Tag: WhatsApp
From Netflix recommendations to the rise of voice assistants, AI is increasingly finding its way into our daily lives. Just yesterday, Nike announced that they are buying an AI startup to predict what consumers want. You can’t deny AI is everywhere.
How do we accept, understand and trust AI in our day to day lives? Look no further than our very own Retail Revolution research study, which this week was featured in Business Insider series How AI Is Changing Everything.
The Tik Tok takeover continues! By partnering with Giphy, fans of both can now import stickers and create memes.
Are third party schedulers a thing of the past? Instagram rolls out their very own post creator studio.
Alexa, close your ears… Amazon are now giving users the option to opt out of human review of their voice recordings.
Social media marketers rejoice as Snapchat’s new tool makes it easier to create vertical video assets.
Pin, pin, pin. Shop, shop, shop! The number of retail products on Pinterest was up by 50% in Q2 of 2019.
This report of high-subscriber YouTube channels finds that children’s content received more views than other videos!
The 4 giants unite in their goal to simplify data migration between platforms, as Apple joins Google, Facebook and Twitter in The Data Transfer Project.
Introducing WhatsApp Pay! Messenger services plans to make sending money between their 400 million active users as easy as sending a voice note.
From Netflix recommendations to the rise of voice assistants, AI is increasingly finding its way into our daily lives. Just yesterday, Nike announced that they are buying an AI startup to predict what consumers want. You can’t deny AI is everywhere.
How do we accept, understand and trust AI in our day to day lives? Look no further than our very own Retail Revolution research study, which this week was featured in Business Insider series How AI Is Changing Everything.
The Tik Tok takeover continues! By partnering with Giphy, fans of both can now import stickers and create memes.
Are third party schedulers a thing of the past? Instagram rolls out their very own post creator studio.
Alexa, close your ears… Amazon are now giving users the option to opt out of human review of their voice recordings.
Social media marketers rejoice as Snapchat’s new tool makes it easier to create vertical video assets.
Pin, pin, pin. Shop, shop, shop! The number of retail products on Pinterest was up by 50% in Q2 of 2019.
This report of high-subscriber YouTube channels finds that children’s content received more views than other videos!
The 4 giants unite in their goal to simplify data migration between platforms, as Apple joins Google, Facebook and Twitter in The Data Transfer Project.
Introducing WhatsApp Pay! Messenger services plans to make sending money between their 400 million active users as easy as sending a voice note.
Hello and welcome to the first FWD of 2018!
As we say goodbye to 2017, we look at who ended the year on a high:
- AirBnB was the hottest ticket in town as 3 million people partied the night away in AirBnBs on New Year’s Eve (compared to just 1,400 eight years ago).
- WhatsApp set a new messaging record with 75 billion messages sent globally using the service on New Year’s Eve.
- Spotify started the new year with 70 million paying subscribers, as it files to become a public company.
However, it is also time to look forward to the year ahead as we hear predictions from experts from the ecommerce world, The BBC and The Guardian on what will be the biggest tech and media trends in 2018…
HEADLINES
- Spotify gains 10 million new paid members every 6 months and files to go public on the New York Stock Exchange
- On New Year Eve, three million people partied the night away in Airbnbs, compared to just 1,400 eight years ago and many of them were WhatsApping – a massive 75 billion messages globally were sent using the service
- Instagram is letting a select few users post directly to WhatsApp
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
Please share anything of interest using #OMDFWD
Hello and welcome to your weekly OMD FWD bringing you the latest tech news to warm up on this chilly Autumn day. We start this edition with Tinder’s hot ranking as the top grossing iOS app as a result of charging people to see who has liked their profile. Next up, the Amazon and Apple rivalry sparks up as they join major Hollywood players in a bid to win distribution rights for James Bond, while eBay launches the specialised Entertainment Shop.
Brands can now target their user-base on third-party sites through LinkedIn’s new Audience Network. Comparatively, Whatsapp will offer a free app to small-to-medium size businesses, but will charge the larger ones, as it tests a chat button on Facebook that opens a conversation directly with business.
HEADLINES
- Tinder has become the top grossing iOS app as a result of charging people to see who has liked their profile.
- LinkedIn’s new Audience Network allows brands to reach their audiences through their native ad formats which can run across third party sites.
