Dual screening grows in India

BANGALORE: The proportion of Indian consumers who engage in dual screening has more than doubled within the space of a year, according to new research.

InMobi, the mobile advertising network, surveyed 2,004 mobile users in India as part of a wider global study and found that 63% of users were actively spending time on mobile devices while watching TV, compared to just 26% in 2012.

This included 57% users who engaged in social networking while watching TV.

In all, nearly a third of their media consumption time was spent on mobile devices and the survey established that 65% of Indian mobile web users are now as comfortable with mobile advertising as they are with TV or online advertising.

"The tiny mobile phone has overtaken the mighty TV in India from a media consumption perspective," observed Phalgun Raju, Vice President and General Manager, India, and Southeast Asia at InMobi.

Noting the 850m active mobile connections in the country, she commented: "The mobile marketing channel presents marketers an unprecedented opportunity to engage with the always-connected consumers."

"The onus is now on brands and content agencies to create compelling, engaging mobile rich media to capture consumers' attention," she added.

A separate survey from the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India and Yes Bank predicted that wireless connections would comprise nearly 90% of all internet connections added between 2012 and 2017.

Some 80% of InMobi's respondents noticed mobile ads on their smartphone, while a majority of users, 48%, experienced these ads on mobile apps specifically.

"Our research shows that on average 7.1 apps are actively used by Indian consumers over a 30-day period," said Raju.

"This has huge implications for both publishers and advertisers as they seek to garner an audience for their offerings and monetize through advertising," he concluded.

InMobi's survey also revealed that 79% of Indian mobile web users planned to conduct m-commerce during the next 12 months.

Data sourced from Media Mughals, ASSOCHAM; additional content by Warc staff , 17 May 2013

Hispanic TV adopts celebrity strategy

NEW YORK: Hispanic consumers have been targeted by media companies during the annual upfronts, including one channel recruiting actress and singer Jennifer Lopez as its chief creative officer.

NuvoTV chief executive Michael Schwimmer said Lopez's role would be to generate "buzz around the network" by working on "brand, brand direction, on-air look and feel" as the channel seeks to increase its presence among Hispanic viewers whose primary language is English.

He added that her role was neither "gimmick" nor a "stunt" and that she would play a full part in the channel's strategy as well as appearing in a consumer marketing campaign.

"We're all kind of tired of the stereotypes," Lopez told the New York Times, adding that these reflected who American Latinos once were rather than "who we are now".

Meanwhile, Fox Hispanic Media, which operates four Latino-focused networks and is part of News Corporation, said it would offer "real choice" to Spanish-speaking American Latinos and the advertisers who want to attract them.

Tom Maney, executive vice president of advertising sales, said the media situation was "very complicated" with consumers confused by thousands of messages a day.

Research from Havas Media has shown that 51% of Hispanic adults prefer to see ads in Spanish, while the highest television consumption is found in LatAm Soccer with 63% penetration.

The Latino Influence Project has also noted that the process of acculturation works two ways and that marketers should consider not only adapting general campaigns for the Hispanic audience but should incorporate Hispanic insights into strategies and creative from the beginning in order to influence general market consumers.

Data sourced from the New York Times; additional content by Warc staff, 17 May 2013

Unilever boss wants rethink on Africa

CAPE TOWN: A leading Unilever executive has attacked the "soft tyranny of low expectations" that brands adopt when considering the continent of Africa and called for new business models to drive growth.

"I believe the African consumer has been underestimated and under-served for far too long," said Frank Braeken, executive vice president of Unilever Africa, writing in How We Made It In Africa. And he called for marketers to "break the perception of Africa as a single, unsophisticated, market best served by basic products".

"I can accept that many Africans don't have much money," he added. "I can't accept they are any less intelligent or sophisticated consumers than the rest of us."

He argued that businesses often made "blunt assumptions" about what people needed, while "well meaning but unsustainable business models … simply do not take the African people seriously as consumers".

If a business is serious about Africa, he said, it "needs to become part of efforts to drive equitable and sustainable growth".

He referenced his own work which had, he stated, "underscored to me time and again the enormous energy that can be released by sustainable business models".

He cited the example of black hair care products, which a few years ago had been more easily available in London or New York than in Abidjan or Nairobi.

"And the concept was of 'black' hair as though Africans were all physically and culturally identical," he remarked, noting that this attitude applied in many categories "with few companies bothering to tailor brands to different African tastes or develop better, safer and more nutritious products".

Not many people, he pointed out, had anticipated the mobile phone boom across the continent, which had created a whole new economy because they met people's needs.

"I want to drive the same kind of revolution in retail trade," he declared. Unilever's ambitions, he said were to "double our business sustainably, increase local sourcing and production, and accelerate the development of products tailored to different African markets and aspirations".

"Modern business thinking can drive economies of scale, consumer understanding and product development to provide what poor people want and, by so doing, create new markets," he concluded.

Data sourced from How We Made It In Africa; additional content by Warc staff , 17 May 2013

Mobile games offer marketing prospects

WHITING: Over half of US tablet and smartphone owners play games on their devices and one in ten does so more than once a day, new research has revealed.

