Brand Republic Blogs

General Motors CMO: Joel Ewanick – Saint or Sinner? External website

by George Parker, 28/05/2012

You have to admit that if Joel Ewanick was a car, he would have certainly piled on the miles over the last few months and would perhaps be in need of a service, a wash down and a detailing. For the odd person out there on the other side of the pond who isn’t with me on this, Joel is the CMO of Global Marketing for General Motors. Before that, he was VP of Marketing at Hyundai, North America, and before that he was Marketing Manager for Porsche, North America. In other words, this guy is an auto industry marketing heavyweight.

by Chris J Reed, 28/05/2012

In the last few weeks they have formed partnerships with Liverpool FC and The New York Nicks. Both powerhouse, global sporting brands that are popular beyond their borders.

Maxxis are a global power brand of the new world order. They understand global marketing. Never heard of them?

by George Parker, 27/05/2012

I can’t believe you guys are still putting up with the Eurovision Song Contest. I mean c’mon. I understand that in Britain, some things never go away, no matter how horrible. Terry Wogan, Cliff Richards, Benny Hill (Yes, I know he’s dead, but he hasn’t really gone away.) I mean even Coronation Street has murder, rapes, sex changes, nuclear explosions and all kinds of wild sh*t, but the Eurovision thing never changes… It is a cringe festival of momentous proportions. Pre Kick-Off the betting had Sweden’s pop tart, Loreen as the 5/4 favorite. She’s singing something called “Orgasm.”

by Chris Arnold, 27/05/2012

Last night ‘brand Britain’ looked old and dull in Eurovision, no wonder we came second from last with just 12 points. Who who picked Engelbert Humperdinck? Great singer but what a dated song, both were not Eurovision. Proves you shouldn’t leave the public to decide.

Snake oil External website

by Steve Henry, 27/05/2012

They did a survey recently of what clients thought of their advertising agency counterparts and the word that came top was “smarmy”.

Narrowly beating other favourites like “over-promising”, “out of touch”, “money-obsessed”, “vainglorious” (yes, that one surprised me too) and “chocolate teapot”.

by Chris Arnold, 26/05/2012

In America Fox, NBC and CBS, are suing DISH Network over a set-top box, the Hopper DVR, that allows viewers to skip over the ads in TV shows. Is this morally right?

World’s first invisible ad External website

by Greg Taylor, 25/05/2012

To promote its product, deodorant company Axe/Lynx created the world’s first invisible ad. (Cheers, Ify!)

Using hack LCD screens and a terrace house in Sydney, the company created ads that were only visible when viewed only through polarized sunglasses. ??Watch the video below to check out how it worked and what the invisible ads were about:

by @gordonmacmillan, 25/05/2012

If you’re anywhere near the South Bank in London today you might get to see this. Sea Containers House has been given a massive Jubilee Wrap installed by Service Graphics.

The banner is the largest ever produced in the UK and depicts the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977. At 100m x 37m, the banner is of astonishing size and has been installed throughout this week.

by Rachel Hawkes, 25/05/2012

Facebook has quietly rolled out Facebook Pages Manager, a new application to enable businesses to update their Facebook Page (with both text and images), receive push notifications of Page activity, view the admins on the page and have a quick snapshot at the Insights (Facebook analytics). All from the comfort of their iPhone or iPad.

by @gordonmacmillan, 25/05/2012

New figures released by Comscore show that the BBC is most visited original news site in Europe and is second overall behind Yahoo’s news agregation site.

According to Comscore’s data, the BBC has the second highest number of unique visitors after Yahoo with over 26 million unique users per month in Europe, putting it ahead of all its major international competitors including Mail Online, the Guardian and the New York Times.

by @gordonmacmillan, 25/05/2012

The New York Times reports on the court case involving the largest satellite broadcaster in the US, the Dish Network, and three TV networks over ad skipping technology that could cost commercial broadcasters millions of dollars in lost revenues.

by Charlotte Henry, 25/05/2012

Twitter is still the most popular social networking tool among major brands, according to a new report by threepipe. As many as 69 companies are active on the site, up from 63 last year. YouTube though has seen the highest increase in users though, going from 38 to 63 in the last year.

by Polly Becker, 25/05/2012

The Kyrie Irving Pepsi Max make-over video has topped our first FMCG Social Media Viral Chart where the Australian-American professional basketball player shows off his moves to some unsuspecting guys at a New Jersey pick-up game.

by @gordonmacmillan, 25/05/2012

Nice idea from Italy’s Armando Testa to help Italian start-ups and in turn the Italian Economy. Working together with Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, and the Bocconi University in Milan they have launched a competition to find the ten best business ideas, which the three will then support with training and advice.

by Chris J Reed, 25/05/2012

Linkin Park clearly loved their headline act at the Singapore F1 Grand Prix last year so much that they …..bought the company…well no but they have created a unique Linkin Park Lotus F1 Team App though.

by @gordonmacmillan, 25/05/2012

Remember Instagram? That’s right it was the popular camera phone app that Facebook last month paid $1bn for.

Well today Facebook has launched its own camera app, simply called Facebook Camera, which was developed before the Instagram deal was announced and is being launched today. Is that a little confusing?

by Jonathan Weeks, 24/05/2012

Throat lozenges have been traditional for far too long, and Japanese brand E-ma has the answer, writes Jon Weeks, Director, Ipsos Marketing

Some things in life are only there when you really need them, otherwise you walk on by. So creating excitement in a category that can have limited touchpoints with each consumer can be difficult. But it becomes all the more important to get the consumers attention when they do come looking for a solution.

by Polly Becker, 24/05/2012

The 2012 UEFA Champions League final between Chelsea and Bayern Munich at the weekend racked up more than 7.5m social interactions including 2.5 million Facebook likes.

The social media success, which comes in addition to the projected audience of over 150 million with a global live reach of over 300 million watching, is the first time UEFA or any football body for that matter has launched such an all encompassing digital campaign.

by Andrew Dean, 24/05/2012

As I peer over my partner’s shoulder to see why I still can’t use the iPad, I see that she’s utterly engrossed by a game: Coin Dozer.

It’s a tablet version of the old seaside arcade game where you drop coins through a slot onto a series of moving shelves in the vain hope that they will shove their fruitless brothers and sisters onto the next shelf and, eventually, into your desperate hands.

by Polly Becker, 24/05/2012

As YouTube celebrates it’s seventh birthday there are lots of facts and figures flowing out of Google Towers about its mammoth video sharing service.

Not least the fact that four billion videos are watched everyday and a staggering seventy-two hours of video are uploaded to the the site every minute.