- Amazon and Apple join the major Hollywood players in a bid to win distribution rights for James Bond, as EBay launches The Entertainment Shop, selling films, music, books, and video games.
- WhatsApp has introduced a free Business app for small-medium businesses (it will charge larger ones), as it tests a chat button on Facebook which opens a conversation directly with businesses.
INSIGHTS
- Learn what’s really on the nation’s minds with a list of the most searched for ‘how to’ questions in Google.
- A look at back to school shopping habits reveals 43% of shoppers will use their smartphones to do research, as retailers take advantage of ASMR.
- Find out what the fastest growing programming language is.
COOL
- Users across Facebook can help design Citroën’s latest TV ad, as they select their favourite scenes.
- Grolsch has used neuro headsets which have taken brain-waves stimulated by music and turned them into art.
- A new smartphone app could help diagnose Heart disease, potentially avoiding a 45-minute hospital procedure.
DEEP READS
- Google reveals a number of improvements to their Assistant features coming soon.
- Teens are spending more time on screen than ever, rather than socialising or exercising, which leads to greater risk of depression.
- There are over a million people helping to train AI, as one day it will be embedded into our everyday lives.
As usual, please share anything you find interesting using the hashtag #OMDFWD
Hello and welcome to this week’s OMD FWD! We weren’t so lucky to witness the solar eclipse earlier this week. But, hopefully, some of you were able to follow it with Snapchat’s new ‘Actionmoji’. In any case, we’ve curated the latest tech news for you to munch on, from Heinz making it possible to try Instagram food posts to Amazon’s new offline daily essentials programme that might pose a threat to bricks-and-mortar convenience stores.
In the attempt of becoming the WeChat of the West, Whatsapp is adding a peer to peer payment function to their app. While Reddit introduces auto-play silent video ads to encourage video consumption and advertising on the platform. Microsoft’s AI reaches human level accuracy in speech recognition. Also, Formula One enters the virtual realm launching its first eSport championship.
Moreover, as we approach the August bank holiday weekend, a study predicts that searches for Christmas-related items will start on Friday!
HEADLINES
- WhatsApp to add peer to peer payments function to the app
- From order to delivery in 120 seconds? Amazon soft rolls out its ‘Instant Pickup’ programme
- Home to 48m users globally, Reddit launches its own video player to increase user retention (and presumably, advertisers)
INSIGHTS
- An interesting report on the UK growth of the beauty market and how ‘Make Up’ searches are up 300%
- It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas; how Seasonal Shopping starts this Friday!
- How Formula One attempts to tap into a new, younger audience
COOL
DEEP READS
- Facebook for the face? What Facebook’s patents tell us about their glasses product
- How Amazon have slowly built a vast collection of secret brands
- Microsoft’s speech recognition software is statistically on a par with ours
If you see anything FWD worthy in the week ahead, please share using #OMDFWD
Traditional e-commerce websites may be good for shopping when you know what you’re looking for. But for those times when you don’t, Instagram has introduced new features. These new features will help users identify products in Instagram photos from brands. Vishal Shah, Instagram’s Head of Product Management for Monetization, mentions that even though we have seen progress in mobile purchasing “these two things — discovery and the actual purchase — are just not well-connected like in physical stores”. The feature will enable retailers to price label their products on the platform and then direct customers to their mobile website – still not enabling users to purchase through the app. However, Shah does mention that commerce will evolve into big business in the future – either through ads or a cut in sales.
HEADLINES
- Facebook is a hive of activity, reporting very strong Q3 fiscal results, testing instant games it now wants to start selling TV spots on TVs through Apple TV and Roku
- In a move that will please e-commerce teams, Instagram is set to add some shoppable features
- WhatsApp tests Status, a new feature that’s like Snapchat stories as the platform continues to evolve
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
Share anything you see through the week with the hashtag #OMDFWD
Businesses will soon be able to message WhatsApp users, as the company plans to give its parent company, Facebook, personal information including users’ phone numbers. WhatsApp’s billion-plus users will be notified of changes to the privacy policy and will be able to opt out within 30 days. Even though WhatsApp has said it won’t use banner ads or allow spam on the platform the ad targeting will be on Facebook’s own platform. The feature has been under testing since WhatsApp dropped its yearly fee service at the start of the year. WhatsApp and Facebook accounts will continue to remain separate and the service will not be merging with one another. However, WhatsApp updated its privacy policy stating “messages you may receive containing marketing could include an offer for something that might interest you”. The company still insists that it does not sell ads when activating the service, linking to a blog post from 18 June 2012 titled “why we don’t sell ads”. Whilst Instagram enjoys revenue from advertising neither WhatsApp nor Facebook Messenger do. However, they have yet to fully leverage its billion-plus user base and the potential is there. As always, share anything you find interesting with #OMDFWD
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
Almost overnight Nintendo’s Pokémon GO (PoGO) has taken augmented reality, a viable technology to create immersive and incredibly desirable customer experiences, from a niche market to a mass.
