The Drum
Digital marketing agency Jellyfish is ramping up efforts to build a global offering by launching an office in South Africa that will sit alongside its UK and U.S. businesses. The outfit has bagged the South African Sugar Association (SAS) as its launch client and appointed executive Tim Lombard as managing director. He will report to Jellyfish Group chief executive Rob Pierre. It is the latest in the UK-based agency's push into new markets and follows the launch of its US agency in 2009.
Campaign
Tilda has approached creative agencies about its advertising as the rice brand looks at investing more in marketing. The brand has not begun a pitch. J Walter Thompson is the incumbent on the account and has held the business since August 2012. Ogilvy & Mather, a fellow WPP agency, had the account before JWT. Tilda has been largely dormant in terms of advertising since appointing JWT, but the company is said to be reviewing its marketing strategy in the wake of a change of ownership and management team.
Marketing Week
Camelot has credited its focus on digital following the launch of new online and mobile platforms after announcing record UK National Lottery ticket sales for its 2014/15 financial year. The company today announced UK National Lottery ticket sales of GBP7.3bn for its 2014/15 financial year, up by 7.5% year-on-year. Camelot says the launch of its new online and mobile platform in September saw smartphone and tablet sales grow by 60% year-on-year, now accounting for 36% of all interactive sales.
The Independent
The fitness company behind the "body shaming" social media storm sweeping across the country has hit back at claims their ads are a huge "PR fail." Protein World, the business responsible for the "Are you beach body ready?" campaign, has been sticking up for itself ever since protesters deemed the ads "sexist" and "offensive." Responding to comments on Twitter that the company is "insanely bad at PR," Protein World claims to have gained 5,000 customers in four days. They also boasted that their sales have tripled.
Marketing Week
With today's Apple Watch launch expected to generate three million individual sales globally -- equating to around $2 billion -- and featuring apps from brands such as the Post Office and British Airways, it has emerged that only 8% of marketers are executing plans for an app on the device. The new research from digital marketing agency Greenlight claims that one in three marketers (32%) are actively considering building an app for the smartwatch in 2015.
Marketing
Consumers are now using an average of five "connected" devices in the purchase process compared to 2.8 devices a year ago, but retailers are not fully exploiting the potential of personalisation, according to research from DigitasLBi. Shoppers are increasingly adopting myriad devices, ranging from PCs, laptops, smart TVs, tablets, smartphones and wearable tech, and using them to browse, research, compare prices and ultimately purchase goods, with 28% of consumers using phones to buy items and 20% using tablets.
The Times
The stock exchange behind Facebook's calamitous debut in 2012 has set aside tens of millions of dollars to compensate aggrieved investors. Nasdaq revealed yesterday that it had created a $31 million (GBP20.7 million) pool to settle class action litigation arising from Facebook's $104 billion float. The social network's debut in May 2012 was hampered by a series of technical issues with the Nasdaq platform. The exchange would later be fined $10 million by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for "serious and pervasive violations of fundamental rules."
Marketing
Food and drink brands are missing out on opportunities to connect with millennials because they are failing to target them in a meaningful way, according to a poll of 18- to-29-year-olds. According to the research, conducted by Haygarth and Flamingo, just 11% of a poll of 1,000 feeling food advertising is aimed at them. This is despite 47% of people aged 18-29 cited social media as a source of inspiration for recipes and that, on average, millennials share pictures of food on social media three times a week thanks to the "Instagram effect."
The Telegraph
WPP chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell has welcomed the European Commission decision to formally charge Google with abuse of its Web search monopoly. He said that charges that Google damaged competition by manipulating search results could have wider implications for the advertising markets in which WPP competes. European antitrust watchdogs issued their "statement of objections" against Google last week, saying it abused its dominance of general Web search to squeeze smaller rivals in the specialist shopping comparison market.
Marketing Week
Speaking in London today yessterday, KFC's CMO David Timm said KFC has transformed its strategy over the past year after feeling that consumers had lost their relationship with the brand. The business "fell off the edge of a cliff" in 2013 following a consistent period of growth from 2002 to 2012, according to Timm. "All brands go through phases, and bad years in business are a positive thing," Timm said. "It forces you to reappraise and think about what's happening in your competitive environment."