The online survey, by Harris Interactive for CouponCabin.com, polled 2,058 adults and found that 51% of mobile owners play games on occasion, with 11% playing more than once a day, 21% at least once a day, 41% at least once a week and 10% once a month or less.

Separately, the Wall Street Journal has reported that users spend on average two hours a day on apps, including games, and this is set to grow.

This is a trend that mobile marketers can exploit, according to Brendan O'Kane, chief executive of mobile analytics group OtherLevels.

In an article for The Fast Company, he suggested that they could utilise the "gamification" employed by the wider gaming industry to good effect.

This could include introducing points scoring into non-games areas of marketing, such as book sales, which he said could drive brand awareness and sales, as well as encouraging users to spend longer on site.

"Fun can blur the line between marketing and entertainment, creating a more compelling experience," he declared.

But spending a good deal of time on gaming can be expensive. Jackie Warrick, senior savings adviser at CouponCabin.com said: "App purchases, even though they're often low priced, should be factored into an overall entertainment budget."

And the survey showed that while 61% of American adults who have paid to download a game over the last year spent no more than $10, 11% had spent over $50.

There is the additional problem of children purchasing apps without permission or by mistake, with 12% of adults surveyed saying their children have bought a game app by mistake, and 10% intentionally without their permission.


Data sourced from CouponCabin, The Fast Company; additional content by Warc staff , 17 May 2013

Spirits brands see digital openings in Asia

BEIJING: Hennessy and Johnnie Walker are among leading spirits brands that have invested in Asian content and mobile loyalty schemes and so elevated themselves to the top of the digital rankings in the region.

In its report Digital IQ Index: Spirits APAC, the thinktank L2 sought to quantify the digital competence of 57 spirits brands across China, Japan and Taiwan and established that Hennessy was in the top spot in all three countries, while Johnnie Walker was second in China and Taiwan, fifth in Japan.

L2 found that brands had underinvested in mobile across the board, despite the widespread use of these devices in the region and only a handful had developed local language apps.

Only four brands, it said, offered a mobile optimised and non-Qwerty-based, age-restricted gateway. These were Glenfiddich, in Japan and Taiwan, Glenmorangie, in Taiwan, Hennessy, in all three countries, and The Balvenie, in Taiwan.

In addition, only Hennessy offered mobile search and even then not in Japan.

Brands were also underinvesting in video, according to L2, noting that two-thirds of those surveyed had no local content on Japanese sites, even though the Japanese consume 1.5 times the global average of video content.

Taiwan fared best in this regard, with 24% of brands providing video content in the local language.

Johnnie Walker, which has targeted the premium whisky market in China, was the only global brand with local language video content in both that country and Taiwan, including material featuring local celebrity Chen Kun to highlight their "Keep Walking" campaign.

Ecommerce was noted as an area that is not open to spirits brands in the US and Europe but has potential in Asia.

Local brands Moutai, in China, and Choya, in Japan, have brand sites with a direct-to-consumer offer, while Suntory, the Japanese drinks giant, has a multi-brand e-commerce destination in China.

Among western brands, Pernod-Ricard and Bacardi host Tmall stores on Taobao, the Chinese ecommerce site.

China has a reputation for counterfeit goods and two local brands, Moutai and Wuliyangye, have taken steps to deal with this, developing digital and mobile tools to help verify a product's authenticity.

Data sourced from L2; additional content by Warc staff, 17 May 2013

Online video drives digital ad growth

LONDON: UK digital publisher advertising revenues rose 16.2% in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same period in 2012, with online video being the main driver of growth, according to new research.

The Digital Publishers' Revenue Index study, produced by the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) and Deloitte, tracked actual digital revenue across 27 AOP publisher members and found that while 66% of respondents reported positive total advertising growth in the first quarter of 2013, fully 100% of AOP board members expected to see growth in the second quarter.

The strong start to the year was primarily down to online video, which grew four times as fast as other formats, at 56.4% year on year.

Display increased 13.7% while sponsorship was up 12.3%. Recruitment advertising followed on 11.0%, with other forms of classified advertising growing 3.1% during the same period.

"Despite taking a fairly cautious view of growth earlier in the year, Q1 results actually indicate a strong upside for publishers," said Tim Cain, head of research and insight for the Association of Online Publishers.

"This has fuelled a more positive expectation for the coming twelve months," he added.

Howard Davies, Deloitte media partner, noted: "We're starting to see greater optimism across the market and the digital advertising industry continues to grow strongly as new formats and concepts become embedded."

Breaking the figures down further, the B2C sector demonstrated an acceleration in growth: 20% in Q1 2013 compared to 8.7% in Q1 2012. In contrast, B2B growth had slowed to 2.1% from 6% in the same periods, largely due to the slowdown in growth of display advertising for the B2B group.

"The differences between B2B and B2C sectors are perhaps starker than some would expect but probably reflect the shift in the B2B sector towards more data driven revenues," remarked Davies.

While AOP board members were unanimously positive about digital growth in the current quarter, they expected to see the highest increases in the FMCG, Retail, Telecoms, and Automotive advertising sectors over the coming twelve months.