Pokémon GO is already outstripping Tinder on app installs. It has more daily active users than Twitter with people spending 43 minutes a day on average playing it, having a higher dwell time than WhatsApp, Instagram and Snapchat. Pokémon Go is seeing more than double the industry average retention rate with 7 out of 10 people who downloaded the app returning the next day.
It has already been dubbed ‘a cultural phenomenon’ and a saviour for Nintendo. The demand for Pokémon GO saw Nintendo’s shares surge by a quarter in value on Monday.
The tidal wave of participation has already inspired other businesses to become part of the show.
Entrepreneurs are building new revenue streams. Gamers are offering 1-4 hour ($20 per hour) shifts so the gameplay doesn’t have to stop while you are at work. If you are pressed for time, Pokémon Taxi services are at hand to take you to Pokémon stops and locations. Maybe we will see a UBER-Pokémon Go partnership.
Huge Cafe in Atlanta is across the street from two Pokémon Go ‘PokéStops’. They have paid $49 to buy in-game “coins” that can be traded in for 40 in-game “lures”. These can be ‘attached’ to PokéStops and work as smoke-signals to attract Pokémon and users. Each ‘lure’ works for 30 minutes and attracts rarer and more powerful Pokémon to the area, and in turn gamers.
Here are five reasons why you should start thinking about Pokémon Go brand opportunities:
[ctt template=”1″ link=”39g_7″ via=”yes” ]Total shares of ‘Pokemon Go’ online content rose by 535% in a 4 day period @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
That means publishers and clients with relevant content have already captured some of the 11 million+ shares from consumers. Considering this looks set to be a consistent source of ongoing traffic, there is a massive opportunity that exists for brands!
[ctt template=”1″ link=”fT8Zr” via=”no” ]#PokémonGo on Facebook shows continuous growth– 21K players have shown interest in events & page likes have increased +131% over the weekend[/ctt]
Have you considered Facebook content around Pokémon to put your brand into the conversation?
[ctt template=”1″ link=”3DiRF” via=”no” ]#PokémonGo opens up a new world of location-based marketing – did you know 10,000+ people are interested in the ‘London massive lure party’? [/ctt]
A quick search on Eventbrite also shows everything from a Pokémon 5k run to bar crawls. The creative potential seems only constrained by our imagination and the time to start thinking about it is now.
[ctt template=”1″ link=”HB6UT” via=”yes” ]#PokémonGo appears to lend itself (if done well) to non-gaming topics like travel, dining and fashion @OMD_EMEA[/ctt]
For example, Pokemon Go fashion by Cosmopolitan reaches 70.6k shares & restaurants are also being impacted.
[ctt template=”1″ link=”9qOAb” via=”no” ]Google Trends monitors a breakout of search queries for ‘Pokemon Go Tips’ rising 140% in the first 24 hours to over 5,000% by the 5th day[/ctt] Could your brand fill the demand / supply content gap with something that speaks to your audience?
There’s plenty of traffic and social shares going on – #gottacatchemall!
What does this cultural phenomenon mean for your brand? Need more information or interested in exploring Pokémon branded opportunities – contact us at [email protected]
Since the last major sporting summer event, World Cup 2014, the creative possibilities on Twitter have evolved hugely. Last year Twitter announced that video views increased 150-fold year on year, with the emergence of Periscope bringing the power of live video to the fore. Emojis continue to redefine how people communicate online. In fact the “kissing” emoji alone was used 6.6 billion times on Twitter last year, taking on a language of its own. And new features such as Twitter Moments, Stickers, GIFS and polls have provided a new layer to how people and brands can express themselves in a tweet. To reflect this, Twitter’s Director of Brand Strategy, Laurent Buanece, has analysed some of the the biggest brand campaigns supported across Europe during #EURO2016 to determine a top five including, #OrangeSponsorsYou, Vauxhall’s #GETIN and Volkswagen’s real-time emoji updates. From tweets powering an Eiffel Tower light show to fixture downloads, Twitter now demonstrates the breadth of creativity and innovation now available on the platform. We look forward to seeing how brands continue to connect with consumers as the summer of sport moves towards #Rio2016. Read, learn and share away.
