Marketing Week
Twitter's revamped profile pages, intended to increase users' engagement with timelines, are being trialled by Adidas, HP and Microsoft. The new pages are more pictorially led, with a larger photo profile and a "Best Tweets" section. The new-look service, now available to new and select users, allows brands and people to express themselves and users to discover their best content more easily. Adidas has used the new type of profile page to pin a tweet about its brand ambassador, Kanye West, to the top of its page with separate sections for "Tweets," "Tweets and replies" and "Tweets with photos/videos."
Media Week
OMD has won Disney's GBP21m UK media planning and buying account as part of a wider GBP120m EMEA review. OMD takes over from incumbent Carat, and beat Havas in the final stage. Havas, however, won local accounts in Benelux, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. The account covers Disney and Marvel films as well as the Disney Channel. Carat retains the brief for Walt Disney World in Florida and Disneyland Paris. Carat was dropped from the entertainment business last month after a relationship with Disney that stretches back to the late '90s.
Campaign
Carat has won a huge slice of Pizza Hut UK's GBP11m account. The agency's Manchester office has won the media and planning account for the chain's restaurants from incumbent Starcom. It had held the brief for both restaurants and takeaways since 2004, when Omnicom resigned the business. Starcom will now focus on the takeaway business. The Carat brief will focus on promoting the "dine in" menu.
Marketing Week
Lego is using social media to ask its fans for suggestions for new products that will be marketed globally. Its Head of Global Community Co-creation, Peter Epperson, explains that people are three times as likely to trust recommendations from friends, and so it makes sense for marketers to get out of their 'ivory towers' and involve fans in marketing campaigns and product development.
Marketing Week
After being announced yesterday as the car sponsor to take over from Ford in sponsoring the Champions League, Nissan's European Marketing Vice President Bastien Schupp said that by focusing on a single major event, the brand hopes to appear more consistent and focused. "Today we sponsor lots of smaller disparate events. Individually they make sense, but in reality the brand is lost. This is why the brand is not as strong as it should be. If as a person you change your face every other second, people don't recognise you," he said.
Marketing Magazine
Diageo has signed up veteran England football star David Beckham, it says, to play a fundamental role in developing the Haig Club -- which will promote The House of Haig whisky brand as an authentic homegrown label. As part of the marketing tie-in, Beckham will lead a promotion for responsible drinking.
The Drum
Advertising is missing out on the brightest young graduates -- mainly because of low pay. That is the conclusion of GroupM President, Dominic Proctor, speaking at the Festival of Media in Rome. He believes that the brightest "millennials" will be drawn to the high wages and exciting careers offered by the City or Google. Adland needs to reorganise and use more automation to find the budget required to be competitive in today's labour market, he surmised.
Marketing Week
Ben & Jerry's is looking to tap into demand for Greek-style yoghurt with a GBP8m campaign to launch Greek Style Frozen Yoghurt. The brand's owner hopes that a 15% rise in demand for frozen yoghurt can be aligned with health-conscious shoppers fueling demand for thicker, creamier Greek-style yoghurt's, such as Muller Light Greek Style. Given that in the past two years nearly 4 in 10 Ben & Jerry's customers were new to the brand, or the luxury ice cream category, Unilever believes there is considerable scope for Greek Style Frozen Yoghurt to attract new customers to the label.
Campaign
WPP is seeking to boost its public sector credentials with the formation of its global Government & Public Sector Practice. The division will combine the group's advertising, media research and campaign resources to help governments better research and then communicate campaigns. WPP currently works for governments in more than sixty countries as well as many regional and public sector bodies.
Campaign
UM London has been awarded the GBP5m planning and buying account for Coca-Cola Enterprises, whose brands include Appletiser, Fanta and Sprite. The agency won the business in a pitch that included the incumbent Vizeum and MediaCom. The main Coca-Cola account remains with MediaCom.