The Media Online’s weekly wrap of need-to-know global media news.
Apple’s ad agency lays off staff after brand takes work in-house
A unit within TBWA’s Omnicom has had to lay off staff after Apple decided to take more creative work in-house. Bloomberg reported earlier this week that Media Arts Lab that around 50 lost their jobs, but MLA did not confirm the actual number.
A spokesperson told CNBC Monday had been a “difficult day” for the company but said their relationship had never been stronger, and that the move was due to evolving needs of the client. The spokesperson said this was the “nature of the advertising business”.
TBWA was the agency behind Apple’s iconic ‘1984’ commercial (above), and the ‘Think Different’ mantra of the brand.
Tor Myhren, VP of marketing and communications at Apple, said Apple has asked its agency to “evolve” as it changes its own marketing approach affirming the strong relationship with MAL.
CNBC has the story here.
BBC and ITV BritBox collaboration launched
A streaming service developed by the BBC and ITV has launched in the United Kingdom and was billed as the “largest collection of British box-sets available in one place”, WARC reported.
Majority owner ITV said it would include brand new and recent programmes as well as a wide range of classic British TV shows. And, it added, BritBox would also feature content from Channel 4 and Channel 5, “which effectively brings together all the UK’s main TV channels in one outlet for the first time”.
Shows included material such as Downton Abbey, Only Fools and Horse, Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Poirot, plus all 627 available episodes of Doctor Who, which were originally broadcast between 1963 and 1989.
For more, check out the story on WARC here.
Pritchard punts ‘partnership programmes’
Procter & Gamble chief brand officer Marc Pritchard has lauded ‘partnership programmes as a “whole new genre of advertising’.
Speaking at New York Advertising Week 2019, and reported in the current issue of Admap (topic: Partnering for growth), Pritchard pointed to P&G’s partnership with The Queen Collective with Queen Latifah as an example of “how such activity enables the businesses to further its mission of accelerating gender and racial equality behind the camera, with embedded messages for its Olay and Black is Beautiful brands”.
WARC has the details here.
Nicki Minaj in white media black media backlash
Nicki Minaj is in trouble derogatory (now deleted0 tweet in which she picked “white media over black media”.
Her controversial tweet followed an E! Nightly Pop report on her ongoing feud with Wendy Williams. The rapper praised E! on the report but said, “… The blacks only post the few seconds where I raise my voice to push their narrative. ??? #QueenRadio is back in a few days. Stay tuned”.
For more, see the story CapitalXtra.com
Marketers emerge as buyers of adtech and martech businesses
Marketers have emerged as potential buyers of ad and marketing technologies as venture capital money becomes more scarce.
“McDonald’s bought personalisation platform in March, Walmart snapped up ad tech startup Polymorph Labs to deliver more relevant ads to online shoppers in April, Nike bet on predictive analytics company Celect in August; travel startup OYO Hotels and Homes-bought Danamica, a Copenhagen-based startup that specializes in dynamic pricing through machine learning in September; and the same month MasterCard cut a deal for customer data platform SessionM,” Digiday reported.
Read more on Digiday.
In-app advertising grows due to time spent on mobiles
Global in-app advertising market was valued at $82 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach $258 billion by 2025. Now trade magazine The Drum, in partnership with mobile advertising company Smaato, has released a whitepaper on the its challenges and opportunities, “especially given that many marketers are still struggling to include mobile apps in their marketing strategies”.
Dan Rosen, COO of M&C Saatchi Performance, said in the report: “The most important trend is also the simplest – time spent on mobile when compared with other media channels or experiences. Mobile app continues to be the preferred access point to the consumer’s digital world.”
The Drum has the story here.
