According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau Spain’s (IAB Spain) November 2011 report “III Estudio Sobre Redes Sociales en Internet,” social network penetration increased to 75% in Spain in October 2011, a 7-percentage-point jump over 2010.

Facebook was the first choice for most users, followed by YouTube, Tuenti and, new to the 2011 study, Twitter.

The report found that social network users were more likely to be female and younger, with an average age of 35.

Source:eMarketer

New York:Maxus, the fastest-growing media services agency in the world (RECMA), has been named Adweek magazine’s “U.S. Media Agency of the Year” for the agency’s spectacular performance in 2011.

At the same time, Maxus was also lauded by Advertising Age as part of the magazine’s annual “Agency A-List” by being named an “Agency to Watch.”

Both announcements were made in this week’s issue of each publication.

“Maxus has enjoyed a banner year,” Adweek said in announcing the award. “Along with landing NBCUniversal’s (North American) accounts … Maxus won global duties for S.C. Johnson and Barclays Bank, and expanded its relationship with Bausch + Lomb. Overall, U.S. billings grew from an estimated $900 million in 2010 to $2 billion in 2011, according to figures from Recma.”

In its report, Ad Age wrote: “The firm … hired 150 people in North America and opened offices in Toronto, Los Angeles and Mexico City. It hired Neil Sternberg as its first chief financial officer, and Elizabeth McCune as director-communications planning, both in North America. It also established the region's first TV buying and digital-trading units.”

“We’re all extremely pleased that the two most important advertising trade publications in America have chosen to honor Maxus with these prestigious awards,” said Maxus Global CEO Kelly Clark. “I want to thank the magazine’s editors and also extend my thanks and congratulations to Maxus North America CEO Louis Jones and his entire team for making these accolades possible.”

WPP announces that Burson-Marsteller, its wholly-owned global public relations and public affairs firm, has agreed to acquire a majority equity stake in Viestintätoimisto Pohjoisranta Oy ("Pohjoisranta") in Finland.

Pohjoisranta, based in Helsinki, has a team of more than 40 professionals and is one of Finland’s largest communications agencies.

Pohjoisranta has been Burson-Marsteller’s exclusive affiliate partner in Finland since 2006 and now joins the network as Pohjoisranta Burson-Marsteller. The company’s clients include HP, Metso, SAP and Stora Enso.

Pohjoisranta's unaudited revenues for the year ended 31 December 2011 were approximately Euro 5.1 million, with gross assets as at the same date of approximately Euro 1.8 million.

This acquisition continues WPP's strategy of investing in important markets and sectors. WPP businesses in Scandinavia, including associates, generate revenues of over US$500 million and employ nearly 3000 people.

Social media and ecommerce have evolved since 1-800-FLOWERS launched the first Facebook storefront in July 2009. Internet users have become more comfortable with online buying on Facebook as they spend more time on the site.

“It is not surprising that shopping and socializing—activities that complement each other in the real world—are beginning to converge online as well,” said Krista Garcia, eMarketer analyst and author of the new report, “Facebook Commerce: Reaching Shoppers Where They Socialize.” “As social media, and Facebook in particular, plays a larger role in consumers’ lives, people are becoming accustomed to performing routine tasks like reading news, watching videos and listening to music, as well as discovering products and shopping, all while staying logged in to a single site. Instead of compartmentalizing daily routines, social media users are treating Facebook as a one-stop platform.”

Retailers are still in the early stages of using social media as a sales vehicle, but the channel is poised for growth. Booz & Company estimated that $1 billion in goods would be sold through social media in the US in 2011. That figure is expected to triple in 2012 and reach $14 billion by 2015.

While social commerce still represents a tiny percentage of overall retail sales, and Facebook is just one social site, that site is the clear leader and already offers retailers a variety of options for converting users into consumers. Some of those consumers are warming to the idea of buying products and services while on the site.

In a Q4 2011 Oracle survey of North American internet users, nearly one in five respondents said they would buy through Facebook or had already done so, while 15% were not aware they had the option. Approximately a third said they would never purchase products via Facebook, however.
 

“Facebook’s role in ecommerce is currently in flux,” said Garcia. “Brands are beginning to realize its capabilities, while users are growing accustomed to mingling with companies online and sharing shopping activities with friends. Even though social media is still more of a marketing tool than a sales vehicle, Facebook’s influence on shopping behavior extends beyond triggering conversions on the spot.”