Data sourced from AOP; additional content by Warc staff , 17 May 2013

Heineken aligns TV and web

NEW YORK: Heineken, the brewer, is looking at ways to align its TV and online marketing, including the production of more original content for online channels and more long-form digital programming.

Ron Amram, Heineken's senior media director, told AdExchanger that most of the brand's advertising remained focused on TV, but added: "What we're trying to do now is have a secondary line of communication, one that's more targeted."

He outlined some of the steps being taken, including more original spots for online and more sponsorships, but came back to the primacy of television.

"The trick is to do all that and still have a unified message that reflects the brand's TV messaging," he said. "That's the balance we're constantly attempting."

He also noted the scale of activity and engagement happening online and the debate about matching media investment with consumer behaviour.

"But it's harder to change brand behaviour without real consumer insight," he stated.

To that end, Heineken is working with video analytics company Tremor Videos, whose head of market strategy, Doron Wesly, explained there were significant differences in viewing patterns between ads made for TV and for the web.

He cited data showing that clickthrough rates for ads made specifically for the web were between two and six times higher than those for ads repurposed from TV.

This degree of targeting is one factor in achieving the balance sought by Amran. Another is the quality of online ad inventory which both men observed had been improving in the past two years.

"There is a higher degree of curated sites, for one thing, plus the spending that's flowed into video for the past few years have helped elevate the space," said Wesly.

TV and video were becoming "friends with benefits", he suggested, in a reference to a recent research study undertaken by Tremor Video, which found that video on demand could add to the reach of TV and extend campaign messaging when television advertising is off air.

Heineken's work in this area gives further weight to a recent thinktank report that said the brand was the most digitally engaged beer in the US.

Data sourced from AdExchanger; additional content by Warc staff , 16 May 2013

Diageo backs premium brands in Asia

SINGAPORE: Diageo, the drinks giant, is continuing to focus on premiumisation across its entire brand range as a driver of growth in the Asia-Pacific region.

Gilbert Ghostine, President of Diageo Asia-Pacific, told analysts that there would be a "particular emphasis on accelerating super and ultra premium price points".

Premium variants were one aspect of this, and he outlined the success of two recent scotch launches targeting specific price points. Johnnie Walker Platinum Label, at $85, sold 100,000 cases, while Johnnie Walker 21 years old, at $100, sold more than 50,000 cases.

He explained that Diageo had also doubled the value of its reserve brands since 2010 and that these now accounted for around 30% of advertising and promotion spend in the region.

He cited the marketing for the launch of John Walker Odyssey, a rare triple malt costing more than $1,000, which involved recreating the journey of ship captains who were paid on commission by the Walker family to sell Johnnie Walker across the world.

As well as generating media coverage and online engagement, he said the campaign had created "an active impact on perception of luxury by associating the brand with the global elite".

In addition to such marketing, he pointed to a "focused and differentiated approach to the critical 4,000 trend-leading outlets in the region". More than 2,000 bartenders had been trained in the company's reserve brands, he added.

Diageo has also opened two of its own "outlets" in China in the form of Johnny Walker Houses. These "embassies for whisky culture" were, Ghostine revealed, "oversubscribed in terms of high net worth Chinese individuals who have expressed interest to visit them".

Further down the socio-economic scale, a growing middle class across Southeast Asia and India was opening up new opportunities for the company's brands.

"We are doing lots of work to understand consumer needs, consumer insights, and we come with variants and brands to meet their expectations," said Ghostine.

He offered the example of Eva, a wine-based ready-to-drink brand launched in Thailand and which "delivers against the female expectations in this market".

Data sourced from Seeking Alpha; additional content by Warc staff , 16 May 2013

Gen Y thinks ahead financially

PENNINGTON: Affluent young consumers in the US have adopted a conservative approach to their finances and are focusing on saving for retirement, according to new research.

Merrill Edge, an online brokerage owned by Merrill Lynch and Bank of America carried out a study of "mass affluents", the 25m US households with investable assets of between $50,000 and $250,000.

It found that 77% of Generation Y, those aged 18-34, planned to grow their retirement savings over the next 12 months.

This was significantly ahead of other financial commitments like investing in the stock market (57%) or making a major purchase such as a car (57%).

Paying down the mortgage was a focus for 45% of Gen Y while 44% expected to contribute more to their children's college fund.

This group started saving for retirement, on average, at the age of 22 and now has $55,000 put aside. They also anticipate a comfortable old age, having saved $2.5m by the time they retire, compared to an average expectation of $860,000.

"Given that many Millennials are delaying their decision to have children and the associated financial responsibility, affluent Millennials have the opportunity to save more and have seen the market improve nicely," Jeff Fromm, EVP at employee-owned advertising agency Barkley, told MediaPost.

But even those with a family were exhibiting prudent financial behaviours. Those in the sample with young children expressed a readiness to cut back on family vacations (47%) or a new car (45%) in order to contribute to a college fund for their children.

The experience of US mass affluent Gen Y contrasts with the UK where people in their 20s and 30s are delaying significant life stages. The average age for taking out mortgages, getting married and having children is getting steadily older, while increased numbers of people aged 20-34 continue to live with their parents.

