without you needing to build a new audience in a different app.

Instagram Stories is rolling out globally for iOS and Android over the next few weeks.

You could call it Snapchat for adults, a way for brands to post more without overwhelming people's feeds, an alternative to Instagram's Like-driven success theater or a blatant ripoff.

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom wouldn't disagree with you. When confronted about Instagram Stories being a clone of Snapchat Stories, he surprisingly admitted "They deserve all the credit," but insisted "This isn't about who invented something. This is about a format, and how you take it to a network and put your own spin on it." Read my full interview with Kevin Systrom here.

The moments in-between

With 500 million monthly active users, 300 million daily actives and now 250 million users on its Direct messaging feature, Instagram is enormous expansion for what Snapchat pioneered.

Facebook wants to own more unique, must-see original sharing that was reportedly down 15 percent year over year as of early 2016. But boosting sharing frequency has been hard for Instagram because people only post their most polished selfies, sunsets and meals.

Systrom admits he hadn't shared to Instagram at all during the six days before we met because none of the moments seemed special enough. "Instagram is a curated feed, but you only get to see the highlights," Systrom laments. Instagram's sweat and blemish-hiding filters encouraged that social norm. And while Instagram recently started sorting its feed, people still worry that posting multiple times in a row will seem like they're spamming their friends, so they hold back.

Stories creates a place for content that's not "good enough" for the Instagram feed, or at least is too silly to fit in amongst the art. Because everything disappears, you don't have to be ashamed of that awkward face or stupid joke forever the way things posted to your real Instagram profile reflect on you forever.

Systrom explains that "It basically solves a problem for all these people who want to take a ton of photos of an event or something in their lives, but want to manage what their profile looks like and not bomb feed, obviously, as that's one of the no-nos on Instagram."

Facebook has tried multiple times to copy Snapchat with standalone apps like Poke, Slingshot and Instagram Bolt. No one wanted another app, and they all failed and were pulled from the stores.

But Instagram may have found a breakthrough for solving this problem. Instead of burying a Snapchat competitor in another app people don't need, it's put it front and center of one they use all the time. And instead of trying to be special with weird mechanics like Slingshot's reply-to-reveal content, it's cloned Snapchat Stories down to the pixel because it's already proven to work.

How Instagram Stories works (déjà vu)
For a quick guide to how Instagram Stories works, check out our animated instruction manual.
It's easiest to think of Instagram Stories in terms of what's the same and what's different from Snapchat Stories.

The same

The Stories format laces the last 24 hours of 10-second-max photos and videos you've shared into a slideshow you can tap to fast-forward through

Everything you post disappears after 1 day

You shoot full-screen in the app or upload things from the last 24 hours of your camera roll (recently added to Snapchat with Memories)

You adorn your photos with drawings, text, emojis and swipeable color filters

You can save your individual Story slides before or after posting them

Your followers voluntarily tap in to pull your Story and view it, instead of it being pushed into a single feed

People can swipe up to reply to your Stories, which are delivered through Instagram Direct private messages

You can see who's viewed your Story

Different

Instagram Stories appear in a row at the top of the main feed instead of on a separate screen like Snapchat, and are sorted by who you interact with most, not purely reverse chronological order like Snapchat

Anyone you allow to follow you on Instagram can see your Instagram Stories, though you can also block people, as opposed to building a separate network on Snapchat

You don't have to be following someone to view their Instagram Stories, which can be viewed from their profile as long as they're public

You can swipe right or tap the Stories icon in the top left to open the Stories camera, as opposed to Snapchat defaulting to the camera

You can hold the screen to pause a slideshow, or tap the left side to go back a slide, as opposed to Snapchat's time-limited, constantly progressing Stories

You can't add old content to Instagram Stories unless you re-import or screenshot, while Snapchat lets you share old Memories with a white border and timestamp around them

Instagram offers three brush types for drawing: standard, translucent highlighter and color-outlined neon, as opposed to Snapchat's single brush

Instagram offers custom color control for drawing with an easy picker, as well as pre-made palettes like earth-tones or grayscale, while Snapchat custom color control is much more clumsy

Instagram currently lacks location filters, native selfie lens filters, stickers, 3D stickers and speed effects, but you can save content from third-party apps like Facebook-owned MSQRD and then share them

You can't see who screenshotted your Instagram Story, while Snapchat warns you

You can't save your whole day's Story like on Snapchat, but you can post slides from your Story to the permanent Instagram feed

Eventually, Instagram Stories could be a goldmine, though Systrom says the company won't focus on monetization until users love it. "I think that businesses and interest accounts, celebrities, etcetera, especially businesses, will find a tremendous use case," he tells me. "They post three times and they think to themselves 'Aww, should we really be posting that fourth photo?' And this just opens the floodgates on events."

Eventually Instagram could sell ads that point users to a brand's Story, like a clothing label with a Story from their fashion show, a politician from their rally or a brand doing a sponsored content tie-in with a social media star. Instead of directing people to their sluggish profile, they can point them to a dynamic, urgent story.

No Likes, no judgment

At their core, the use cases of Instagram Stories and Snapchat Stories are identical: Shoot, decorate and frequently share little clips from your life. Instagram lacks some of Snapchat's advanced features, but it's built where many people, especially adults, already have a social graph built.

It's that placement of Stories atop the Instagram, a simple design choice, that could make Instagram a hit. People love to vie for attention. If you give them a new window to show off through that's smack dab at the front of an app their friends use, vanity will kick in and people will fill that space with their face and creations.

When Instagram launched six years ago, it was a new network open to experimentation in front of friends. People were trying to learn how to make art from camera phones. But over time, Instagram evolved into a game where everyone seeks to win the most Likes and validation. And so they only share the most exciting, pretty parts of the their life, and everything else is swept under the rug.