Source: eMarketer

London: McCann London is behind a realistic new horror film trailer that turns out not to promote the latest British slash flick but The AA’s Home Emergency Response service.

Using the idea that ‘it’s a real nightmare when your boiler breaks down’, the ad uses all the tropes of a promo for a horror movie, introducing the demonic Jack Frost, who nips at your window, puts a shiver down your spine and freezes your kids. It asks: “Who will stop Jack Frost?”

The full reveal of the three-and-a-half-minute ad, however, reassures viewers that they can relax because all can be fixed by the helpful AA engineer.
The ad aims to raise awareness of The AA’s boiler care cover (Home Emergency Response). It breaks online on January 11 in a 90-second trailer with no AA branding, which will run for a week, before the full film appears on January 18, hosted at StopJackFrost.com. Viewers will then be redirected to The AA’s website where for each policy sold the AA has pledged to donate £20 to Shelter, the housing and homelessness charity.

“We’re always looking for innovative ways to get the message across about the services and products we offer, “ said Michael Cutbill AA’s Marketing Director. “The idea of creating a spoof film trailer linked to one of the major winter issues  – freezing temperatures and broken boilers – fitted well with our Home Emergency Response service and appealed to our sense of humour. We hope our customers enjoy it too and see the funny side, but to underline the seriousness of the issue, we’re donating £20 to the charity Shelter for every policy sold from the online video.”

Creative Directors at McCann London Matt Crabtree and Si Hepton, said: “The AA was willing to take a risk in letting us create this ad that isn’t heavy on branding but does really bring to life the feeling of relief knowing your boiler breaking down isn’t the end of the world. It’s great working with a client that likes to push boundaries in advertising like this.”

Credits :

Creative Agency McCann London
Creative Directors Matt Crabtree and Si Hepton
Account Director Sam Lewis
Agency Producer Paula Mackersey/Danielle Connelly
Director/ Production Co  Matthias Hoene, Partizan
Producer Jenny Beckett

Ideal Standard International consolidates integrated marketing communications into Euro RSCG London

Ideal Standard International, the leading bathroom solutions provider, has appointed Euro RSCG London to its pan-European communications account following a three way pitch.

Euro RSCG London won the pitch headed up by Ideal Standard’s Chief Marketing Officer Kerris Bright, and handled by Oystercatchers.

Agencies were asked to develop a joined-up communications strategy that will that will work across all stakeholders and recharge the brand’s identity. The pitch focused on the UK and Italian markets, but Euro RSCG’s work will run across the whole of Europe.

Kerris Bright, CMO Ideal Standard International said, “We were extremely impressed by Euro RSCG’s planning, creative and integrated capabilities and we are looking forward to working closely with them to deliver our commercial objectives. As Europe’s leading contemporary bathroom brand we wanted to work with a future focused and innovative agency”.

Russ Lidstone, CEO Euro RSCG London said “Ideal Standard is a fantastic business focused on innovation and consumer centric design. There is a great opportunity to bring this truth to light in a compelling way and we look forward to helping them do so.”

London: Holler, the creative digital agency, has been appointed as dunhill’s social media agency with initial work around amplifying their branded content proposition. 
 
Holler will be responsible for working across their Spring/Summer 2012 brand campaign, aimed to help grow the dunhill Facebook platform as well as looking into other global social platforms.
 
Launching today, dunhill will premier three short films featuring British Olympians as part of the Voice campaign.
 
Holler will also make use of the branded dunhill YouTube platform to raise awareness and traffic to the videos. Crucial to the marketing is an ability to shift an audience interest from merely snacking on content to having an appointment to view relationship with the content.
 
dunhill have released video content in the past but Holler is the first digital agency appointed to run a global mediastrategy to support the work.
 
Previously, dunhill Voice campaigns have included Sir David Frost and Ranulph Fiennes.
 
Paolo Nieddu, Strategy Director, Holler comments: “dunhill share our passion and ambition to create effectivecommunications campaigns based on genuinely engaging brand content, and propelled through super smart social media strategies. We want to bring about much larger levels of awareness and engagement to their wonderful content than they might have previously seen“

Paris: MSLGROUP, Publicis Groupe’s strategic communications company, today launched a global crowdsourcing platform and approach, designed to help business leaders lead innovation and change in their industry. The People’s Lab enables companies and institutions to gain a rich understanding of issues, situations and aspirations relevant to their business. 