Separate research released recently by the Future Foundation has noted an increase in offers from financial services firms to Gen Y consumers with the explicit aim of helping young customers reach important landmarks.

Data sourced from MediaPost, Merrill Edge; additional content by Warc staff , 16 May 2013

Nigerian ecommerce has local twist

LAGOS: The Nigerian middle class is taking to the internet to purchase brands like Samsung, Ralph Lauren and Zara from Amazon-style websites, which have had to adapt their business models to local conditions.

"It's not so much there's this appetite for online shopping, as that there's an appetite for shopping," said Sim Shagaya, who set up Konga.com less than a year ago.

"Retail here is still mostly informal, fragmented and inefficient," he explained to the Financial Times. "People want convenience, which gives us the opportunity to leapfrog with e-commerce."

Growing internet penetration – up from 6.8% in 2007 to 28.4% in 2011 according to the International Telecommunications Union – is helping fuel an e-commerce boom but one that has a particularly home-grown flavour.

"We have captured a lot of early adopters, but there's a much larger market out there that still needs to be educated about buying online," said Tunde Kehinde, joint managing director of Jumia Nigeria, a rival to Konga.com.

The way Jumia goes about this is to equip a sales team with tablets and send them out to businesses, churches and homes to show potential customers what they can buy. This includes a range of brands that the company has struck agreements with, such as LG, Samsung, BlackBerry, Nokia, Ralph Lauren and Zara.

As well as mobile phones and clothing, these sites typically sell household goods, books, DVDs, toys and cosmetics.

Other Nigerian twists include cash-on-delivery, since online payment is rare as many people do not have bank cards and are, in any case, concerned about fraud. Ecommerce sites have also had to build their own delivery fleets because the postal service is unreliable.

While Konga and Jumia stock a large range of items, specialist sites are looking to corner particular markets.

Olumide Olusanya set up Buycommonthings, an online grocery store that delivers the same day to customers in Lagos, the Nigerian capital.

"Everything has come together at the right time for e-commerce here," he said. "We are still paddling ahead of the wave, but when it comes it is going to be huge."

Data sourced from Financial Times; additional content by Warc staff , 16 May 2013

Indian car advertising lacks creativity

MUMBAI: Indian marketing executives have criticised the current quality of advertising for the nation's automotive brands.

"We haven't seen powerful stories being told by car brands," Avers Sourabh Mishra, national planning head and group chief strategy officer, Bates CHI & Partners, told the Economic Times.

In a reference to a campaign for the Volkswagen Vento, he added that it was clear the category was facing a creative challenge when a talking newspaper was the "creative high point" for an iconic brand.

Data sourced from Economic Times, Financial Times; additional content by Warc staff, 16 May 2013

Italian adspend plummets

MILAN: Italian advertising expenditure fell sharply in the first quarter of 2013 with leading businesses anticipating this trend will continue at a slower pace in the second quarter.

Total advertising for the quarter amounted to €1.6bn, an 18.9% drop on the same period in 2012, according to latest figures from Nielsen, the measurement company.

Only two areas escaped declines of this magnitude. Internet advertising rose 2.1% to reach €120m, while outdoor advertising increased 8.4% to €20m.

Otherwise, the figures were bleak. Television advertising, which accounted for over half of all advertising expenditure, fell 19.1% to €906m.

Press advertising suffered most, falling 24.8% compared to a year earlier. Dailies fared worst, down 26.1% to €227m, but periodicals were not much better, slipping 22.3% to €126m.

Radio advertising was down 19.2% to €77m and cinema down 19.9% to €6m.

Nielsen's figures were released as Italian broadcaster Mediaset was reporting a 19% drop in gross advertising sales in Italy in the first quarter and warning that the decline would continue, although at a slower rate.

"The trend is forecast to remain negative, with probably a high single-digit fall," said Luigi Colombo, head of Mediaset's Italian advertising arm Publitalia.

Mediaset's Spanish operations were also under pressure as gross television advertising revenues there declined 13.6% in the first quarter.

The company was cautious about making any long-term predictions, beyond indicating that ad sales could perhaps stabilise in the coming months.

But it argued that "the scarce visibility, uncertainty and economic instability in the two countries do now allow us at present to make reliable forecasts regarding the evolution of advertising sales on a yearly basis".

Data sourced from Bloomberg, Reuters, 4-Traders, Gazzetta del Sud; additional content by Warc staff , 16 May 2013

Risk-averse innovation proves inadequate

NEW YORK: Businesses are investing more in innovation but top executives are unhappy with the results, which tend to favour line extensions rather than fresh and original products and services, new research has revealed.

Accenture, the consultancy, surveyed of 519 companies across more than 12 industry sectors in France, the UK and the US for its report Why Low Risk Innovation Is Costly. It found that 51% of companies had increased funding in this area, but just 18% of respondents thought the resulting efforts delivered a competitive advantage.

Despite this, most saw innovation as an important area. Fully 93% of executives said it was vital to long-term success, while 70% put in in their top five priorities.

