Posts made in September, 2016

on Sep 29, 2016

By Natalie Mortimer During the summer of 2012 the British public was riding a wave of positivity around the Paralympics, which had returned to its ancestral home in the UK. The event sparked a change in perception of people with a disability and brands began to realise the opportunity of representing and including disabled people in their advertising. The Paralympics also led to a rise in popularity of disabled sports and a year after the games the number of members of Boccia England (a disability sport that tests muscle control and accuracy) rose by 60 per cent, while wheelchair basketball saw a 25 per Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Sep 29, 2016

By Tony Connelly Scottish Rugby Union (SRU) wants to secure its longevity at the top of the sport with a commercial strategy that aims to familiarise its brand of the game in emerging markets such as Japan and the US in order to open up commercial partnerships and revenue streams. Scottish rugby could not be in a better place at the moment and as such its organisers are scrambling to capitalise on that good health. The governing body has posted record turnover for the last three years following the launch of a commercial strategy focused on ticket revenue, broadcast agreements and lucrative Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Sep 29, 2016

By Charlotte McEleny Mobile messaging app Line has announced a series of new features that will give businesses and developers the ability to create chatbots. As well as creating new technology and opening up to the developer community via a new messaging API, Line will be actively encouraging people to build valuable chatbots via a financial reward. The business said it ultimately wants to create a ‘smart portal’ in which users can connect with the information, people and businesses they need at any time of the day. Line isn’t the first to mine the chatbot opportunity, other messaging platforms such as Facebook have already Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Sep 29, 2016

By Jennifer Faull Every Olympics has its “thing”. Something bigger and more important, which transcends the Games, sport or its athletes. In 1900, it was the first woman to ever compete. In 1936, it was Jess Owens taking a defiant stand against the Nazis. In 1968, it was Black Power. In 2016, it was refugees. Between London 2012 and Rio, the global refugee crisis had reached an unprecedented scale. In 2012, 11 million people were living as refugees or asylum seekers. A year before Rio’s opening ceremony, that figure was a record 20 million; roughly the equivalent to the population of Romania. And so, for Read full story › Source: The Drum...

on Sep 29, 2016

By Catherine Turner Celebrity sells, or so the age-old marketing axiom says. In a mass media world, courting the stars of stage and screen has oft proved an effective way of reaching a wider, more engaged audience, lending credibility by virtue of third party endorsement. A super-charged word of mouth, if you will. But we live in social times, and earning trust in the digital economy requires a different set of tools. Both the nature of celebrity and the means of communication have radically changed: old-school celebrities are transforming themselves into media channels and the rising elite are digital first. A single tweet from singer Read full story › Source: The Drum...