Eventually Instagram became the core permanent profile of the mobile generation, and everything you posted had to be good enough for you to be judged by forever. Teens created fake Instagram profiles called "Finstagrams" only their closest friends could see just so they could post whatever they wanted without grubbing for internet points.

Now Instagram is offering a different way to share with no Likes, no public comments and a lot less pressure.

The bright-colored text and sloppy drawing may feel a bit out of place on Instagram at first, which is why Instagram was smart not to simply add the Stories creation tool to the main feed's default uploader.

Some people already loyal to Snapchat might not see the need for Instagram Stories... but the screen real estate will likely be too attractive to pass up. They'll easily be able to save and reshare their Snaps to Instagram Stories anyways. And anyone who's dipped their toe into Snapchat and found it fun but couldn't rebuild a following there may revel in this new playground built inside Instagram.

"We're north of 500 million people using the product," Systrom concludes. "We can either let the system evolve the way it evolves - I think that's a great consumption business. But we want to make sure to keep the soul of what made us love it at the beginning: Share whatever I want, when I want, with who I want. The daily use case."

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Instagram launches "Stories," a Snapchatty feature for imperfect sharing

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People only post the highlights of their life on Instagram, so today the app adds its own version of "Stories" to poach goofy, off-the-cuff, everyday content from Snapchat. It works exactly like Snapchat Stories, allowing you to post 24-hour ephemeral photo and video slideshows that dis...

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Instagram isn't shy about wanting to go toe-to-toe with Snapchat through Stories, and that now includes camera features, too. Updates for both the Android and iOS versions of Instagram let you swipe up and down to zoom while you're recording a video, much as you would in that other social app. The iOS version, at least, also lets you double-tap to switch cameras in mid-clip like its Snapchat counterpart. No, it's not exactly a subtle tweak -- but it makes sense if Instagram is going to poach Snapchatters that may take their camera controls for granted.

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Instagram Stories' camera controls catch up to Snapchat

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Instagram isn't shy about wanting to go toe-to-toe with Snapchat through Stories, and that now includes camera features, too. Updates for both the Android and iOS versions of Instagram let you swipe up and down to zoom while you're recording a video, much as you would in that other social app.

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Pepsi the first to leverage Twitters 'promoted stickers'

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Pepsi the first to leverage Twitters 'promoted stickers'

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NEW YORK: Pepsi has become the first brand to leverage Twitter's "promoted stickers" format, meaning the social network's users can add emojis provided by the soft drink directly to any photos they upload.

Twitter introduced "stickers" for use by consumers last month, and reported that millions of images have been posted incorporating these icons - be it surfers, top hats or smiling cat faces - and the "#Stickers" label.

In a blog entry, the company suggested that this new feature helps "users to add a pop of creativity to photos and connect them to the world on Twitter".

They also constitute a natural area for Pepsi to explore, as the brand has made emojis the centrepiece of its recent marketing efforts.

More specifically, the "Promoted #Stickers" initiative will make nearly 50 custom stickers available in ten markets. Argentina, India, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States are among the countries covered by the campaign.

Pepsi's stickers will receive a prominent place in Twitter's "sticker library". The tie-up also involves instructional material about how to use these icons, a fully-branded emoji, and a "Promoted Trend" on Twitter.

And when users add a Pepsi-themed sticker to their photo, it will automatically trigger a related hashtag, enabling the brand to track uptake and, presumably, giving it the opportunity to target this audience with further messages.

"By allowing people to add our emojis directly to their photos, we're giving fans a whole new way to engage. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a picture with Pepsi stickers can really spark a conversation," said Brad Jakeman, President/PepsiCo Global Beverage Group.

According to Twitter, this program represents its largest partnership with the soft-drinks brand to date, and followed months of collaborative work.

Going forward, brands will be given the chance to design four or eight stickers. Any time these symbols are utilised, the corresponding photo will then be shared with all of a user's followers.

"#Stickers act as a visual hashtag, meaning that photos with your brand's sticker will be connected and discoverable to anyone who taps your brand's sticker. This allows a brand to see and engage with the people who are using their stickers in creative ways," Twitter reported on its blog.

But Justin Rezvani, CEO of TheAmplify - a firm that specialises in influencer marketing - questioned whether these features were a natural fit for the platform.

"It's an interesting play, but I'm not sure it fits with the current user behaviour," he told Advertising Age. "A lot of people don't think of imagery with Twitter. They're not synonymous."

Data sourced from Twitter, Advertising Age; additional content by Warc staff

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NEW YORK: Pepsi has become the first brand to leverage Twitter's "promoted stickers" format, meaning the social network's users can add emojis provided by the soft drink directly to any photos they upload.

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Every how-to post about increasing engagement, whether for advertising or organic content, focuses on giving users a reason to click, and a new ad product introduced by Twitter Thursday aims to do just that.

Twitter head of product, brand and video ads Ilya Brown announced the release of the social network's conversational ads to all advertisers globally, as well as a new feature, the Instant Unlock Card, in a blog post.

Conversational ads, which Twitter introduced in January, gave advertisers the ability to encourage users to interact with their ads via custom hashtags or call-to-action buttons.

Twitter's new Instant Unlock Card takes this one step further, incentivizing users to tweet about campaigns by granting them exclusive access to content such as film trailers or question-and-answer sessions after their tweets are sent.

Brown wrote:

These formats are exclusive to Twitter and make it even easier for consumers to engage with and spread a brand's campaign message. It's a powerful way for advertisers to extend their presence across Twitter. During the beta, brands saw an average 34 percent earned media rate. That means for every 100 paid impressions, an advertiser receives 34 earned impressions.

Now Available! Engage w/ customers using Conversational Ads & the new Instant Unlock Card. https://t.co/NoRREule5Z pic.twitter.com/aFlMvgtbh8

- Twitter Advertising (@TwitterAds) August 4, 2016

Twitter also introduced analytics for its Instant Unlock Card, allowing brands to view engagement metrics and earned media generated by their campaigns, and Brown said more detailed insights are available via Brand Hub's Watchlist feature.