MSLGROUP’s People’s Lab differs from existing crowdsourcing solutions on the market by offering an all-in-one solution: a complete and cost-effective crowdsourcing platform that can work across multiple application areas; end-to-end support including custom design and development, community management and content creation; and real-time access to MSLGROUP’s own insight + foresight team.

Pascal Beucler, Chief Strategy Officer at MSLGROUP commented, “Crowdsourcing people’s insights is key to innovation and change.  With innovation never higher on our clients’ agendas  we felt the time was right to produce a cost-effective crowdsourcing solution that could be used across multiple application areas.”

The People’s Lab helps companies build and nurture public or private, web or mobile crowdsourcing platforms around four areas: Expertise Requests; Innovation Challenges; Research & Insights and Contest & Activation.  With public or private, web or mobile, hosted or white label modes, powerful community, game-thinking and social analytics features and full email integration, organizations can use People’s Lab to create powerful multi-stakeholder crowdsourcing platforms.

Over the last 18 months, MSLGROUP has used the People’s Lab platform and approach to create communities for both itself and its clients.  In 2010, Dell India used an early version of the People’s Lab platform to create the Dell Go Green Challenge for design students and others to share ideas on how to redesign, reuse and recycle gadgets to make them go green. The network is also currently helping a global consumer products company identify beauty influencers in several key markets using The People’s Lab and its community-driven insights and foresights approach. 

Poland is a rare country where online advertising is already twice as large as newspaper advertising. If that's the future for other advertising markets, then the experiences of the Agora group provide important lessons for newspaper advertising departments everywhere.

Anna Podkowinska, the Revenue Director for Internet Agora, and Marek Tretyn, General Director of Advertising Sales, represent the company's print and digital worlds. How they work together for digital and print success will be the subject of a major presentation at the World Newspaper Advertising Conference, to be held on 1 and 2 March in Prague, Czech Republic.

For the first time, Ms Podkowinska and Mr Tretyn will tell how they carried out a nationwide reorganisation of 20 local sales offices to reflect the changing Polish ad market. The presentation, "Structure follows strategy: Process integration digital & print," will cover the entire strategy, including offers, workflow and results.

Online media took 17 percent of the total Polish advertising market in the third quarter of 2011, compared with 8.5 percent for print, and online represents 42 percent of Agora's ad revenues. Both Agora's online and print businesses are profitable, with EBITDA margins of 10 percent for digital and 20 percent for print last year.

More than 300 newspaper advertising executives are expected to attend the 22nd World Newspaper Advertising Conference, organised by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA). The conference provides strategies and ideas to help newspapers protect and increase advertising revenues in highly competitive markets. Full conference details can be found here.

New York : News Corporation has announced the appointment of Gerson Zweifach, 58, a partner at Williams & Connolly LLP, to Group General Counsel effective February 1, 2012. Mr. Zweifach will become a Senior Executive Vice President of the Company and will report to Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of News Corporation.

In his more than three decades at Williams & Connolly, Mr. Zweifach's litigation practice has covered a wide variety of substantive areas including significant media and first amendment cases, as well as patent, antitrust and securities matters. He has handled a number of high profile cases as both plaintiff's and defendant's counsel in courts throughout the U.S., including representing Richard A. Grasso in Spitzer v. Grasso in the New York state courts.

Commenting on Mr. Zweifach's appointment, Mr. Murdoch said: "We are fortunate to have such a renowned attorney join our Company as we navigate the rapidly changing media landscape. Throughout his distinguished career, Gerson has earned a reputation as one of the nation's leading litigators and a staunch protector of the First Amendment. This coupled with his wide-ranging experience and exceptional leadership skills will prove invaluable to News Corporation's global business.

I remain grateful to my long-standing colleague, Janet Nova, for handling our legal issues so deftly as Interim General Counsel for the past six months and am pleased that she will continue to play an integral role on our legal team."

Mr. Zweifach commented: "I could not be more thrilled to join the leader in global media at such a pivotal time in its history. It would be hard to imagine a more compelling opportunity to have far-reaching impact across a variety of legal issues and challenges. I look forward to working in concert with Rupert and News Corporation's businesses, to help ensure the best possible return to all of the company's stakeholders."

Mr. Zweifach is a graduate of Brown University, where he graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and Yale Law School, where he was elected to the Law Journal. He is a member of the District of Columbia and New York Bars. Zweifach is married to Jacqueline Zins and has two children.