The risk-averse nature of many firms' approach to innovation became apparent with 64% of respondents saying they were focused on product line extensions rather than big ideas.

Just 27% regarded the introduction of a new product category as a primary goal for innovation compared with 42% in a similar survey in 2009.

"Many companies take a low-risk approach to innovation that can jeopardize results because they lack a prudent, disciplined approach for innovation risk management," said Wouter Koetzier, managing director for Innovation and Product Development at Accenture.

"It's a situation compounded for many by an inability to rapidly scale inventions," he added.

The study showed that companies with a formal innovation management system were significantly more likely to report satisfaction with the return on their innovation investments and to see this strategy as delivering a competitive advantage.

At the same time, however, a substantial 38% lacked such a formal approach to innovation management, with travel and transport, communication and utilities the three worst performing sectors in this regard.

By contrast, respondents in the consumer goods & services, electronics & high tech and health provider sectors most frequently said they had a formal approach to innovation.

Accenture's recommendations included the application of risk management to help drive innovation with analytics, processes and tools, while frugal innovation could, it suggested, shorten time to market, reduce the cost of innovation and serve the emerging middle class in developing countries.

Data sourced from Accenture; additional content by Warc staff, 15 May 2013

Asia drives mobile handset growth

STAMFORD: Asia Pacific was the only region to record annual growth in mobile handset sales during the first quarter of 2013, according to Gartner.

The research firm reported that sales in this region rose by 6.4% year on year to 226m mobile phones in Q1, a 53.1% share of the global market. Within this, China recorded a 7.5% expansion and accounted for 25.7% of global sales, a two-point increase on the previous year. 

Data sourced from Gartner; additional content by Warc staff , 15 May 2013

APAC marketers tackle digital challenge

SINGAPORE: Chief marketing officers in the Asia Pacific region are investing are investing an increasing proportion of their budgets in digital but they need to address a "performance gap" if they are to be fully effective, a new report has argued.

The 2012 CMO Insights Survey from consultancy Accenture interviewed senior executives across ten countries, including Singapore, Australia and China in Asia Pacific, and found that 62% of CMOs in this region had allocated over a quarter of their budgets to digital marketing, compared to a global figure of 47%.

"Organisations operating in Asia Pacific tend to have a more aggressive growth agenda compared to their western peers," Marco Ryan, managing director for ASEAN at Accenture Interactive, told Campaign Asia-Pacific. "As a result, they also have a greater level of willingness and appetite to adopt digital technologies"

The study also noted, however, that companies' digital orientation showed a significant "performance gap" – the difference between CMOs' ratings of digital's importance and its actual performance.

This was true across all markets, not just Asia Pacific, with digital orientation having the widest performance gap of five capabilities Accenture identified CMOs utilising to improve their company's performance: innovation, customer analytics, digital orientation, customer engagement and marketing operations.

Inefficient business process, proliferating channels and talent gaps were cited as typical reasons for a lack of digital focus.

"It is not a surprise that CMOs are facing challenges in the digital space," observed Ryan, as he remarked on the region's complex marketing environment.

"There is a clear performance gap between the demands of the marketplace and the ability of marketing organisations to apply the digital technology talent to be more effective," he said.

Accenture's advice includes building new skills internally, through hiring, reskilling and redeploying staff "to improve efficiency, agility and responsiveness".

"The growing investment in digital capabilities will help marketing executives improve their understanding of changing consumer needs and manage multiple challenges," said Ryan.

But he cautioned that achieving improved performance would "require more than new digital and analytics talent".

"The challenge of digital transformation is how to implement beyond marketing and across the entire enterprise," he concluded.

Data sourced from Campaign Asia-Pacific, Accenture; additional content by Warc staff , 15 May 2013

Judges named for Warc Asia prize

SINGAPORE: Warc has announced an 18-strong panel of client-side marketers and strategy experts who will judge entries to the 2013 Warc Prize for Asian Strategy, a cash prize for the case study that demonstrates the most insightful marketing strategy in the region.

The panel includes marketers from brands including Samsung, Marico, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Diageo.

It is chaired by Leanne Cutts, Vice President Marketing, Mondelez International, Asia Pacific.

Agency-side judges include representatives from BBDO, Ogilvy & Mather, McCann Worldgroup, WPP China, OMD, BBH, Weiden + Kennedy and Starcom Mediavest Group.

The full list can be read here.

Cutts commented: "With the ever-growing influence of emerging markets in Asia, this year's entries promise to reveal inspiring ideas, informed by fresh local perspectives, to ignite creative approaches in targeting new markets, addressing changes in consumer behaviour and contending with bigger competitors."

The Prize offers $5,000 to the Grand Prix winner as well as five $1,000 Special Awards that recognise brands and agencies responding to Asia's biggest strategic challenges.

It is free to enter and is open to brand owners and agencies in any discipline. The deadline for entries is 14 June 2013, and the winner will be announced in September.

Entrants are required to submit a case study detailing an example of strategic thinking which has made a difference to a brand. Further details can be found on the Prize website.

Full details, including tips on writing a case study, are available at the Prize website.