And Brown shared examples of early adopters of Twitter's Instant Unlock card: AMC for The Walking Dead (above), Coca-Cola for its #TasteTheFeeling campaign (below) and Marvel for Captain America: Civil War (below).

Readers: What are your initial thoughts on Twitter's Instant Unlock Card?

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Twitter Extends Conversational Ads With Instant Unlock Card

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Every how-to post about increasing engagement, whether for advertising or organic content, focuses on giving users a reason to click, and a new ad product introduced by Twitter Thursday aims to do just that.

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Brewer Charles Wells has appointed Arena Media to handle the media accounts for a number of its top brands as it strives to achieve a more integrated approach in reaching its target audience.

The Havas Media Group-owned agency will oversee the consolidated £2m media accounts for the Young's cask and Bombardier brands, in addition to Estrella Damm UK business which it has been handling since 2012. The first campaigns for the brands will be due to launch in September.

Elliot Parkus, managing director at Arena Media said: "Charles Wells have some fantastic brands that we are excited to be able to work on, and we look forward to bringing our agent of change for growth positioning to life for them to produce innovative ideas grounded in consumer insight that deliver great business results".

Jason Wills, marketing director at Charles Wells, added: "In an increasingly busy market it's important for our Young's, Bombardier, and Estella Damm brands to stand out in a way that is relevant to the modern beer drinker. We're really looking forward to working with Arena Media as they help us achieve a smarter and more integrated approach in reaching our target audience."

ZenithOptimedia was the incumbent on the accounts.

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Arena Media lands £2 million media account for brewing giant Charles Wells

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Brewer Charles Wells has appointed Arena Media to handle the media accounts for a number of its top brands as it strives to achieve a more integrated approach in reaching its target audience. The Havas Media Group-owned agency will oversee the consolidated £2m media accounts for the Young's cask and Bombardier brands, in addition to Estrella Damm UK business which it has been handling since 2012.

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LONDON: Consumers are more interested in relevancy than personalisation, according to a new study by the Direct Marketing Association exploring the changing nature of consumer engagement with brands.

The DMA undertook qualitative and quantitative research - the latter involving a survey of 1,000 consumers - to explore the language people use when describing experiences with brands.

This found that 40% of respondents were "actively loyal" to brands for both routine and special purchases, while 27% were "actively disloyal" and tended to have no brand loyalty.

Almost a quarter (23%) of consumers fell into the "habitually loyal" category - loyal when buying routine items but shopping around for special purchases.

The remaining 9% were "situational loyals" who were flexible about routine purchases but loyal for special purchases, although this figure rose to 15% among 16-24 year olds.

The DMA noted that, in general, disloyalty increased with the value of the items purchased. So, for example, 46% of consumers said they shopped around for big ticket items like furniture and 41% for electronic products, but these proportions dropped significantly when asked about shopping around for more day-to-day items like beauty products (21%) and clothes (24%).

And as the relationship between brands and consumers changes, the DMA argued that relevancy beats personalisation; for example, 40% of consumers wanted services that could not only remind them about an upcoming birthday, but give relevant suggestions on what to buy.

The research also showed that customers are willing to share their data when they can see direct benefits such as lower prices, loyalty rewards or special deals.

"It's this point on data sharing that is most important for the future of customer engagement," the DMA said, "underpinning the relationship between brands and their customers."

Data sourced from DMA; additional content by Warc staff

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LONDON: Consumers are more interested in relevancy than personalisation, according to a new study by the Direct Marketing Association exploring the changing nature of consumer engagement with brands. The DMA undertook qualitative and quantitative research - the latter involving a survey of 1,000 consumers - to explore the language people use when describing experiences with brands.

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A shaggy-haired monster as lovable as a teddy bear offers a wave and an encouraging smile that is in no way diminished by the pair of incisors jutting up from his jaw. "Nice to meet you," says the creature, named Mo, who lives in an iPad app called Osmo Monster. "Can you draw me a magic wand?"

So begins a surprisingly intuitive interaction between digital and physical worlds, the complex software operating in the background masked by the childhood delight of free-form play. Draw a magic wand for Mo on a real-life whiteboard placed in front of the iPad and suddenly the exact sketch appears on the screen. One after another, Mo requests drawings of coins, a magic banana, and a favorite toy, incorporating each into his digital home. As music plays, he conducts the "grand finale": an act that features all the drawings as they spin and dance.

Pramod Sharma, cofounder and CEO of Osmo, the startup that designed the app, describes the Osmo Monster experience as a way to give "Walt Disney moments" to kids that have grown up around screens.

"You're co-creating," he says. "Kids love cartoons, they love characters. I think that if we can make them look into your world, then it's going to be a much richer experience, much more exciting."

Sharma, an engineer by training, has made a career out of building technology designed to bridge the digital and physical realms. After graduating from Stanford, he worked on developing the machines behind Google Books, the company's controversial attempt to scan the pages of the world's libraries. Osmo cofounder Jerome Scholler, also a former Googler, had previously worked in the game industry.

Together they imagined building an educational game company around what Sharma calls "reflective AI." Each of the seven Osmo apps relies on image data from a mirror that slides over the iPad camera, allowing the software to capture and make sense of the objects or drawings placed in front of the device. Osmo Monster, which launched this month, is the first of the apps to revolve around an animated character.

"It's very hard, iterating on the storytelling side, the computer vision side, and the animation side," Sharma says. "Kids know how to draw, and we know how to do scripted. But no one knows how they'll come together."

For example, the app needs to understand which end of the magic wand Mo should hold in his paw, an orientation question that is easy for even young children but challenging for software.

Going forward, Sharma envisions updates that would allow the app to identify components of a drawing and animate those specific parts. But first he and his growing team of 40 need more training data, the raw material from which AI hones its knowledge. That means more drawings of the type that adorn fridges and classrooms, such as stick figures of Mom and Dad.

