The CK Birla Group announced the appointment of Swati Bhattacharya as Group Brand and Communication Head.

Swati Bhattacharya is responsible for the Group’s Communication and Brand strategy and will help shape the company’s narrative as it moves towards the next chapter in its story of value creation. Swati comes to CK Birla from General Motors India, where she had served as Vice President of Corporate Communications. She was earlier Vice President- Corporate Relations, Public Affairs and Branding with Ingersoll Rand and Head of Corporate Relations at Agilent Technologies prior to that.

Commenting on her appointment, Swati Bhattacharya said, “I am pleased to join the CK Birla Group, one of India’s oldest and well-respected business houses. The Group’s enriched legacy and strong commercial footprint has delivered outstanding growth and value for its stakeholders. I look forward to building upon that legacy and reputation.”

It might sound extreme to suggest that advertising could die but if serious actions aren't taken soon the advertising industry is going to turn off consumers for good. Receptivity to advertising is essential for marketers to build brands and encourage purchase.

The receptivity problem

There are two vicious circles which seem to be fueling the receptivity problem. The first is the "share of voice" arms race as brands clamor to be heard. This tactic has been encouraged by the proof that ad awareness impacts brand saliency and sales. Increasing clutter tends to lower ad awareness response, and with so many new channels available clutter has been increasing significantly. So brands shout louder and more often because they're afraid of being out gunned by their competition. Brands know that increased share of voice – over time – leads to increased market share but do they know that too much frequency in too short a time frame can have a negative effect on brand perceptions?

The second issue is that consumers are suffering targeting torment. As online response rates have dropped, the reaction has been to target consumers more frequently and more intrusively. Millward Brown's AdReaction Video report, a 42-country study, gives us genuine insight into the perils and promise of targeting. Consumers have a highly negative reaction to targeting that is perceived as intrusive stalking, but a more positive reaction when targeting is based on relevance and topics of interest.

The AdReaction Video study demonstrated that giving people more control over how they're served ads increases receptivity. Two good examples of giving people more control are YouTube's Trueview and WeChat's Moments system.

Failing to give consumers control can have a very high cost. It was recently estimated that 50% of Europeans will be ad blocking in 2017 and that the US will hit the same level by 2018.¹

What to do?

The advertising industry needs to understand that continuing to boost the volume and intrusiveness of advertising isn't going to engage the audience any better. We need to adapt to a new reality. Here are some suggestions for a better way forward.

Get more emotional

Brands need to change what they value and develop a more balanced way of defining success. Neuromarketing has shown us the importance of emotional connections. BrandZ, a global study of consumers' opinions of brands, puts a dollar value on brands based on their impact on brand strength, brand growth, and their ability to charge a premium price. Emotional measures should have equal weight to the transactional ones that appear to have become the favored – myopic – way to define "performance". Share of heart should be as important as share of voice, emotional connection as important as transactional response.

Demand quality

Currently there is no real value placed on the improved return on investment of less cluttered and higher quality online publisher environments. Less clutter means stronger response to advertising but it takes a brave publisher with a great sales team to push down this path, and make it work economically. Therefore advertisers need to play a bigger role in requiring and rewarding placements with less clutter, and more evaluation work to prove their value. This will improve the audience experience, protect receptivity and perhaps quell the blockers.

Max the mix

In today's world brands need to assess and then use the right moments to talk. This means using the media mix to increase the likelihood of reaching a receptive audience and identifying entirely new moments to talk through media. Millward Brown CrossMedia studies show that brands using a media mix – which extends to PR and point of sale for example – increases brand uplifts. The award-winning print campaign by Nivea in Brazil, which gave parents the ability to track their children's whereabouts on the beach using a print ad and a smart phone, is a good example of a brand finding the perfect moment to talk.

Engage, don't threaten

Audience targeting needs to become more qualitative because if it's used in the right way it can be positive. The Millward Brown AdReaction Video study showed that consumers themselves are slightly conflicted in what they want and the sources of data that they're happy for brands to use. The solution is for brands to use data to target judiciously and to focus on the consumer's experience of what they are delivering over the volume of interactions they deem to be "engagement" (which may simply be irritated consumers clicking to try to clear the ads away).

Listen to the consumer

Positive consumer feedback should be the test before any content in any form in any media goes live. However you choose to measure it, the consumer voice matters. It's a small price to pay for a more assured return on investment, and to avoid worthless advertising pollution.

Go native

Native advertising – sponsored branded content – has more potential than is currently being explored. Media owners have some amazing skills which advertisers should work with to make the format work better, rather than allow it to become ad spam. A great example of effective native advertising is a recent partnership between Netflix and the New York Times, as part of the promotion of Orange Is the New Black, the show that looks at issues faced by women inmates in the US penal system.

Be remarkable

It might sound obvious, but now more than ever, when there is so much competition, brands need to focus on creating truly remarkable ideas and experiences in order to cut through. Good creative lasts a long time and delivers a higher ROI. The 2011 People's Car project in China was remarkable in the way that it harnessed the creativity of the audience by creating a conversation about what a car could be, which then drove users to a Web site where they could actually build the car of their dreams.

If advertising is going to have a future, we should act now. The most precious asset for advertisers is the audience's willingness to engage with their brand. Advertisers and media buyers need to change if they want to communicate with a receptive audience.

Key Takeaways

Consumers are becoming increasingly fed-up with advertising intruding in their lives, but their receptivity to ads is critical to success.