All cases that win an award will be showcased in the inaugural Asian Strategy Report, a study of smart strategic thinking in the region that will be published after the competition has ended.

Data sourced from Warc, 15 May 2013

Audi develops AR platform

MILTON KEYNES: Audi has launched an image-recognition app that marks its first step towards creating a full-blown augmented reality platform, the automaker's UK digital manager has explained.

Initially, the Audi Vision iOS app will be triggered by images in the vehicle manufacturer's brochure and play video content on a mobile device. This feature will also extend to print and outdoor ads, and point-of-sale material. 

Data sourced from Marketing Week; additional content by Warc staff , 15 May 2013

Luxury marketers plan video content

LONDON: Marketers targeting affluent consumers in the UK are planning to spend around twice as much on online video and rich media as their mass-market counterparts, new research has shown.

Martini Media, a media and advertising company, surveyed 226 UK marketing professionals, including brand advertisers (43%) and agencies (57%), nearly half of which were targeting high-income consumers, as it sought to determine where brands were focusing their marketing efforts in 2013 and beyond.

"Luxury brands need a big, beautiful canvas to showcase their products," said Skip Brand, Martini Media's chief executive, adding that standard display advertising "just isn't cutting it".

"We can expect to see standard display spending continue to decrease as brands turn to rich media, social, video and mobile to effectively connect with their audience," he stated.

The study revealed that 95% of UK marketers expected to increase their digital spend during 2013, and that almost half (48%) of their total budget would be directed to this channel.

Many pointed to the demonstrable effectiveness of new media, with three-quarters saying that high-impact ads could achieve a similar level of cut-through as TV and print advertising.

In addition, some 71% were using digital to build brand awareness and 63% intended to ramp up their social media efforts.

"Brands across the board see the value of digital, not just as a direct response mechanism but as a brand building tool," said James Drake-Brockman, Head of EMEA - Digital Marketing, DMG, which conducted the research in conjunction with Martini Media.

"The fact that 71% of respondents use it for this purpose shows the continuing shift in attitudes of advertisers and agencies, which ties in with the increase in platforms and opportunities available for them to target consumers," he concluded.

Data sourced from Wall Street Journal; additional content by Warc staff , 15 May 2013

Colgate banks on innovation

NEW YORK: Colgate, the oral care brand, is looking to innovate in its products and communications in order to engage consumers and drive growth in the future.

Colgate-Palmolive chief executive Ian M Cook told the company's annual stockholders' meeting that in the wake of global financial crisis consumers had reassessed their idea of value and were no longer focused just on price.

"They're looking for innovation that they believe is worth the money they pay for that innovation," he said.

He noted a recent Kantar Worldpanel survey which had found Colgate to be the one packaged goods brand that reached more than half the world's population, as he claimed a 46% share of the global toothpaste market and a 33% share of the toothbrush market.

Cook cited as examples of product innovation new tooth brush designs, while innovative communications in emerging markets focused on direct contact with shoppers and small store owners.

In Peru, for example, Colgate has pioneered the use of toothbrush shopping carts in stores. This featured women in supermarkets pushing trollies labelled with all the different types of Colgate toothbrushes and engaging with consumers as they shopped.

"One of the most important [techniques] in the emerging high-growth markets is to get to those small stores in the rural areas, the so-called mom-and-pop stores," said Cook.

"We reach them with small vans and indeed tricycles in some cases," he explained. "And in the bigger stores, we use the bigger displays that are eye-catching to get people's attention to the new brushes we have in our portfolio".

It was also crucial, he noted, to reach the dental profession, and here Colgate was increasingly utilising new technology – "digital technology with tablets" – to persuade them of the benefits of Colgate brushes for their patients.

Another area the company was focused on was "communicating a regimen benefit".

This involved, outlined Cook, "the idea that using a Colgate toothpaste with a Colgate toothbrush and a Colgate mouth rinse is a faster or better benefit than simply using one of the products on their own".

This idea was being applied not just to oral health products but also to products with a cosmetic edge, such as the Optic White/Luminous teeth whitening range.

Data sourced from Seeking Alpha; additional content by Warc staff , 14 May 2013

APAC marketers lag on content

SINGAPORE: Marketers in the Asia-Pacific region are not doing enough to engage with consumers who are increasingly well connected via a multiplicity of devices and who are looking for compelling content, according to leading industry figures.

"Content is the 'social juice' to attract and engage consumers and move them through the path to purchase," noted Don Anderson, SVP Regional Strategic Digital Integration, Fleishman-Hillard, speaking ahead of an upcoming content marketing conference in Singapore.

He pointed to several issues that regional marketers needed to address. "The most pressing challenge that companies face is having veritable warehouses of content, but doing nothing with it; or simply not having content strategy in place," he said.

"The increased proliferation of communication platforms is making it more critical for publishers to find means of cutting through the clutter," he added.

Nico Abbruzzese, Head of Digital, Asia Pacific, Maxus Global, warned that content strategies needed to avoid the hard-sell approach.

"You can't just shout a message," he stated. "You have to create value and desirability in the content that your brand develops before you can talk about your brand and products," he concluded.