HEADLINES
INSIGHTS
COOL
DEEP READS
Please do share anything interesting you spot on Twitter with #OMDFWD
Many of us may feel that there has not been as much anticipation for this year’s UEFA European Football Championship as usual, with the EU referendum dominating the attention of the media, at least in the UK. However, social media activity tells us a completely different story. Over the last month, there have been more than 3 million social media posts related to Euro 2016 in English alone – over 1 million more than the number of posts about Brexit (Source: OMD Impact Report Euro 2016 – to be launched on June 20th).
I must admit that I am one of that rare species that does not get too excited about football: my interest in Euro 2016 comes from identifying how consumer behaviours are changing. Technology is, as expected, set to play a major role in fan engagement, both with the tournament itself and with marketing tie-ins. This is especially interesting when looking at younger audiences whose attention is hard to retain as they use a plethora of devices and channels with which to consume football. There are four main trends that seem to be gaining traction in how we are experiencing and interacting with sporting events:
- Broadcast and live streaming
Television will still lead the attack, but mobile has the potential to take over as traditional television viewership declines, with smartphones and tablets accounting for close to half of streaming views. Due to the rise of over-the-top video platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, sports channels have been forced to think hard about their role in the OTT marketplace.
In the UK, BT Sport has begun a new era of live mass broadcasting: this year was the first time the Champions League final has been streamed live on a social media platform (YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Vine). Combining TV and digital media, it was the most widely available broadcast of a UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League final ever. BT Sport’s TV channel attracted 4.3 million people for the Champions League final, with an additional 1.8 million from YouTube.
- Dark social
As ad blocking rises and consumers reject more traditional ads, brands are turning to content marketing and social media more than ever. ‘Dark social’ (temporary messaging and broadcasting apps/platforms) is increasingly used by brands to engage on a more personal level with fans, creating a sense of exclusivity.
In the lead-up to Euro 2016, Adidas has activated a Snapchat channel, “Originals”, in collaboration with Pharrell Williams. The launch story generated 3.4 million views over 24 hours, with 87% of users watching the story in full. Adidas will also be using Whatsapp to create dedicated ‘squads’ which will go live on the app during Euro 2016. Members of these ‘squads’ will receive news releases before anyone else as well as invitations to events and access to Adidas’ ambassadors, from athletes to artists. Adidas aims to leverage these initiatives to learn, test and optimise dark social media use.
- Moment marketing
Since dual screening has become a habitual activity for the majority of TV viewers, in recent years more advertisers have trialed and developed tools to tailor targeted advertising content on the second screen. With greater data access, brands have the ability to plan and execute a lot more smartly – serving ads to the right audiences on relevant devices at the right times.
HTC was able to capitalise on the emotional moments that mattered most to fans during the UEFA Champions League to further leverage its sponsorship. The brand targeted people with ads on their mobiles during TV ad breaks and at key in-game moments (goals). The campaign saw outstanding results, specifically, a 100% increase in click-through rates and a 47% reduction in cost per clicks.
- Immersive technology
Recent developments in virtual reality and haptic technologies have activated new forms of live interactions for fans. As consumers have already shown considerable interest in VR and football watching is traditionally a social activity, brands are investing in new viewing experiences which will be utilised during Euro 2016.
UEFA has revealed that certain Euro 2016 finals will be filmed in VR. It is set to become the first major football tournament to employ virtual reality in abundance, after a brief test during the Champions League semi-finals.
I look forward to seeing how things develop both on and off the pitch as the tournament kicks off this Friday. As Dimitri Shostakovich, a prominent Soviet composer and pianist, once said, “Football is the ballet of the masses.” It is a passion that burns in the hearts of billions of fans worldwide, but it is also a passion that I expect will be experienced differently compared to the past.
Best of luck to your national teams!
For more information about the OMD Impact Report Euro 2016, contact [email protected].