5 things that mattered this week

Coca-Cola is fighting declining sales but remains defiant

Coca-Cola has had a difficult couple of years. Consumers are increasingly moving away from sugary drinks, which has been reflected in recent Nielsen figures. Total UK Coca-Cola ‘classic’ value sales for for the six months ending 2 July 2016 dropped 7.8% to £267.5m year on year. Diet Coke and Coke Zero saw sales fall by 5.4% and 3.4% for the same period, while Coke Life sales plummeted by 54.5%.

Its ‘One Brand’ strategy, which unites its four variants under one ‘master brand’ and was rolled out globally in January this year, aims to encourage consumers to drink more different types of Coca-Cola.

Speaking on an investor call, however, chief operating officer James Quincey admitted the effect of the One Brand strategy has yet to be felt.

He explained: “The roll out started in January. That sort of marketing innovation takes time to take effect. We will keep pressing away with innovation. It’s too early to call it a success, we can call that at the end of the year.”

Marketers ‘continue to waste money’ on digital ads

Bad news for digital marketers. The vast majority of digital advertising is not being viewed at all, with many marketers still failing to apply effectiveness techniques learned from print and out-of-home to the channel, according to a new study.

Since January 2016, research firm Lumen has used laptop-mounted eye tracking cameras on 300 consumers’ laptops to collect visual data on what they notice when they are online. And over this period the study, which was run in partnership with Nectar-owner Aimia, recorded 30,000 minutes of data, with evidence relating to around 15,000 digital ads.

It found that only 44% of digital display ads received any views at all. And, of those, only 9% of ads received more than a second’s worth of attention. Only 4% of ads, meanwhile, received more than 2 seconds of engagement.

“It is very cocky to think anyone is going to look at your digital video for more than 4 seconds. Digital marketers need to start thinking in terms of attention economics or they will just keep on failing,” says Mike Follett, managing director at Lumen.

McDonald’s sings the praises of Pokémon Go

McDonald’s wants to ‘catch them all’ with its Pokémon Go tie-up. It was the first brand to advertise on Pokémon Go, paying to see 3,000 of its fast-food restaurants in Japan become ‘Pokémon gyms’ in the virtual reality game. Players must visit these locations to progress in the game by becoming the gym’s champion.

Speaking on an investor call earlier this week, CEO Steve Easterbrook even claimed the deal has been good for business.

He explained: “Our relationship with [game developer] Niantic is driven by the Japanese team. It is a global phenomenon, clearly, and we always want to talk to leadership partners around the world. We are enjoying what [Pokémon Go] is doing for our business at the moment.”

BT Sport and Sky go head-to-head with football campaigns

As the new Premier league football season approaches, the battle for broadcasting bragging rights between BT Sport and Sky is intensifying.

BT Sport’s new marketing campaign aims to highlight that it is the only broadcaster with rights to show all four of the major European football competitions including the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europe League and Emirates FA Cup.

The ads feature footballers Jamie Vardy, Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo, Dimitri Payet and Wayne Rooney. They will be rolled out across TV, VOD, outdoor, digital, press, radio and social.

Meanwhile, Sky Sports is focusing on its dominance of the Premier League, showing more games than ever before, with 126 live matches, including the first Friday night games. Its campaign features David Beckham, who goes out on his daily jog only to run into scenes from 10 months of football.

“It’s our biggest ever season on Sky Sports, so we wanted one of the world’s biggest stars to help us tell that story,” says Barney Francis, managing director of Sky Sports.

Twitter kicks off campaign to lure new users as revenues slump

For Twitter, this week has been eventful to say the least. The brand’s new CMO launched a marketing push to attract new users as it looks to dispel myths around the platform and how to use it while positioning Twitter as a place to “see what’s happening everywhere in the world right now”.

The social media platform is in desperate need of a boost, as this week’s results disappointed investors. Though revenue was up 20% year-on-year to $602m, that was the social media platform’s lowest revenue growth since 2013 when Twitter went public.

Speaking on a conference call yesterday (26 July), Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO said: “There is increased competition for social marketing budgets, which requires us to continuously raise the quality bar on the advertising solutions we bring to market.”

 

To learn more about topics such as digital innovation, brand and creative, why not visit the Festival of Marketing, which is running on the 5 and 6 October at Tobacco Dock, London. For more information about the event, including how to book tickets, click here.