Separately, YouTube's Benjamin Grubbs, Head of Partner Marketing in the APAC region, told The Music Void how his organisation is targeting Gen C – "people who care deeply about creation, curation, connection and community".

Gen C moves seamlessly between devices and platforms in the search for high-qualithy content and Grubbs explained his job was to connect this audience to the content they enjoy.

"From Hollywood producers to first-time creators in APAC, YouTube's goal is to offer people a broad range of high quality content to tune in to on a regular basis," he said.

But high quality content is just one part of the equation, cautioned Karen Cahn, general manager of original videos at Aol, writing on Digiday.

She advised content producers to develop a proper audience-development strategy early on, including social components, syndication plans, marketing and PR, and clear metrics.

"There are plenty of potential viewers waiting for the right content – it just takes some work and a little luck to find them," she said.

Data sourced from ACN Newswire, The Music Void, Digiday; additional content by Warc staff , 14 May 2013

Brands address Bangladesh aftermath

STOCKHOLM/MADRID: The world's two largest fashion retailers, H&M and Zara, are among the brands that have moved to address worker safety and reputational issues in the wake of a factory collapse in Bangladesh that killed 1,120 people.

Both organisations have given their backing to an agreement on fire and building safety in the country, which is aimed at preventing a repeat of the recent disaster.

Other brands that have been involved in the talks include Gap, the fashion chain, PVH Group, owner of the Calvin Klein brand, Walmart, the US retailer and Tchibo, a German firm, according to Reuters.

The IndustriALL Global Union, which has been pushing brands to agree to the deal, is hoping several more will sign up going forward. The accord is expected to lead to stronger workers' rights and see brands making a financial commitment relative to the size of their business in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh's government has already acceded to the demands of campaigners by raising the minimum wage and allowing garment workers to form unions without permission from factory owners.

Primark and Bonmarche, two UK retailers which were supplied by the New Wave clothing factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, the Bangladesh capital, have promised to pay compensation to the families of the dead.

Elsewhere, adidas, the German sports goods company, has come under fire for an initiative that encourages workers in the factories of its Asian suppliers to send an anonymous text message to complain about working conditions or breaches of their rights.

Critics said the company was diverting attention from real problems and should focus on improving production standards, but adidas denied it was a marketing stunt.

A spokeswoman pointed out that big problems emerge when there's a lack of communication. "We were of the view that it's important to change that," she said.

Data sourced from Reuters, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Deutsche Welle; additional content by Warc staff , 14 May 2013

Agencies get incentivised

NEW YORK: The proportion of advertisers entering into incentivised contracts with agencies has risen sharply, but not all agencies are happy with this development.

A new poll of members of the Association of National Advertisers, conducted by the consultancy R3:JLB, found that 61% were switching to a pay-for-performance approach, up from 46% in 2010 and 35% in 2000.

Brian Goodall, a consultant at R3:JLB, said that a common incentive deal was structured so as to pay agencies a fee based on proposed staffing with three tiers of potential bonuses added. These were typically based around sales or market share, brand-recall metrics and an agency-performance evaluation.

But agencies remain concerned at the reasons behind these contracts. "Some clients are coming at this from the approach of an opportunity to reduce marketing spend, and if it starts there, it's flawed from the beginning," argued Scott Chapman, executive director of finance at Partners & Napier.

"But if it's a method to fuel performance and success, it can be beneficial," he conceded.

Others supported the initiatives. "I'm a strong believer in incentivisation," Harris Diamond, chairman and chief executive of McCann Worldwide, told Advertising Age.

But he cautioned the need for careful consideration. "It has to have a shared-reward aspect – it can't be just to get back to where you were on basic costs," Diamond said.

"These contracts require a lot of thought on both sides," he added, "and not all clients are willing to take that risk and maybe have to pay us more, so sometimes the talks go nowhere."

Willingness to embrace incentivised contracts varies across the industry, with media agencies seen to be significantly more enthusiastic than digital agencies.

Indeed, Bryan Wiener, chief executive of 360i, described the deals as "perverse", arguing that incentives were often based on paid-media impressions, but that digital and social-media campaigns cost more to create than to distribute.

Data sourced from Advertising Age; additional content by Warc staff , 14 May 2013

Chinese brands need better image

BEIJING: Chinese brands need to work on improving their international recognition and countering an impression that Chinese products are poor quality, as a new survey has shown a third of US consumers would avoid such items.

HD Trade Services Inc, a New York-based marketing and brand-development firm, asked 1,500 Americans whether they would buy a product if they knew the brand was owned by a Chinese company.

While 68% said they would, this compared unfavourably with the 81% who would buy a product if they knew it was Japanese-owned.

"We believe this stigma toward Chinese brands is based predominantly on the perception that Chinese products are of lesser quality, and a general disapproval of Chinese policy," Daniel Sperling-Horowitz, president of HD Trade Services, told China Daily.

The sentiment was recognised by Lawrence Li, the US chief executive of Hisense Electric, a leading Chinese maker of televisions that is attempting to break into the American market.