In the meantime, the runaway success of Pokémon Go has introduced many families to augmented reality ("AR") for the first time, though Sharma draws a distinction between the ubiquitous game and Osmo's approach.

With most AR, he says, "You hold the phone in your hand and you interact with the screen. The digital is interactive and the physical is static." For Osmo, the core interactions involve physical objects, from Monster's emphasis on old-fashioned drawing to Osmo Tangram's focus on geometry and spatial relationships. "We think about the power of hands, everything is about the power of hands," Sharma says. "People are starting to understand why this kind of interaction, physical-digital, is very powerful."

When Osmo unveiled its first app in 2014, Sharma's pitch was a harder sell. Now, thanks to Pokémon Go, AR has gone mainstream overnight. The Pokémon craze may fade, but Sharma says Osmo is here to stay. "Our focus has always been on kids and creativity, learning," he says. The goal is "to keep on innovating."

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Pokémon Go May Be A Fad, But Augmented Reality For Kids Is Here To Stay

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A shaggy-haired monster as lovable as a teddy bear offers a wave and an encouraging smile that is in no way diminished by the pair of incisors jutting up from his jaw. "Nice to meet you," says the creature, named Mo, who lives in an iPad app called Osmo Monster.

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The Music Industry’s New War Is About So Much More Than Copyright - Fast Company

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We’re listening to more songs than ever thanks to YouTube. Eight charts that explain why that isn’t necessarily music to the ears of Taylor, Bono, and the big labels.

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Unilever ties up with laundry app to foster loyalty with millenials

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Unilever ties up with laundry app to foster loyalty with millenials

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Persil, the Unilever-owned detergent brand, has inked a three-month tie-up with ZipJet, an app that picks up and delivers laundry as its marketers try to get to grips with the trends driving change within the category.

The deal will see users of the app given the option to have their clothes cleaned using Persil products. People can also book to have their clothes washed by the brand via its website.

Similarities to its tie-up with ZipJet have been drawn to its recent acquisition of the Dollar Shave Club, a subscription service for shaving products.

While ZipJet's co-founder and managing director Lorenzo Franzi stresses to The Drum that the two deals are different, at its heart the ambition is the same. Unilever is desperately looking to foster loyalty for its products among millenials by means beyond marketing. However, it admits that trying to "re-educate" brand managers to think like this is either impossible or "takes so long the market would have moved on." Buying into a company that has already done so is considerably easier and faster.

"When you look at more mature on-demand industries - like car-sharing or taxi hailing world - leading players are investing or setting up their own and you see that consumer behaviours are changing across industries. It's the same in consumer goods - although maybe it's happening a little bit later - but big players want to be a part of that change as well," said Franzi.

ZipJet has around 20,000 active users across the three cities where it operates - Paris, Berlin and London. London the most established, counting around 10,000 active users although across the board ZipJet claims to see very high repeat usage.

And so driving trials of product at scale is not necessarily what Persil is hoping to achieve with the deal. Instead, it will go some way to helping it understand how millennials are using these services and where its laundry product fits in.

For its part, ZipJet said with the partnership it will be offering up data, analytics and insight into how people's habits are changing when it comes to the billion-dollar dry-cleaning market in the UK.

"We are like retailers in that we are collecting a lot of data on our consumers and patterns. This is very interesting when we talk to Unilever," ZipJet's Franzi told The Drum.

"It's interesting to bring the biggest brand in the laundry space into ZipJet and to see what kind of impact that has on us and our acquisition of new customers and if that will help us grow faster because people have the trust and recognise the [Persil] brand. We want to show that we're about laundry, not just dry cleaning."

With this in mind, Franzi said he would consider more partnerships of this ilk as the brand looks to grow. Within its partnership with Persil there could yet be opportunity to expand, particularly into categories for people with particular needs.

"Persil has bio and non-bio and our customer have already expressed a desire to access these products. So we could think about other products, like sensitive-skin."

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Unilever's Persil ties up with laundry app as it tries to get ahead of changing consumer behaviour

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Persil, the Unilever-owned detergent brand, has inked a three-month tie-up with ZipJet, an app that picks up and delivers laundry as its marketers try to get to grips with the trends driving change within the category. The deal will see users of the app given the option to have their clothes cleaned using Persil products.

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Snapchats Rio coverage attracted 50m viewers in 1st week

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Snapchats Rio coverage attracted 50m viewers in 1st week

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It looks like Snapchat is aiming for gold when it comes to Rio 2016 social coverage, revealing that within the first seven days of the Olympics, 49 million viewers turned to the app to watch coverage from the event.

Data from the messaging startup published in the Financial times has revealed that close to one in three of Snapchat's 150 million daily users viewed Olympic clips within the Live Stories section of the app throughout week one of the Games.

Snapchat's Live Stories offering has been showcasing compilations of video snippets of sporting action and crowd reaction (which disappear after 24 hours) since the torch was lit on 5 August.

A slew of partnerships with global TV networks, and special deal between official US broadcaster NBC and media giant BuzzFeed to produce Olympic content for Snapchat's Discover section (which used by publishers) are to thank for the mammoth viewing figures.

According to the FT, NBC Olympics and Snapchat are sharing ad revenue from the Snap Ads placed within the Rio 2016 Olympics page - with spots running from brand partners like Walmart and Dick's Sporting Goods.

Snapchat boasts 10bn daily video views, and given that it has already outpaced rival Twitter's daily active user (DAU) count, the Olympic viewing figures ought to make the latter pause for thought.

Twitter has inked a throng of real-time sports deals over the past few months, acquiring the rights to the likes of NFL's Thursday night games. It has also been looking to position itself as the go-to place for live events and news through a new ad campaign and greater Periscope integration - but Snapchat might have just offered up a new challenge to that crown thanks to its digestible video format.

Facebook has also been attempting to compete in this arena through Facebook Live, and while Snapchat's coverage isn't real time the almost instant short nature of its content has been a hit among millennials.

