One of the top indicators that was revealed was;

“Marketers need to improve the briefs they produce in order to get better work out of their agencies”

Assignment briefs where consistently highlighted as an area for improvement, with most agencies expressing a degree of frustration about the quality of the briefs they get. None of the industry leaders felt they where able to report that briefs were always complete and focussed.

Just over half (53%) said the briefs were complete but lacked focus. A further 27% found them incomplete and inconsistent. A mere 20% said briefs were complete and focused most of the time.

The dearth of strategic thinkers in the marketing community was seen as the major possible cause, with a majority of agencies believing that clients’ abilities in this regard are at best “adequate” if not “limited”. Only 3%  of the agencies rated their clients as excellent in this field.

When the focus was turned back onto the agencies themselves 25% admitted that they needed more diversified expertise, while 34% wanted more diversified expertise, technology and training.

Jeremy Caplin of Aprais, pointed out at a WARC event Measuring Advertising performance that the Joanne Davis survey echoes his findings and he went on to claim that creative output from an agency is 37% better from the bottom to the top 10% of clients. He identified the quality of briefing as an area that was vital in the make up of a good client. Others included the approval process,timing and behaviour.

Data Sourced from WARC and Advertising Age. 26th April 2013

The brands that will lead in the future will not just be based on profit motives and serving shareholders interests. Super brands will only get that status if have answers to a whole new set of priorities with integrity being at the very top of the list.

It is most timeous that the top twenty finalist in the Admap Prize 2013 have been shortlisted and very pleasing for us to see that HAVAS have one of the four judges seats. Sara de Dios, global head of meaningful brands at Havas Media, she is up there along with Miguel Pestana, vice president, global external affairs at Unilever, Guy Murphy, worldwide planning director at JWT and Colin Mitchell, worldwide head of planning at Ogilvy & Mather. They have been going over all the 102 entries from 24 countries in the essay competition.

They are now in the process of deliberating on which papers should receive the Gold, Silver and Bronze to be awarded on June 19th at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The top award will be accompanied by a $5000 prize in cash for the best interpretation of how brands can mix the pursuit of profit with social responsibility.

“They were a stimulating read. I was expecting lots of clichés, but we got lots of originality, and the standard was very high,” said Guy Murphy, Worldwide Planning Director at JWT.

The essays focus on the strategic tension between brands’ primary obligation to maximize profit and shareholder value and the pressing obligation to be a force for good.

Colin Grimshaw, Editor of Admap commented that these were not necessarily conflicting objectives, pointing out that if brands are not seen as a force for good, their shareholder value can be destroyed overnight, especially under the scrutiny of social media.

Conversely, if a brand is seen as a force for good, then the associated uplift in consumer engagement and brand sentiment can greatly enhance brand loyalty, sales and profits.

Source: WARC

Read more at :http://bit.ly/11Jv5s4

“most talked about beer brand on social media”

This is all part of a major restructuring of the company’s social media marketing strategy, which is based on managing campaigns for the company’s 500 brands all on one centralised platform.

“It’s about us taking a step back from the regular product- orientated stories we’ve done in the past and trying to tap into real-life stories that our audiences can actually engage with,” Martin Mailund, group digital platform manager told Marketing Week.

He went on to say “ We’re looking at how we can cascade this approach to our above the line activity.”

Getting real life, real time content from real people out there as a basis for communicating all your brands is indeed a hefty challenge if Carlsberg can pull this off they will be seriously making history as well as good beer!

Carlsberg set out to be the most talked about

How to get people to share real life experiences and tag these to a beer or any of the 500 brands Carlsberg are responsible for is going to be a fascinating case study.

The trip line as we see it is as soon as you offer even the slightest incentive for any individual or groups to allow alignment between a brand and your ‘personal experience’ you blow the credibility of the content as being “Sponsored”.

Carlsberg have done some incredible marketing in he past so we guess there is no reason to doubt they will probably get it right again in the social media, we will be watching with great interest.

Source: Warc 15 April 2013

Requirements:
In-depth knowledge and understanding of social media platforms and their respective participants and how they can be deployed in different scenarios;
Knowledge of blogging ecosystem;
Ability to effectively communicate information and ideas in written and verbal format, and build and maintain relationships;
Good technical understanding and can pick up new tools quickly;
Have a good knowledge of principles of SEO;
Public relations, Marketing, Sales, Community Management experience, a plus.

If you are interested in joining this dynamic agency, please send your CV to marius@jpadvertising.com or info@jpadvertising.com

The marketing initiatives have also been opulent in the amount of creativity and complexity. It started with ‘A Rock’ concert nice touch considering the new target audience, the British alternative rock band Placebo was sent off on a five concert tour of Europe with the major cities of Madrid, Hamburg, Zurich, Rome and Paris getting all the attention.

SimCity Social where also given a treat and Mercedes teamed up with The Electronic Arts Inc. offering players a range of addition playing options. If you can’t catch them on the street catch them at the keyboard – clever!

Print TV and the big push started way back in September 2102. Print ads included QR codes which too the curious on a binge of all global communication on the new A-Class pooled together since March of the same year. The online hub www.mercedes-benz.com/a-class also has it’s own fair share of innovation scrolling from headlights to concert high lights, fleet footed finance deals to test piloting sorry test driving bookings.

They even allowed themselves a bit of good humour in the five TVC’s – A car that finds it’s own parking – Brilliant !!!

So it has to be said that A-Class certainly has displayed that it has it’s finger on the pulse of the young people in more ways than one.

They are well justified in having the campaign theme running “The pulse of a new generation”

And not to lose out on a bit of retro identity A- little red number made it big in the movie “Night Train to Lisbon”

Source: Data Wikipedia

Colour revitalising on the streets of Warsaw.

Source: welovead.com

Big data and what is to be done with it without offending or invading the consumers privacy? Bigger better ethics are a must.

What are the secrets to creating a Viral Video?

“A viral video is a video that becomes popular through the process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites, social media and e-mail.”

As defined by Wikipedia.

It is very reassuring that viral video is not nasty, in point of fact it appears that what people like to share the most is video snippets that are steeped in humour, sometimes drawing on televised comedy sketches such as The Loney Island’s “Lazy Sunday” and “Dick in a Box”, Numa Numa videos, The Evolution of Dance, Chocolate Rain on YouTube. On some occasions an eyewitness account of events will trigger off the viral effect one of the most notable in this category was “Battle at Kruger” and there was no humor involved just an arresting intrigue in animal behavior where victim becomes the vanquisher. Another far from humorous spread of sharing that spread like wild fire was the video made by Invisible Children, Inc. named Kony 2012. This Viral video made history with over 34 million views in the first day!! It did not stop there with more than 94 million views as of 25 November 2012.

Bands and music promotion has been highly successful with viral video there are few out there that do not know of the four minutes and thirteen seconds of Gangnam Style and the chain reaction it caused in parodies and imitations.

Is there money to be made if you create a viral video? Oh yes indeed, The father who shot and published “David After Dentist” earned more than US$100,000 in advertising commission.

So what is the answer to setting out to create a viral video? Well there is no magic formula the magic seems to just happen, however humour is a good place to start and what a pleasure to send out a means to generate millions of smiles and laughs.

Tell us if you have any suggestions to share with our followers.

Data Source: Wikipedia