The Marketing Week

Welcome to The Marketing Week, your guide to the good, the bad and the ugly in the marketing industry over the last seven days.

CAMPAIGN OF THE WEEK

movember-2013-460

Movember is back this year with a brand revamp to appeal to a new generation of wannabe Magnum-PI lookalikes. Bristling with success from last year’s effort, the anti-cancer initiative is making a play on demographers’ habit of naming successive eras by letter, such as Gen X and Gen Y, by introducing the “Generation Mo” slogan. Brand partners such as Gillette and HP will one again support the month-long push alongside the roll out of Movember’s first own range of merchandise.

Movember has been criticised in the past for seeing its men’s health message sidelined by its success as a fashion movement. The charity, however, believes the upcoming push will retune the brand to its roots as a driver of positive change.

GOOD WEEK FOR

Guardian Tech Monthly

Newspapers have upped their marketing spend in recent weeks, with The Sun, Daily Mirror and The Guardian all launching multi-million pound campaigns. But it is only the latter publication and its sister title The Observer that have seen a circulation bump, with sales up 4.16 per cent for the Guardian and 3.28 per cent for its Sunday counterpart.

The Guardian is crediting the rise on its investment in print at a time when rival newspapers are focused on their digital services. It has launched two new supplements, the Observer Tech Monthly and biannual magazine The Fashion.

BAD WEEK FOR

CamelotLotto-Logo-2013_460

Camelot’s decision to double the price of a Lotto ticket has an immediate impact on the perception of the National Lottery brand. Despite adding several all-singing, all dancing features to the game, the brand’s value, quality, buzz, impression and purchase intent rankings have dipped over the last month. Camelot insists the drop is to be expected and that sales have improved but for how long once the impact of the big splash marketing campaign fades?     

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_LFOvbG-Ko

Pepsi has kicked off a year long global football platform – #FutbolNow – in the build-up to the 2014 World Cup starring Barcelona and Argentina star Leo Messi with a can of the carbonated drink at his feet doing what he usually does best with a football. The campaign will appear in hundreds of markets across the world – but not in the UK, where all the focus is on Pepsi Max, as PepsiCo opted only to market non-sugar varieties of its products in 2005.

ONE TO WATCH

Microsoft is developing a replacement to the cookie that will improve tracking of users across devices and the targeting of advertising, AdAge reports. It is not clear when the universal cookie replacement will be rolled out, but its arrival will be welcomed by advertisers – particularly as third-party cookies can’t be used on mobile devices.

A Microsoft spokeswoman gave Marketing Week this statement: “Microsoft believes going beyond the cookie is important.  Our priority will be to find ways to do this that respect the interests of consumers. We have nothing further to share.”

TWEETS OF THE WEEK

@AndyNairn, Lucky Generals founding partner, on his to do list
“I’ve just been handed something of a poisoned chalice. Or as it’s known these days, a penis beaker.

@AshleyFriedlein, Econsultancy CEO, on sound advice from the Festival of Marketing
“Big budget cuts/changes an opportunity to reset the marketing agenda #FOM13 #Funnel13”

@hellojonny, chief innovation officer at AMV BBDO, on event location  
“Google must have been using Apple Maps when they searched ‘London’ to find an event location #brandcast – it was in Brentford.”

@nickwhitcroft, communications planner at OMD, on creative tweeting
“@OceanOutdoorUK Almost forgot the fabulously innuendoed (yes, that’s a word now) hashtag that is: #PlayWithOurPixels. Glorious.

DATES FOR THE DIARY

  • 15 October – Nike is holding an event in New York to discuss the future of NikeFuel. Press speculation suggests the sports brand could be announcing the launch of a new FuelBand.
  • 17 October – The annual IAB Engage event returns. This year recently appointed Facebook EMEA vice president Nicola Mendelsohn will share her perspective on what drives social behaviour, Google’s European vice president Matt Brittin will update the room on the latest insights from the search giant and Rob Brydon will be popping by to do his thing.

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