Nielsen estimates that 41 per cent of all 18 to 34-year-olds in the the States use the app each day.

Facebook and Twitter have yet to reveal official video viewing figures for Rio 2016, but eMarketer has forecast that 2.85bn video streams of Olympics action will be viewed online over the duration of the Games.

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Snapchat's Rio 2016 coverage attracted almost 50 million viewers in the first week alone

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It looks like Snapchat is aiming for gold when it comes to Rio 2016 social coverage, revealing that within the first seven days of the Olympics, 49 million viewers turned to the app to watch coverage from the event.

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Voice enabled smart-home to reach 120m shipments by 2021

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Voice enabled smart-home to reach 120m shipments by 2021

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Can you say "empty the dishwasher" and see it done automatically? Not quite, but a recent report states that user interface within the smart home is the latest trend with 120m voice-enabled devices set to be shipped annually by 2021 - with voice control, speech recognition and natural language processing set to change the home environment. While Siri and Google Now have become well-established smartphone features, the smart home voice control systems are just now reaching their full potential according to a recent report by ABI research. Smart TV's, smart refrigerators, smart plugs and more will extend the reach and simplicity of managing the smart phone home environment.

New microphone-enhanced products will extend the ability to hear voice commands throughout a smart home environment. These will include cameras, doorbells, smart lighting and others. A number of vendors, such as Google with its learning thermostat Nest, are already expanding their products to support listening capabilities.

"Led by the success of Amazon's Alexa platform, smart home voice control is creating new competition and demands for wireless speaker and other vendors to include voice capabilities in their devices," says Jonathan Collins, research director at ABI Research. "But the scaling of voice control applications in the smart home breeds complexity. Vendors will need to evaluate how and when to bring voice control into smart home devices in order to best tackle adding the service into wider smart home systems."

But tying multiple listening and voice controlled devices together into a coherent smart home system will require a shared voice platform. So far devoid of any standardization, each of the primary home voice platform providers - Apple, Amazon, and Google - all have their own approaches and ways of leveraging their voice capabilities to extend and support their core businesses.

"As more devices support voice control, new voice platforms will increasingly aim to support device and device and service providers," concludes Collins. "In the past few months, for example, Viv Labs emerged as a company focused solely on extending its voice platform to as many services and devices as possible-without tying it to a sub-strategy of boosting the appeal of a separate core business."

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Voice-enabled smart home devices will exceed 120m shipments by 2021

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Can you say "empty the dishwasher" and see it done automatically? Not quite, but a recent report states that user interface within the smart home is the latest trend with 120m voice-enabled devices set to be shipped annually by 2021 - with voice control, speech recognition and natural language processing set to change the home environment.

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First Burberry collection instantly available online

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First Burberry collection instantly available online

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Burberry has revealed what could arguably be its most important marketing campaign to date as it looks hit the reset button on the brand with its first 'straight-to-consumer' collection following several challenging quarters.

This coming fashion week, Burberry will for the first time show a collection that will be immediately available online and in-store after, a momentous shift in tact for a luxury label used to selling itself on the idea of exclusivity.

This new model has been powered by the rise of social media coupled with burgeoning mobile and e-commerce sales.
Virginia Woolf inspired campaign
Burberry will continue to lean heavily on channels such as Snapchat, Twitter and Pinterest, but it's also hoping that a new advertising campaign - shot by Mario Testino - will be able to shift its fashionable wares quickly following their debut on the catwalk.

Little has changed in the way Burberry has approached the main element of the campaign. As it has done in the past, the retailer will continue to feature up-and-coming British models, musicians and actors. This time, the brand push has been themed around Virginia Woolf's book Orlando, reflecting the new collection which "contrasts masculine and feminine styles across different periods in history".

However, a second, more interesting, arm of the campaign has emerged. A variety of different men and women from mills and factories across England, Scotland, and Italy who make Burberry's products have been drafted in to front a series of print ads. Dubbed 'Burberry artisans' the first man to be profiled is the pattern maker for its newest bag, The Bridle.

"This campaign reflects a collection inspired by Virginia Woolf's Orlando and also sets out to honour the many skilled craftspeople who work on Burberry's iconic products," said Burberry chief creative and chief executive officer Christopher Bailey.

"I am therefore very proud to be sharing Mario Testino's incredible portraits of Jean Campbell, Cavan McCarthy and Alex Dragulele, which we have set alongside portraits of our talented Burberry artisans."
The New Craftsmen
In a further nod to its British heritage, Burberry has inked a tie-up with The New Craftsmen, a luxury homeware online store which brings together various craftsmen and artists across the UK.

Some of these craft makers have been invited to participate in activities and installations taking place within Burberry's new show venue, named 'Makers House', in London's Soho.

It will be open to visitors from 21-27 September, showcasing original works by a selection of makers who will use this space to experiment and create, using the collection's inspiration as the starting point for their work.

"Just as Virginia Woolf's Orlando is both a love-letter to the past and a work of profound modernity, this week-long exhibition aims to nod both to the design heritage that is so integral to Burberry's identity, and to some of Britain's most exciting creators, and the innovation and inspiration behind their work," added Bailey.
Drawing a line
Burberry will be hoping this drastic change in sales strategy and a fresh marketing campaign will be enough to help stem what has been the most challenging period in its 160-year history. Bailey has only recently taken on the chief creative remit after being ousted by investors who were unconvinced of his ability to successfully hold the dual chief executive/creative role.

Profits have been tumbling over the last 12 months and its share price plummeted by 35 per cent in the last year.

But digital has been the ailing brand's saving grace, growing strongly in all regions during the first quarter of the year with mobile delivering the majority of the growth (some 60 per cent of traffic to the site now via a mobile device.)

This is what has given it the remit to continue its experiments with emerging channels. Last week this saw it collaborate with Pinterest on the launch of a new beauty product where it was able to create a personalised experience for the platform's users based on their makeup preferences.

