Being a savvy marketer is all about being in the know – how else are you going to leave the competition in your dust? But not everyone has time the time or patience to sift through heaps of news feeds each week. So we’ve reeled in some of the most impactful recent headlines in marketing that you can easily add to your information arsenal. Feel free to use some of these tidbits to strike up an interesting conversation in your next client meeting.
EMarketer: Americans spend more time on mobile devices than TV
U.S. adults this year will spend more time using their mobile devices than they'll spend watching TV, per a forecast that eMarketer shared with Mobile Marketer. The researcher estimated that the average time spent on mobile devices will grow 3.7% this year to 3 hours and 43 minutes a day, surpassing the 3 hours and 35 minutes spent watching TV. Seventy percent of that mobile time will be spent on smartphones, or 2 hours and 33 minutes a day. That's an increase of nine minutes — 7.3% — from 2018, but that annual growth will slow to 3.4% by 2021.
The Verge: Amazon Announces 30-Minute Drone Deliveries via Prime Air
Amazon has unveiled the latest version of its Prime Air delivery drone, a hybrid aircraft that’s capable of vertical takeoff and landing as well as sustained forward flight. The company says it wants to launch a delivery service using the drone in “the coming months,” but has not said where this might take place or how many customers it might cover. he new drone uses a combination of thermal cameras, depth cameras, and sonar to detect hazards. With the help of machine learning models, onboard computers can automatically identify obstacles and navigate around them.
MarketingLand: Instagram advertisers can now convert organic influencer posts into ads
Instagram is rolling out branded content ads to all advertisers, making it possible for brands to create ads using organic posts from the influencers they have relationships with. The company said the branded content ads will be available to all advertisers over the coming weeks, and branded content ads for Stories will roll out over the coming months.
IAB and PwC: US podcast ad spend surged 53% in 2018
U.S. spending on podcast ads surged 53% in 2018 to $479.1 million from $313.9 million a year prior, according to a new report from the Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Podcast advertising is expected to rise to $678.7 million this year and reach more than $1 billion by 2021, the report forecasts. Among industry categories, the biggest podcast advertisers were direct-to-consumer retailers (22% of total ad spend), financial services (21%), business-to-business (14%), arts and entertainment (10%) and telecommunications (7%).
AdWeek: The North Face Hacked Wikipedia Photos to Promote Brand
The North Face and Brazilian agency Leo Burnett Tailor Made recently announced a campaign called “Top of Images,” which aimed to put branded North Face photography atop Google search results by adding them to location pages on Wikipedia. The case study claimed the effort was made by “collaborating with Wikipedia,” which the site later claimed was not true. The stunt—a clear violation of Wikipedia’s rules against advertising, marketing, PR and self-promotion—quickly backfired for the brand and agency when they were called out by the online encyclopedia in a Twitter thread that eviscerated the ploy.
Looking for some more brain candy? Here are 12 marketing and sales puns to brighten your day.