Share of voice, noise, frequency and intrusion shouldn't be used as a substitute for thought and effort to create emotional – and transactional – connections.

Understand what the consumer finds valuable and deploy it creatively across a range of touchpoints to deliver a more positive advertising experience.

Written by Sue Elms,Head of Global Brand Management,Millward Brown

Gruppo Campari, a major player in the global spirits industry, with a portfolio of over 50 premium and super premium brands, including Aperol, Appleton Estate, Campari, SKYY, Wild Turkey and Grand Marnier, has chosen a team drawn from WPP agencies (“Team Campari”) as global partner for marketing and communication services.

The agreement ensures Gruppo Campari has the choice, within the WPP group, of companies and agencies most in line with the development plans of each brand and product, for advertising, public relations, media investment, digital, data management, research, live communication and branding services, both internationally and locally.

"This agreement with WPP allows us to choose amongst a wide array of best-in-class options for our brand building purposes at global level,” stated Bob Kunze-Concewitz, Gruppo Campari CEO. “WPP’s strategy of offering the customer horizontal access to every marketing and communications discipline guarantees us very important strategic synergies.”

"We are delighted with this agreement that will see us stand alongside one of the most successful Italian companies in the world," said Massimo Costa, Country Manager at WPP Italia. Team Campari will be based at offices in Milan, near Gruppo Campari's headquarters, allowing each brand to access all of WPP’s marketing and communications services around the world.

Ellen joined Starcom MediaVest in 2007, working her way up to the role of Managing Director, Starcom Guangzhou. Her focus has been on building strong partnerships with existing and new local clients based out of South China, while transforming our business from traditional to integrated media planning.

In her 10 years with our company, Ellen and her team have been responsible for winning many new local clients, including 999. Liby, Zhujiang Beer, C’estBon, Tencent MIG and Ping An Bank. Ellen has built strong relationships through an approach focused on delivering business results and growth for these clients.

Reporting to Bertilla Teo, CEO, Publicis Media Greater China,Ellen will be responsible for leading senior relationships with all major Zenith clients across China, and driving business growth through new business and diversified revenue streams. She will also work closely with the Zenith Global Leadership Team to help deliver against the network’s new vision and to embed its ROI+ approach in China.

A new YouTube look that works for you

When YouTube launched 12 years ago, it was a single website that supported one video format, 320x240 at 4:3 aspect ratio. Fast forward to today, and YouTube lets you watch any combination of SD, HD, 4K, 360, 3-D, and live video on nearly every device with an internet connection – from desktops to phones, tablets to TVs, game consoles, and even VR headsets.

We’ve also introduced apps and services that give you new ways to watch and get even closer to the content and creators you love. Music fans, gamers, and TV lovers each have unique experiences specifically tailored for their favorite content with YouTube Music, YouTube Gaming and YouTube TV. For families looking for the best way to watch together, we launched the YouTube Kids app. And for fans who want an uninterrupted, ad-free experience, and exclusive original content from creators, there’s the YouTube Red membership.

To put it simply, YouTube’s evolved … a lot. And we’re not even close to done. Over the last few months we've started releasing updates and will continue to throughout the rest of the year. When all is said and done, we'll bring a new level of functionality and a more consistent look across our desktop and mobile experiences.

Let’s start with the YouTube mobile app, which is getting a bunch of new features:

Clean new design: We’ve made the header white to let content take the lead and moved the navigation tabs to the bottom of the app so they’re closer to your thumbs. We also added new Library and Account tabs that give you easy access to what you’re looking for.

Videos that move with you: One of the things we’re working on is bringing gestures to YouTube. Earlier this year, we introduced a gesture that allows you to double tap on the left or right side of a video to fast forward or rewind 10 seconds. Give it a try! We already see billions of double taps per day. And I wanted to give you a sneak peek at another gesture I am really excited about. In the coming months, we'll experiment with a feature that lets you jump between videos with a simple swipe of your hand: just swipe left to watch a previous video or swipe right to watch the next one.
Watch at your own pace: Users love that they are able to speed up and slow down the playback of a video on desktop, and we're excited to bring this feature to the mobile app today, so you can enjoy videos at whatever speed you prefer.

Adapt to any video, beautifully: We've also been experimenting with new ways to display all videos in the best possible way. Soon, the YouTube player will seamlessly change shape to match the video format you’re watching, such as vertical, square or horizontal. That means you’ll always get the best viewing experience automatically – including vertical videos with no black bars on the sides!

Browse and discover while you watch: We recently added a feature that lets you view a row of suggested videos while you’re watching in full screen. We're also working on transforming the area below the player so you can browse videos in totally new ways.

The bright red cherry on top of this update sundae is a refreshed YouTube Logo and YouTube Icon. Designed for our multi-screen world, the updated Logo combines a cleaned up version of the YouTube wordmark and Icon, creating a more flexible design that works better across a variety of devices, even on the tiniest screens. Why’s it more flexible? When room is limited (say on a smartphone) you can use the brightened up Icon as an abbreviated Logo, which will be seen more easily and read more clearly. You’ll see the new Logo and Icon roll out across mobile and desktop today, and across all our other apps and services soon.

We know this is a lot of change, but we want to make clear that there’s one thing that stays the same: YouTube’s mission. We’re here to give people a voice and show them the world – no matter what device they use.

Source:YouTube Blog