Amazon, Vodafone, Disruptive Brands: 5 things that mattered this week and why

The marketing news that matters this week including Vodafone’s ‘whitelist’ approach to digital advertising and Amazon rises up the BrandZ rankings.

Amazon enters the top 5 most valuable brands ranking for the first time

Amazon’s ‘be everywhere’ approach appears to be paying off as it saw its value soar in Kantar Millward Brown’s annual BrandZ list. Its value was up 41%, making it one of the fast growers and meaning it entered the top five for the first time, joining Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook at the top of the rankings. Amazon in particular has benefitted from its ubiquity as it expands beyond ecommerce into content, devices and voice.

“Ecosystem brands [like Amazon] cleverly meet our needs and make our lives easier by offering us all sorts of things that are connected so we gain this traction with them,” says Peter Walshe, BrandZ global strategy director. “Amazon, in particular, has mastered that way of establishing a perfect relationship with people.”

Google topped the rankings, just pipping Apple. While new entrants include Netflix, Snapchat, Salesforce and YouTube. The fastest riser was Adidas, which saw its value increase 58%, followed by Chinese alcohol brand Moutai which saw a 48% rise.

READ MORE: Amazon enters the top 5 global brands for the first time as Adidas’s value soars

What motivates marketers to find new jobs?

When looking for a new job pay is clearly important, but for marketers its not the only thing. According to a new survey by recruitment specialists Hays, marketers are more likely than most other professions to want a good work/life balance and prioritise work culture.

While 40% of marketers say pay is the most important factor when considering a new job, this is lower than the UK average of 45%. And almost three-quarters (71%) say they would take a pay cut for better workplace culture, far higher than the 62% across other professions.

Would you take a pay cut for better workplace culture?

hays workplace culture

The message for marketing employers is clear; yes they want to be well remunerated for the job they do but they are also looking for a job that values their role and offers training and an employer that has a clear vision and obvious benefits beyond money. Food for thought.

READ MORE: Culture, not pay, motivates marketers to move jobs

Vodafone makes first move to stop its ads appearing on offensive sites

Vodafone has taken matters into its own hands when it comes to where its ads appear online. It has become the first brand to create a ‘whitelist’ of sites where it is happy for its ads to appear, rather than relying on a ‘blacklist’.

The company’s group director of corporate affairs Matt Peacock says the aim is to stop its content appearing on sites where the “predominant purpose” is to create and share fake news or hate speech. That includes individual YouTube channels, as well as websites.

Our position is that it is not acceptable for ads to appear in loathsome places and that the current blacklist approach no longer works.

Matt Peacock, Vodafone

The approach is sensible. Most of the industry appears to be waiting for Google and Facebook to wave a magic wand and sort the problem, but so far there has been little in the way of updates on what the two will actually do. It might only be a small proportion of advertising that ends up next to unsavoury content but even that small amount can lead to reputational damage, as well as funding offensive sites and taking money away from legitimate ones. Here’s hoping others follow suit.

READ MORE: Vodafone blocks ads from appearing on sites that promote hate speech or fake news

The problems with media measurement

Almost three-quarters of senior marketers believe media measurement currencies are becoming “increasingly corrupted” and that players such as Google and Facebook have too much control. So says a new report by MediaSense and ISBA looking at the media landscape into 2020. It also found that 23% are “losing sleep” over recent high-profile measurement errors and MediaSense co-founder Andy Pearch says marketers are becoming increasingly paranoid about the reliability of data and metrics.

“There’s paranoia because the media agencies and the big digital players have way too much control,” he says. “It’s going to take a long time to move to an independent source of data verification.

“What this does show, however, is that marketers are running out of patience with the likes of Facebook and Google to sort out their advertising measurement issues. They won’t be palmed off and told to wait any more.”

Measurement is another areas where marketers are waiting for the big digital players to step up. They might be waiting a while.

READ MORE: Marketers becoming ‘paranoid’ over reliability of marketing metrics

100 Disruptive Brands is back

100 Disruptive Brands 2017

We launched the second year of our 100 Disruptive Brands list this week. Featuring startups including Pollarize, Awaytomars and BabyLook, the aim is to offer insight and inspiration on innovative ways to use technology, imaginative ways to adapting to societal shifts and different ways to employ structures and models that break convention.

We’ve also taken a deep dive into the world of healthcare disruptors, and looking at how some of the best startups are taking learnings from the consumer world into how they deal with patients.

READ MORE: Meet the healthcare disruptors treating patients like demanding consumers

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