5 things you need to know this week

From Snapchat moving into ecommerce to Asda’s pledge to place a heavier focus on emotional storytelling following another dismal fall in sales, it has been a busy week in the world of marketing. Here is what you need to know.

Instagram is overtaking Twitter as the social platform of choice for London Fashion Week

London Fashion Week officially kicked off this week, which can only mean one thing – fashion brands are working overtime. Many seem particularly keen to make an impact on social media, and this year it’s Instagram that seems to be the fashion world’s platform of choice.

Figures by digital marketing agency Greenlight show that there have been 5,602 Instagram posts using #LFW2016 in the month leading up to London Fashion Week 2016, compared with 1,178 Twitter mentions over the same timeframe. In sharp contrast, last year saw more than 6,000 twitter mentions using #LFW2015.

In many ways Instagram does the job that fashion magazines used to do, says Andrew Hall, retail consultant at Verdict Retail.

“If you’re streaming live videos or taking pictures from the catwalk, that’s fulfilling the same function that fashion magazines used to. It’s bringing that exclusivity to a wider mass-market audience, which is something users really appreciate.”

It’s official: Snapchat is moving into ecommerce

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It was a persistent rumour that never truly faded, and this week it has finally been confirmed: Snapchat is moving into ecommerce.

Speaking at a Re/code conference earlier this week, Joanna Coles, the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan and a member of Snapchat’s board of directors, revealed: “Sweet is a channel on Snapchat that Hearst and Snapchat have done together, but at some point that will morph into an ecommerce platform so you will be able to buy from it.”

She added, however, that the technology is not “quite [there] yet for how we would like to do it.”

But if Snapchat wishes to succeed, it has to ensure its user interactions remain light-hearted and engaging, says Dan Moseley, senior account manager at We Are Social.

He explains: “I’m assuming that most product videos will have a 10- to-15-second limit. Current buying behaviour seems to be based around bookmarking products consumers like and having some time to think about it. If they can get a younger generation to spend money immediately and make it quick and entertaining, then that could be really exciting.”

Asda’s new marketing chief says it will explore emotive advertising in a bid to revive flagging sales

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Asda has not had the best of weeks. While its competitors Tesco and Morrisons have seen growing sales over the Christmas period, the grocer could not say the same. Its sales dropped 5.8% over the 13 weeks ending 1 January 2016, representing the retailer’s sixth straight quarterly sales decline. Ouch.

To revive flagging sales, Asda’s new head of marketing Andy Murray said the retailer is considering more emotive storytelling as well focus on price-based messaging.

In his first interview since taking on the role, he told Marketing Week: “It is always important to tell your story to the customer and make the brand connect emotionally – those are the fundamentals of good marketing. I’m not saying we’ll move away from price-based messaging but it has to be linked with much more emotive storytelling.”

Three wants marketers to step up their mobile advertising  as it plans to introduce mobile ad blocking

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Three is the first UK mobile provider to roll out ad blocking, as encourages marketers to “shape up” when it comes to their mobile advertising.

According to Three’s UK CMO Tom Malleschitz, mobile advertising is currently not of a high enough quality and can often be considered intrusive.

He told Marketing Week: “From a marketing and CMO angle, I believe mobile ads are pretty annoying right now.

“We spend millions on advertising to inspire UK consumers to fall in love with our brand and stay with us longer, but this won’t happen if we’re serving the same ad 100 times over or overlay our purple puppet brand icon on content that people are trying to read. This is absolutely a push from Three to get advertisers to shape up.”

PepsiCo says a lack of high-quality assets is a barrier in its shift to digital

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PepsiCo is planning to increase its investment in marketing and put more money into digital, but the move is not without its struggles. According to the company, it is difficult to find high-quality assets to invest in.

Speaking on an earning calls following the company’s fourth quarter results, PepsiCo’s CFO Hugh Johnston credited an increase in advertising, alongside research and development, for the 5% revenue growth the company has experienced over the past couple of years.

He also promised that more money would be going into digital but cautioned that the shift would not be as pronounced as some might expect as the company focused on finding high-quality assets to invest in.

“The big constraint on moving more to digital is identifying high-quality properties to advertise on,” explained Johnston. “It’s not just a matter of going for pop-up ads anymore. It’s really more sophisticated digital advertising. More than anything, the rate-limiting factor is finding high-quality assets to invest in.”

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