Spring has sprung and we don’t know about you- but we’re getting excited about the months ahead. Let’s see if the rest of the marketing world is feeling just as optimistic. Read on to hear about some of the biggest stories of the week.
AORs Still Dominant But Smaller Agencies Closing In
The results of a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence unit for Globality, which spoke to 307 multinational business leaders, found that 58 per cent currently use an Agency of Record (AOR).
Despite this domination, many revealed they were beginning to move towards smaller specialists in order to get more value from their marketing strategies. Sixty-six per cent of respondents said they expected to use a small or medium agency in the next 12 months instead of their AOR, and 34 per cent said they will work with individual consultants.
This focus on specialists shone through in the results with 78 per cent stating they believe specialised expertise to be more valuable to their business than agencies who offer broader, but shallower, offerings. Fifty-six per cent also said cost was their biggest driving factor for change. Seventy-four per cent said they currently spend less than a quarter of their annual budgets on smaller companies.
30 Major Brands Sign ‘Digital Geneva Convention’
Organisations such as Microsoft and Facebook are among the 30 major brands that announced they have signed up to a ‘digital Geneva convention’ which commits never to partake in cyber-attacks against individuals or businesses.
This commitment can be identified as four key areas; Strengthening defensive capabilities, refusing to provide offensive ones, helping customers and users defend themselves, and working collectively to minimise the potential for damaging cyber-attacks.
The accord states:
“The companies will not help governments launch cyber-attacks against innocent citizens and enterprises, and will protect against tampering or exploitation of their products and services through every stage of technology development, design and distribution.”
The companies that have signed this ‘cybersecurity tech accord’ are mostly from the US and Western Europe. It has been noted that major brands such as Google, Amazon, and Apple have not taken part.
Google AdWords Launches New Video Format
This week, Google AdWords announced in its blog that it has introduced ‘outstream video ads’ – a new video format designed exclusively for mobile environments.
Google states this will drive incremental, cost-efficient, and viewable reach beyond YouTube by showing ads on high-quality publisher websites and apps, such as Google video partners. On mobile, outstream videos will automatically play, however the user will have to tap for sound or to restart the video.
Outstream ads will be charged on viewable CPM and you’ll be able to measure incremental interest using brand interest lift.
Google wrote:
‘Outstream video ads complement our efficient reach solutions for YouTube: TrueView for reach and Bumper ads. Now, you can reach even more of your audience across the mobile web and apps with a video ad designed for the ways people read, play, swipe and scroll on mobile.’
For more news updates, guides and opinion pieces, take a look at a few more of our articles.