It's still too early to say how this will help dive sales Burberry. Although the brand is quick to talk up the impressions and reach such channels can deliver, little has been said on how it's impacting the bottom line.

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Burberry reveals campaign it hopes will woo shoppers to first 'straight-to-consumer' collection

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Burberry has revealed what could arguably be its most important marketing campaign to date as it looks hit the reset button on the brand with its first 'straight-to-consumer' collection following several challenging quarters.

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Facebook needs more than just clever data to deliver results for brands

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Facebook needs more than just clever data to deliver results for brands

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Should P&G's decision be seen as evidence that Facebook's USP of mass reach with precision targeting doesn't deliver or that advertisers will turn away from it in droves? Probably not.

It isn't exactly crazy talk that as a CPG company that needs mass awareness for mass products that don't have a particularly defined purchase journey, P&G has decided that ever more niche and expensive segmentation of audience doesn't drive ROI.

At the same time as they announced less reliance on targeting on Facebook they affirmed their belief that it gives them unrivalled mass reach, by confirming they will spend less on other publisher sites, who they believe can no longer compete with Facebook in terms of that reach.

P&G has decided that ever more niche and expensive segmentation of audience doesn't drive ROI.

Moving beyond P&G, there are plenty of brands that will see value in matching Facebook's data to their own product purchase and user journey and will continue to pay a premium for more targeted consumers who they can nudge along the bottom part of the purchase funnel.

However, P&G won't be the only client that comes to the conclusion that breadth of awareness is worth more than the depth of targeting. If that's the case Facebook are going to have to give those brands and their agencies other ways than just clever data of ensuring success and cut through. Step forward old fashioned creativity, with a good dose of technology thrown in.

If for some brands Facebook becomes their first port of call for awareness, then the quality of the work created to achieve it needs to improve.

Here are three things that Facebook can do to help us all to achieve that.

Facebook are going to have to give those brands and their agencies other ways than just clever data of ensuring success and cut through. Step forward old fashioned creativity, with a good dose of technology thrown in.

Firstly, they have to continue the development of products like Facebook Canvas and Carousel and the continued but careful opening up of Instagram as an advertising channel - all of which will provide much richer, much more broadcast like spaces for creativity to flourish.

Secondly, at the same time as the formats develop, it's also crucial that Facebook continues to support and cajole creative agencies and clients to make the best of these new creative opportunities. New formats and techniques need to be explained and celebrated and that is partly the responsibility of the platform.

Lastly, Facebook needs to encourage brands to help bring consumers to the new technology worlds they are building. Facebook Live, Messenger and indeed VR through Oculus all need mass audiences and brands can bring those audiences by creating and sponsoring compelling experiences and useful services.

Facebook is going nowhere as a place for brands to target consumers, but big and clever as data is you need something else if you want to truly engage them.
Lawrence Weber is the managing partner, innovation at Karmarama.

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Facebook needs more than just clever data to deliver results for brands

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P&G's decision to scale back the use of targeting on their Facebook ads has been met with a certain sense of schadenfreude in some quarters of the industry, especially those concerned by the platform's and Google's increasing market dominance in paid-for digital media, writes Karmarama's Lawrence Weber.

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SINGAPORE - Danish toymaker Lego holds the crown as the biggest toy company in the world, raking in US$5.4 billion in revenue last year.

But while its lines of toys based on existing intellectual property, such as Disney's Frozen and Star Wars have been hits, it is the work the brand is doing with it's latest original range that illustrates its answer to a marketplace increasingly dominated by mobile devices and digital competition.

...

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Lego Nexo Knights charge into 'retailtainment', armed with VR

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SINGAPORE - Danish toymaker Lego holds the crown as the biggest toy company in the world, raking in US$5.4 billion in revenue last year. But while its lines of toys based on existing intellectual property, such as Disney's Frozen and Star Wars have been hits, it is the work the brand is doing with it's latest original range that illustrates its answer to a marketplace increasingly dominated by mobile devices and digital competition.

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Airbnb CMO on using 'uncomfortable truths' to power campaigns

Humanity, creativity and diversity are words Airbnb CMO Jonathan Mildenhall uses a lot, but "uncomfortable truth" is his phrase of the moment.

Mildenhall has spent a lifetime confronting uncomfortable truths, and it holds him in good stead as he runs the marketing at a company with an in-built suspicion of the subject. "I often describe myself as the chief dirty word officer", he laughs.

The company's first global campaign, "Never a stranger", last year addressed the "uncomfortable truth of our business". Mildenhall explains, "If you said to somebody you were staying with Airbnb, they'd say: 'Why would you stay with strangers?'" They'll say it less often now, after the campaign generated massive brand awareness and a surge in bookings.

This year's uncomfortable truth is how "modern travel is sick", Mildenhall says. "Why would people want to be shepherded around when they can hang out in local neighbourhoods with locals? The campaign says 'Live there', anywhere around the world, even if just for a night. That's what a younger millennial audience wants."

Coke's marketing director on why a good marketer is a good caretaker

Coca-Cola has just replaced Coke Zero with Coca-Cola Zero Sugar, which has a formulation that tastes more like classic Coke and packaging that looks more like that of the flagship product.

Bobby Brittain, marketing director at Coca-Cola Great Britain, says this is motivated by keeping the main brand as strong as possible. "We've been around for 130 years; the stewardship of this brand dictates that we all leave it in better shape than we found it. That is our internal objective and everything we do is designed to improve the legacy, the overall standing of the trademark.

"Innovation - not just in terms of product and packaging, but also things like the ways we derive insights from consumers - that's a critical enabler of the brand's overall standing."

Sponsoring the Premier League isn't just about football, says Carling brand boss

Carling's return to the Premier League, this time as its official beer partner, is not just about scoring more sales with football fans, said brand director Jim Shearer - it's about being at the heart of the national conversation.

