International round-up: Amazon starts Australian trial, Burger King tells customers to visit McDonald’s

Plus French retailer Monoprix launches a ‘reversible’ campaign to support breast cancer survivors and Yoox trials 15-second ‘now or never’ YouTube deals.

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Amazon trials orders in Australia

Australia’s retailers have been put on alert as Amazon’s Australian arm has just begun an order-taking trial.

The trial kicked off today (23 November) with the Amazon Australia website’s search box filling in product names automatically. A representative for Amazon, which has never given a start date for Australia, declined to comment. It is said that only a select few retailers are able to sell their goods through the platform.

While Australia has long had Amazon-registered sellers, they have been limited to sending goods offshore as Amazon had no warehouse in the country. Until now, Australians have had to wait long periods and pay sizable shipping costs for deliveries. But Amazon has been ramping up its operations in the country ahead of a full launch.

READ MORE: Amazon begins taking orders in Australia

Yoox looks to ’15-second YouTube deals’ for Black Friday

Black Friday can be a challenging time for retailers, especially when it comes to grabbing people’s attention. Luxury and lifestyle e-tailer Yoox is hoping to cut through by taking a slightly different approach to YouTube ads and emphasising the urgency of its deals.

In partnership with Google and creative tech agency Stink Studios, the brand has created shoppable pre-rolls featuring products and luxury fashion items so exclusive they’re only available one at a time, for the duration of a 15-second YouTube ad.

The customer will never be able to find the item on Yoox or watch the video on YouTube ever again. Skip it, and the opportunity passes onto the next person. As the brand said: “It really is now or never”.

The ads will run in the US, Italy, Japan and South Korea until mid December.

French retailer launches ‘reversible’ campaign to support breast cancer survivors

French retailer Monoprix has launched a new campaign for one of its lingerie brands, Garance, that specifically looks to empower breast cancer survivors with its products.

Created by agency Rosapark, #ReversibleStory portrays a woman telling a disheartening breast cancer story. But, when the story is watched in reverse, it takes an unexpected emotional turn: it shows a hopeful, positive message, which restores and strengthens women’s confidence in their future.

The campaign ran on Monoprix’s Instagram account, but is also being shared on other social platforms.

Garance is a lingerie brand which caters to breast cancer survivors, with the mission of helping women “reconquer their femininity” damaged by the disease. The French retailer is the first to sell Garance in its stores.

Burger King Argentina encourages customers to visit McDonald’s instead

Burger King did a seemingly odd thing earlier this month in Argentina, by directing customers to rival McDonald’s.

It was all done in the name of charity. On 10 November, McDonald’s Argentina was ‘McHappy’ day, when all sales from Big Macs are donated to help children with cancer. So on that day, all 107 Burger King restaurants refused to sell its Whoppers and encouraged people to go to McDonald’s instead.

The stunt, by agency David, was of course filmed in a video to show off its charitable efforts.

READ MORE: Burger King Refused to Sell Whoppers to Customers and Sent Them to McDonald’s Instead

Hundreds of Australian brands hit by ad fraud

Almost all of Australia’s premium publishers, major sporting bodies, government departments, Google, Facebook and several iconic local companies were targeted in the world’s largest ad fraud sting, according to Danish adtech company Adform.

Adform discovered one of the largest digital advertising bot networks after a two-month investigation that began in August. Called HyphBot, Adform claims the domain spoofing scandal is “three to four times larger” than the Methbot network discovered by WhiteOps last year.

“HyphBot was generating up to 1.5 billion requests per day and it generated fake traffic on more than 34,000 different domains, including premium publishers, and more than a million different URLs,” the adtech company said in a report.

Publishers affected include News Corp titles The Australian, Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun. Other major brands include Yahoo, eBay, Tourism Australia, Disney, Nine, ABC, SBS, Ten, Fox Sports, Nickelodeon and ESPN.

READ MORE: Hundreds of Australian sites and brands hit in global ad fraud scheme

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