By Stephen Lepitak Lockdown has been brutal for indoor entertainment venues, and not least the movie theatres where strangers once sat side-by-side, sometimes for hours on end, transfixed to the dramas that played out before them. As a result of cinemas closing in March, many of the blockbusters earmarked for the summer were either delayed or, in the controversial case of Trolls 2, leapfrogged the big screen completely to go straight to streaming (pay per view, of course). Another effect is, of course, that ad revenues have plummeted. Rather than growing 9% this year as expected and bringing in £249m, UK cinemas are now Read full story › Source: The Drum...
Read MoreBy Shawn Lim With sporting events still grounded around the world, esports has been left as the only competitive sport on the field. This unusual state of affairs has seen sport-oriented brands look to the sector as a potential new home for ad spend. On an esports panel during The Drum’s Can-Do Festival, panellists noted that brands are used to seeing their brands, marketing activities, and logos flashing on the LED screens in stadiums. Now, they are trying to understand whether esports, a space which they are unfamiliar with, is a space they can actually make use of to reach Read full story › Source: The Drum...
Read MoreBy Olivia Wedderburn As calls for the worlds largest brands to boycott Facebook in response to its policies on hate speech, Olivia Wedderburn, associate social director for TMW Unlimited, offers some advice to brands considering whether they should join the cause. Resentment and mistrust of social media platforms, especially Facebook and its family of apps, have been growing for quite some time. Controversies around the handling of Covid-19 information and the Black Lives Matter movements – arguably two of the biggest crises of this generation – have brought those currents to the surface. With citizens indoors and more concerned than ever with the forces at Read full story › Source: The Drum...
Read MoreBy Ben Essen In 2019, Create and Strike saw ad land take a strong stance against environmental disaster, and now its organisers have unveiled the next chapter of its mission. The Grand Reset aims to tackle the climate crisis and spearhead a ‘new normal’. Ben Essen, chief strategy officer of Iris Worldwide, outlines its goals. 4 July has been dubbed ‘Super Saturday’ – the day people are being encouraged to put lockdown behind them. After a long period of sacrifice, people feel entitled to put their own needs first again, which is all great news for the advertising industry. However, while lockdown has Read full story › Source: The Drum...
Read MoreBy Claire Gillis Fresh from speaking on this topic at The Drum’s Can-Do Festival, Claire Gillis, international chief executive of the WPP Health Practice, discusses the role communications can play in tackling twin pandemics ravaging our world. It’s said that the biggest problem in communication is that we do not listen to understand – we listen to reply. Too often in conversation, we’re already planning our responses while the other side’s still talking. We’re listening, but we’re not really listening – so how can we truly understand? Well, if ever there was a time for society to listen and learn, it’s now. Our world is Read full story › Source: The Drum...
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