Mobile's influence on shopping behavior has been on the rise since the advent of the smartphone, but recent data indicates consumers are becoming more comfortable finalizing transactions on their phones. In fact, Forrester's 2018 Retail Best Practices: Mobile Web study found smartphones will be used in over one-third--or more than $1 trillion--of total U.S. retail...
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Mobile Shopping Is on the Rise, But Remains Split Between the Mobile Web and Apps
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Hotels.com’s Captain Obvious Is Campaigning to Guest Host HQ Trivia
Captain Obvious is ready for his close-up. One question at a time, though. Hotels.com and agency CP+B's latest fun digital stunt for the brand's goofy character features Captain Obvious gunning to become the newest host of HQ Trivia. HQ rose to prominence over the last few months, drawing millions of people twice a day for...
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Kyogre, Groudon Returned to Pokemon Go for Its Legendary Week Event
Niantic launched a Legendary Week event in Pokemon Go, allowing players to battle and capture three Legendary Pokemon in Raid Battles from now until March 5. The event will give players the chance to battle returning Legendary Pokemon Kyogre and Groudon, as well as Rayquaza, which joined the game in early February. When the event...
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KFC Responds to U.K. Chicken Shortage Scandal With a Timely ‘FCK, We’re Sorry’
KFC went through a highly publicized, somewhat bizarre crisis in the U.K. this week: The fast food joint known for its fried chicken ran out of chicken. Now, KFC is apologizing with a creative stunt: rearranging its name to spell "FCK." The shortage stemmed from "operational issues" with new delivery provider DHL, forcing most of...
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This Search Consultancy Is Helping Innovators Like Microsoft Stay Ahead of the Game
You may wonder, how is it that innovative brands like Microsoft, Netflix, HBO and GE stay ahead of the competition? A lot surely goes into answering that question, but search consultancy VentureFuel claims to be a small sliver in the pie. Launched four years ago, VentureFuel actively vets hundreds of global startups daily and then...
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How Samsung, NBC and More Are Bringing the Olympics to Life in Virtual Reality
While virtual reality is still fairly new in terms of overall adoption--with just a few million people buying headsets in 2017--several companies in both the hardware and content sectors have made 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, a platform to show how the technology is evolving. Leading up to the opening ceremony, Jaunt VR...
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Comcast Spliced Footage of Jessie Diggins’ Historic Gold Medal Win Into Its Epic Same-Day Olympics Spot
Jessie Diggins made history in Pyeongchang earlier this week when she, along with team sprint freestyle partner Kikkan Randall, won the first Olympic gold medal for the U.S. in cross-country skiing. Diggins' come-from-behind win inspired some truly epic announcing and also led to her selection as the U.S. flag bearer for Sunday's closing ceremony. Fans...
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New Agency Consultancy Promises to Feature Real Moms in Ads
Mom is non-threatening. She wears a cardigan, she's rarely seen outside the home and she adores her family. She's not a unique individual with her own will and wishes at all--just a prim, proper, wholesome mother. We've all seen that narrative portrayed in 1950s-era consumer products ads from the likes of Tide, Coca-Cola and, of...
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Former Olympians to Air Regional PSA During Closing Ceremonies Urging Athletes to Give Up Milk
Milk Life, a campaign from the MilkPEP board (which is funded by U.S. milk companies), made its Olympic debut in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. Ahead of the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic Winter Games, the board said the campaign would make a splash again--securing a partnership with the U.S. Olympic Committee to produce content around...
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Samsung Galaxy S9 Revealed: AR Emojis, Better Bixby and a $720 Price Tag
BARCELONA--At last spring's Samsung Galaxy S8 event in New York, Samsung unveiled its latest smartphone along with a new campaign for its "Do What You Can't" theme. The idea behind the tagline was that the phone--despite all of its new features--is less of a magical tool and more of something that empowers people to become...
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Infographic: How Brands Struggle Internally to Adapt to Digital
As digital disruption continues to create both challenges and new opportunities, brands are making changes to their legacy operating models, technologies and processes, according to Accenture's Intelligent Operations research. But there are impediments to transforming marketing, and many of them are internal. Two-thirds of marketers see lack of long-term investment as an obstacle, for instance,...
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Editor’s Letter: Customer Service Is More Important Than Ever for Brands
We've all been there, both in-store or online, where the retail experience is so poor that you either end your relationship with the brand instantly or hold your nose each time you pay a visit. In my case a certain big box retailer near my home in suburban New York almost feels like a hostile...
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5 Steps for Digitally Transforming Your Marketing to Be More Responsive to Customer Needs
If you really want to get closer to your customers, you need to rethink nearly everything you're doing. Here's how to start. Lose the org chart Transforming your organization to be more agile and responsive to customer needs means rethinking how you organize internal teams and deploy talent. The first step is to decouple projects...
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Can Edgy FX Thrive at Family-Friendly Disney?
As much as FX Networks and FX Productions CEO John Landgraf welcomes the return of American Crime Story and Atlanta to FX this winter, he still wishes the network could have had them back on the air last year, where their absence on year-end top 10 lists hurt the network's position relative to its two...
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What Brands, Publishers and Ad-Tech Companies Need to Know About GDPR
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7 Ways Agencies Can Entice Modern Parents to Work With Them
The best advice someone gave me as a newly minted executive creative director was this: Find your heroes in the industry. So I went hunting for the best among us. I wanted to find those who I could look up to for their work, of course. But I also really wanted role models who were...
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Why Old-School Brands Like Gap Need to Learn New Tricks to Survive in the Digital Age
On the third floor of Gap Inc. in San Francisco, near the western terminus of the Bay Bridge, a bank of 14 big-screen monitors displays web visits, order volumes, sales funnels and other real-time analytics to a constantly rotating team of employees. This is Mission Control, the beating heart of Gap's customer experience group. Here,...
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UnReal’s Producers Explain How the Show Will Rebound From Season 2’s Backlash
After UnReal's critically acclaimed and Emmy-nominated debut in 2015, the Lifetime drama--about two women who produce a Bachelor-like reality show called Everlasting--weathered a backlash during its bumpy sophomore season. The show lost ratings and alienated critics with polarizing storylines including a Black Lives Matter-inspired police shooting and an assault on lead character Rachel by her...
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Michelob Ultra Continues Its Commitment to Health and Wellness With New Premium Organic Brew
Michelob Ultra is going organic. The Anheuser-Busch brand has unveiled a new premium brew, Michelob Ultra Pure Gold, which is made from organic grains. It is 85 calories and has 2.5 carbs, according to the company. "Since the brand was founded in 2002, we've been committed to innovation," said Azania Andrews, vice president, Michelob Ultra....
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How Would a Robot Process the Trauma of War? This Powerful Ad Shows Us
How would a robot deal with war? It's a reductive question, given that using robots in a military contexts begs a far more serious one: How will we deal with the effects of robotics in warfare? But charity organization War Child U.K. uses a childlike approach in "Escape Robot" to great effect. Created by agency...
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