"In a way we've never been away from football," he said. "Football and beer are absolutely a common language - Carling has a desire to be part of that and the stories that flow from it.

"But the main thing for us is that we can use that association to create a conversation. It's about the chance to be a part of the most prevalent conversation in this country." Research in 2015 by Populus found that 44% of UK adults were interested in football, while 35% actively followed the Premier League.

"We're a sociable brand that's about broad friendship groups - it's not necessarily about going to watch the game itself," he added. "The kind of attitude that we want to adopt is one of entertainment rather than pure football content."

Why Halfords got in touch with its emotions

Halfords had a problem: people knew its brand and had an idea of at least some of the things it offered, but didn't have a clear sense of its identity, or any emotional attachment to it. This is what marketing director Karen Bellairs wanted to change with Halfords' recent brand relaunch, which is built around the idea of journeys.

"Our marketing has been kind of schizophrenic in terms of look and feel over the years - we haven't had this kind of brand platform before," she said. "With that comes consistency, creative glue, the right look and feel. This is a big step change for us.

"We've learnt that consumers really know Halfords, but when we go a bit deeper, we start to see that they don't really know why the brand exists, the part it plays in their lives. Our marketing spend has been very driven by price and promotions, and we're trying to move that forward into really celebrating the brand.

"We learnt that we can be the difference between a good and a bad journey. Consumers' time is really precious. People spend a lot of time on their journeys, whether that's bikes or cars, and actually they really want to feel in control of that."

Why Hyundai scaled up for its Euro 2016 activation

Hyundai is a brand of significant scale - it recently sold its one millionth car in the UK - but it doesn't yet have the level of recognition of larger, more established car brands, says marketing director David Pugh.

So in order to make the most of its sponsorship of Euro 2016, Hyundai set out to do something truly spectacular that visitors would never forget, and that would reverberate across social media: the FanDome, a 1000-capacity, 360 degree viewing experience at London's King's Cross.

"We think the event will stand out because it is truly unique - there's never been anything like it before," said Pugh. "We think the experience inside the dome will be a truly memorable event in a way that conventional sponsorship activity probably won't."

"It will have a life beyond the confines of King's Cross through audience amplification - our hope is that everyone will share it with their friends and relatives through social media because they'll never have seen anything like it before. And you'll go home in absolutely no doubt about who was organising the experience you've just had."

Don't pat yourself on the back too hard, says Barclaycard CMO

Barclaycard recently turned 50 - but despite the milestone, chief marketing officer Katherine Whitton was determined to avoid the common faux pas of brand birthdays.

"Often brands kind of get it wrong - anniversary comms tend to be a little bit self-congratulatory," she says. "In the UK landscape, 50 years isn't actually that long - our parent company is 325 years old."

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Marketers' Toolkit: brand-building lessons from Airbnb, Coca-Cola, Carling, Barclaycard and more

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Humanity, creativity and diversity are words Airbnb CMO Jonathan Mildenhall uses a lot, but "uncomfortable truth" is his phrase of the moment. Mildenhall has spent a lifetime confronting uncomfortable truths, and it holds him in good stead as he runs the marketing at a company with an in-built suspicion of the subject.

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Will Facebook’s vow to ban ad blockers alienate audiences?

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Will Facebook’s vow to ban ad blockers alienate audiences?

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Facebook is looking to halt ad blocking with new technology that will stop ad blocking software identifying what content is an ad and what is not.

Marketing Week understands this new technology will work by stopping ad blockers from identifying which Facebook posts are ads, and which are not, on people's news feeds. It will still be clear to Facebook users which content is paid for, however.

Facebook is also also looking to make its ad preferences easier to use by allowing users to stop seeing certain types of advertisements.

According to the latest IAB stats, 22% of British adults are using ad blockers, with that number highest among younger internet users. And the IAB has welcomed Facebook's move.

Randall Rothenberg, CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, says: "Facebook should be applauded for its leadership on preserving a vibrant value exchange with its users. Its decision to respect advertising as an essential ingredient in connecting users worldwide is spot-on, and should be replicated across the free and open internet."

Battling a backlash

But not everyone is enthused. Perhaps predictably, Ad Block Plus condemned the move. In a statement entitled 'Oh well, looks like Facebook just got all anti-user', the ad block software company condemned the "unfortunate move" as it takes "a dark path against user choice".

"It's hard to imagine Facebook or the brands that are being advertised on its site getting any sort of value for their ad dollar here: publishers (like Facebook) alienate their audience and advertisers (the brands) allow their cherished brand name to be shoved down people's throats," he explains.

"If nothing else, all this attention from Facebook shows that ad blocking has finally made the big time. We're ready for our close up."

Rob Bassett, head of UK and EU multinational advertising at eBay, agrees with Ad Block Plus and believes banning ad blockers does not get to the root of the problem - irrelevant ads.

"Sure, you can force users to view all ads on a platform, but if these feel intrusive and poorly targeted, at best it's a waste of marketing budget but at its worst can actively damage brand perception and alienate people. Advertisers should focus on reaching the right people and not the most people," he says.

But not everyone agrees. Matthew Payne, head of creative technology at social media agency We Are Social believes Facebook's decision to allow users to have a bigger say in what ads are served to them is a good thing.

"Facebook ads aren't too intrusive generally, so being upset by its decision to ban ad blockers is a bit harsh."

Matthew Payne, head of creative technology, We Are Social

"I'd rather see ads that I am potentially interested in than not. Improving the control users have over this can only be a good thing - as long as it's not intrusive," he says.

One thing remains clear - ad blocking is not going away any time soon. The only way to get around ad blocking will be an industry-wide focus on high quality, personalised content.

"It is important not to ignore those using ad blockers, but instead to ensure that the right adverts are served to the right people, at the right time, and in the right location," concludes Greg Isbister, CEO at location data technology company Blis.

