Marketing

Cadbury is spending £6.5m on its latest Spots v Stripes activity – Race Season – which launches today in the UK and Ireland. As part of the Race Season event, the company launched a new chocolate wafer bar, the Big Race bar, yesterday. Spots v Stripes Race Season presents nine challenges that are designed to inspire people to play more games. According to Cadbury, these problems aim to see if people can be genuinely speedy at tasks they do every day, giving every person in the UK and Ireland a chance of breaking a world record. The nine challenges are split into four online races and five offline races. The…

Newspaper publishers in Europe have spoken out against Apple’s plans to introduce new conditions whereby iPhone and iPad digital newspaper subscriptions would be processed through the iTunes, thus making them subject to commission. According to journalism.co.uk , Apple has informed newspaper groups that tablet newspaper apps must offer readers the option to subscribe through the iTunes payment mechanism. It’s understood that Apple would then take a 30pc commission on all payments. In a statement, the European Newspaper Publishers’ Association (ENPA) said: “Apple’s iPad and other tablet devices offer fantastic potential for the development of newspapers in the digital environment. Publishers today want to provide readers with a range of attractive options,…

Photo Credit: Starity.hu Pop star Katy Perry is expected to be named GHD’s brand ambassador over the coming weeks. Katy Perry Set to Become GHD’s Brand Ambassador Marketing magazine reports that the hair care products manufacturer will launch an ad campaign promoting its latest hair straighteners next month and is currently in final negotiations with the California singer to star in the ads, which RYKCR/Y&R has created. GHD’s Influence in the Hair Care Industry GHD (Good Hair Day) is also reportedly discussing possibly becoming a second-tier sponsor of Perry’s UK tour, which begins next month. About GHD and it’s Influence in the Hair Care Industry GHD (Good Hair Day) is an iconic British company renowned for revolutionizing the…

Irish broadband provider, Magnet Networks, has launched a free web-based live TV service with Twitter and Facebook integration. The service offers live streaming of five Irish channels for free, regardless of provider. According to Magnet Networks, anyone with a 1MB broadband connection can log on to magnetwebtv.ie and register to watch RTE1, Network 2, TV3, TG4 and 3e live from any web browser.   The service involves no TV licence fees, no cable subscription, no contract, no monthly subscription fee and no software downloads. From the same web page, users also have the option of running their Twitter and Facebook feeds to comment, tweet and watch updates alongside their TV stream.  Similar…

Consumers have higher expectations of social media customer services compared to more traditional channels, with one in four people complaining about brands through Twitter or Facebook expecting a response within an hour and 6pc expecting to hear back within 10 minutes, new research from Lightspeed Research and the IAB in the UK has revealed. On the other hand, 50pc of consumers who made complaints via a brand’s own website were happy to receive a response within a day and 27pc within three days. The survey of over 1,000 internet users in the UK found that younger people are more likely to use social media platforms to complain about brands. Fifteen percent…

The Growing Natural Search Market in the UK The natural search market in the UK grew 16pc in 2010 to a value of £436m, according to Econsultancy. This valuation encompasses the overall expenditure on search engine optimization (SEO) in the UK, including investments in agency management services, technology, and consultancy. The substantial increase in the market’s value reflects the continued recognition and adoption of SEO as a highly effective method for driving traffic, boosting sales, and delivering impressive returns on investment. Econsultancy’s 2011 SEO Agencies Buyer’s Guide Econsultancy, a leading digital marketing and research company, which has just published its 2011 SEO Agencies Buyer’s Guide , said this valuation reflects the total amount of money…

Amazon.com is the top performing retail website in terms of customer satisfaction in the UK, according to a new study from ForeSee Results. The site got a score of 84 in the fourth annual Christmas Customer Satisfaction Index across the UK’s top 40 online retail websites during December. Measured as a separate entity for the first time, it edged out Amazon.co.uk (83), which was the top performing UK online retailer in 2008 and 2009. Play.com increased two points to round out the top three companies scoring over 80 (last year, just one website scored over 80, generally considered the threshold for excellence whilst using this methodology). John Lewis increased one…

Mobile marketing and advertising is set to grow at an annual rate of 41pc to increase from €1.7bn in 2009 to €13.5bn in 2015, according to new research from Berg Insight. By 2015, it will account for 15.7pc of the total digital advertising market or 3.4pc of the total global ad spend for all media. Berg Insight said the mobile channel is becoming an integral part of the marketing media mix, “a progress that is eased by the increasing habitual mobile media consumption exercised by consumers”. “Handsets are extremely personal devices which people tend to always have within reach and most often switched on. This enables marketing opportunities which other…

Americans are most likely to use online social networks, according to a new study from the Pew Global Attitudes Project. Of 22 markets (not including Ireland) studied between 7 April and 8 May, respondents in the US most often said they use websites like Facebook and MySpace: 46pc said they use such sites, 36pc use the internet, but do not access these sites, and 18pc said they never go online. Poland (43pc), Britain (43pc) and South Korea (40pc) were relatively close behind the United States in social network usage. And at least a third of all respondents in France (36pc), Spain (34pc), Russia (33pc) and Brazil (33pc) said they engage…

The UK and Irish governments have announced the construction of a new, low power TV multiplex in order to continue providing TG4 in Northern Ulster following the switch to digital at the end of 2012. As well as carrying TG4, the multiplex, which will be part of the UK DTT system, will also transmit RTÉ 1 and RTÉ 2.  It is hoped that this will further increase the coverage of these channels in Northern Ireland, enabling approximately 90pc of the population there to receive their services on a free-to-air basis, either through overspill as before or via the new multiplex. As part of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in April…