Posts made in May, 2015

on May 28, 2015

By Mark Bell The Q4 2014 Forrester Wave Report highlighted the increasingly important role agencies are playing in digital business transformation: helping CMOs ‘to move quickly, access deeper market insight and take measured risks’ in order to best use technology to drive value for their customers. So, to provide value to clients, agencies need not only to have innovative technology skills, but also the ability to operate faster than their clients’ organisations and to make sense of the data those organisations are sitting on. It’s this latter skill that is pivotal, in my view. Too often, ‘innovation’ seems to be an excuse to play with Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on May 28, 2015

By Alison Millington Several key FIFA sponsors have expressed serious concerns following the arrests of top FIFA officials yesterday (27 May) amid an ongoing corruption investigation. Visa threatened to pull its sponsorship and Coca-Cola claimed the controversy has “tarnished” the World Cup brand. Paddy Power is even offering odds on which sponsor will pull out first. Emirates and Sony had already announced they would not renew their sponsorship contracts prior to this week’s arrests. However, the latest brand statements are likely to be empty threats according to sponsorship experts. While brands will be exerting huge pressure on FIFA for change, most are unlikely to end Read full story › Source: Marketing Week...

on May 28, 2015

By John McCarthy Lenovo has unveiled a smartphone with an in-built projector which can be used to cast content and control interfaces such as keyboards onto surfaces. The Chinese firm, which remains the world’s largest PC maker, debuted the Smart Cast smartphone at the first annual Lenovo Tech World in Beijing. The concept smartphone featured a laser projector and infrared motion detector enabling users to project touch screens of varying size and style onto surfaces. On display were apps such as calculator, drawing, note-taking or Microsoft PowerPoint. However, the device was also capable of large-scale projection enabling users to watch movies, play games or conduct video Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on May 28, 2015

By Rebecca Stewart Live & Breathe has promoted James Hoxley to the role of executive creative director following a restructure of its top tier creative team across its Leeds and London offices. Previously creative director of retail at the Marketing Store, Hoxley rejoined Live & Breathe in 2013 in the same role, having worked there for a decade prior. As well as overseeing the development of the consultancy’s creative teams, he will now work alongside recently-appointed executive planning director Jamie King on major creative projects and with existing clients – including Morrisons and Birds Eye. Live and Breathe’s managing director Nick Gray that the promotion was Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on May 28, 2015

By John McCarthy Google has announced that a Buy button is coming to its search results soon. Speaking at a Re/Code event, Omid Kordestani, Google’s chief business officer, broke the company’s silence on the issue. He said: “There is going to be a buy button, it is actually imminent,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Kordestani said the feature would reduce the “friction” of e-commerce and help increase click through rates. He added that the buttons would first emerge in the coming weeks. The buttons will appear alongside ‘Shop On Google’ sponsored results only on mobile devices. The move will help Google fight back against Amazon Read full story › Source: The Drum...