"Through this approach, adverts become interesting and valuable to consumers, discouraging them from deploying ad blockers in the first place while enhancing the overall user experience and presenting a sustainable solution in the long term."
Learn more about digital innovation at the Festival of Marketing, which is running on the 5 and 6 October at Tobacco Dock, London. For more information about the event, including how to book tickets, .

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Will Facebook's vow to ban ad blockers alienate audiences?

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Facebook is looking to halt ad blocking with new technology that will stop ad blocking software identifying what content is an ad and what is not. Marketing Week understands this new technology will work by stopping ad blockers from identifying which Facebook posts are ads, and which are not, on people's news feeds.

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LONDON: More than half of UK male teenagers feel pressured to look good by the images they see in advertising - as well as by celebrities, social media and friends - and brands can play a role in contributing to their health and wellbeing, a new study suggests.

Credos, the advertising industry think tank, surveyed 1,005 boys from primary and secondary schools around the country to explore their attitudes towards advertising and body image; focus groups with boys aged 8 to 18 and with teachers, youth leaders and parents added to understanding the roots, effects and solutions to boys' body confidence.

The subsequent report, Picture of Health?, revealed that 53% of boys felt advertising was a major source of pressure to look good; only social media (57%) and friends (68%) exerted more influence, while celebrities (49%) were slightly less persuasive.

And while most (80%) were aware of image-manipulation in the media, most appeared to associate this with the female form, as the study reported that they were surprised at the extent to which male images are altered.

Two thirds (67%) said it was not acceptable for brands to use digital techniques to change the body image of a model in their advertising.

But some secondary school-age boys (aged 11 to 18) suggested the way media portray men in their images could be healthy (33%) or even aspirational (22%).

Around one in four (42%) boys who thought the male images they saw were realistic also believed there is a "perfect body" to strive for, compared with just 16% of those who think male images are unrealistic.

"This new research shows boys are increasingly worried about their appearance," said Karen Fraser, Credos director.

"We have to recognise that advertising and the wider media play some part in shaping how young people feel about themselves - both positively and negatively."

More generally, the study found that boys hold advertising in high regard, with 73% of secondary school boys agreeing that ads are important in letting them know about products.

And 69% of 16-18 year olds said they had tried new products after seeing an advertisement.

Data sourced from Credos; additional content by Warc staff

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Ads add to boys' body-image pressure | WARC

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LONDON: More than half of UK male teenagers feel pressured to look good by the images they see in advertising - as well as by celebrities, social media and friends - and brands can play a role in contributing to their health and wellbeing, a new study suggests.

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Protein is a global community of the world's most influential thinkers, doers and connectors. We collaborate with brands in our Agency, provide space in our Studios and track consumer culture in our Journal. We've also developed a Product to help you build your own community. It's rather good, if we do say so ourselves.

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Protein is a global community of the world's most influential thinkers, doers and connectors. We collaborate with brands in our Agency, provide space in our Studios and track consumer culture in our Journal. We've also developed a Product to help you build your own community. It's rather good, if we do say so ourselves.

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Almost every penny Facebook makes comes through advertising - and so any threat to that model really does put the entire company at risk.

Which is why Facebook is moving quickly to get ahead in its running battle with Adblock Plus, a company that offers software that blocks ads from appearing to its 100 million or so users.

Last week, Facebook made tweaks to its news feed so that the way Adblock Plus (and other similar software) "spotted" ads no longer worked, essentially tricking the blocking software into thinking ads were just normal posts.

In response, Adblock Plus - drawing on the open source community - came up with a workaround.

The company wrote on Thursday that "for this round of the cat-and-mouse contest, looks like the mouse won."

The mouse was barely into its cheese when Facebook vowed to hit back.

The firm's head of advertising, Andrew Bosworth - known as Boz - wrote on Twitter that "these new attempts don't just block ads but also posts from friends and Pages.

"We plan to address the issue."

Blunt instrument

Boz and his advertising team didn't take long. By Thursday evening, only a few hours after Adblock Plus made its workaround public, the site began rolling out new code that meant Adblock Plus's workaround no longer worked.

"We're disappointed that ad blocking companies are punishing people on Facebook as these new attempts don't just block ads but also posts from friends and Pages," the company said in a statement.

"Ad blockers are a blunt instrument, which is why we've instead focused on building tools like ad preferences to put control in people's hands."

Adblock Plus is a controversial company. While initial ad blockers were all about stopping annoying, sometimes harmful, pop-up ads - Adblock Plus is a far more sophisticated fare. It's able to skim out pre-roll adverts on videos, as well as remove some non-intrusive advertising on pages.

Non-intrusive is a matter of opinion, of course - some would consider any advertising a unwelcome part of their browsing experience. Particularly in the case of Google and Facebook who have built their vast fortunes on producing targeted ads that require masses of data collection and tracking.

But it's why Google and Facebook are free to use - and most certainly always will be. The money has to come from somewhere, and right now it's advertising.

Adblock's whitelist

Where Adblock Plus stirs real controversy is in its business model.

The software doesn't block ads on all sites. The company has a whitelist. To get on it, a site has to pay Adblock Plus.

Some call it extortion - the company disagrees, saying it plays an important role in keeping online advertising in check.

Facebook has said it will not be paying to be whitelisted, Boz wrote earlier this week.

"Rather than paying ad blocking companies to unblock the ads we show - as some of these companies have invited us to do in the past - we're putting control in people's hands with our updated ad preferences and our other advertising controls."
Follow Dave Lee on Twitter @DaveLeeBBC and on Facebook

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Almost every penny Facebook makes comes through advertising - and so any threat to that model really does put the entire company at risk. Which is why Facebook is moving quickly to get ahead in its running battle with Adblock Plus, a company that offers software that blocks ads from appearing to its 100 million or so users.

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One to watch - Facebook take on Snapchat with Insta-stories

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One to watch - Facebook take on Snapchat with Insta-stories