"This stereotype is common in the market," Li said, noting that many Chinese companies had tried to get a foothold in the US market but had often lacked a "long-term strategy to develop their brand in the market, and they didn't pay enough attention to product quality".

"We are shooting for advanced technology," stated Li. "If we can't be successful in the US, we can't be successful in the global market."

Sperling-Horowitz suggested that the focus of many Chinese companies has been on establishing and perfecting brands at home, with few resources allocated to marketing in the US and elsewhere.

He advised some simple steps that could be taken, including the creation of a good impression at US trade shows with staff who speak fluent English and promotional materials that are free of grammatical mistakes.

Taking the long view, Sperling-Horowitz expected  stigma towards Chinese brands to fade and that accentuating Chinese roots could even become a powerful point of brand identity.

Data sourced from China Daily, HD Trade Services; additional content by Warc staff , 14 May 2013

Marketers should tap start-ups

LONDON: Young digital entrepreneurs are looking to marketers to help scale their business, assist with branding and test their technology on new problems, a survey of London's tech cluster has found.

Mother, the advertising agency, polled 114 technology-led businesses operating in the Silicon Roundabout area of Shoreditch in east London and discovered that there was a generally positive view of the marketing community and what it could do for them.

When asked their opinion of marketers, one third of respondents saw them as "the people who help companies better understand and relate with consumers".

Another third replied that they were "potentially powerful allies for entrepreneurs".

A cynical 17% regarded them as "corporate drones without the balls to back their own business ideas", while 8% had no opinion.

In terms of the marketing community's growing interest in tech clusters, 32% of businesses were open-minded, 25% were keen to strike up mutually beneficial relationships and 7% thought it could become a "defining strength of the London tech scene".

Again, not everyone was convinced, with 21% advising marketers to "jump on another bandwagon" and 15% concerned about possible negative effects such as rent rises or the poaching of ideas.

The final question asked respondents what single form of assistance from a marketer would best help them.

Assistance in understanding branding and helping achieve scale were the two most common choices, with 37% opting for each of these.

A further 13% cited the "opportunity to stretch our technology by applying to their problems".

Writing in Marketing, Dylan Williams, chief strategy officer at Mother, noted: "Marketers are looking to learn how to rededicate to tangible innovation. Start-ups are looking to better create and harness intangible assets."

"It is not outlandish to suggest," he concluded, "that both parties might identify a better tangible:intangible asset ratio together. And therein achieve a win–win for both parties."

A Warc Trends snapshot, Brands & Incubators, last year highlighted the growing number of companies developing incubator business models to source new ideas and apply them to specific brands.

Earlier this year, Campbell Soup Company offered a cash prize and a contract to the developer who could come up with a game or app that best answered the question: "What's for dinner?"

"For us this isn't a stunt or a promotion; it's part of the evolution of how we think about marketing," said Adam Kmiec, Campbell's director of global digital marketing and social media.

Data sourced from Marketing; additional content by Warc staff, 14 May 2013

YouTube pay channels get mixed reaction

SAN BRUNO: YouTube, the online video site, is launching 50 pay channels in association with 30 content partners, with prices starting from 99 cents a month, in a move that has implications for advertisers, agencies and TV networks.

Viewers will be able to choose which channels they subscribe to, unlike the bundled model preferred by cable and satellite television, and the channels will decide themselves whether or not to show ads in their programming.

"YouTube shouldn't make the call whether a paid channel has ads or not," said Malik Ducard, YouTube's head of content partnerships. "The partners are smarter about their audience and their content than we are."

He added that YouTube was not attempting to compete with pay TV. "We think the two can coexist nicely," he stated.

The channels taking part in the pilot include Sesame Street, the children's program, Cars.TV, aimed at car enthusiasts, The Laugh Factory, a comedy channel, and UFC, a sports channel.

YouTube will keep around 45% of subscription revenue, with the rest going to the channel owners.

Reactions to the move were mixed. One channel creator said that many viewers were teenagers who would be unlikely to pay, while another observed that online video was about sharing which couldn't be done behind a paywall.

Agencies were more optimistic. "Advertisers should see this as a positive move, as they will be able to better target premium audiences against specific programs much in the same way as they do today with traditional TV," Nick Seckold head of digital at Mindshare Asia Pacific, told Campaign Asia-Pacific.

Lee Smith, CEO of platforms and president of Annalect for Omnicom Media Group Asia-Pacific, agreed. "Monetising vertical content via paid users is a viable next step," he said.

"At some point we'll have to get used to subscriptions for everything," Russ Crupnick, an analyst for NPD Group, told Billboard. "Otherwise, we really will live in a world where online entertainment means dancing cats."

Data sourced from Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, Campaign Asia-Pacific, Billboard; additional content by Warc staff , 13 May 2013

Chinese ecommerce set for more growth

BEIJING: Chinese shoppers spent 352bn yuan online in the first quarter of 2013, a 17% decline from the same period a year earlier, but annual sales in 2013 are still expected to exceed those in 2012.

According to a new report from iResearch Consulting Group, second quarter sales could reach 425m yuan with sales for the calendar year totalling 1.85tr yuan, China Daily reports.

"We estimate the turnover increase of China's online shopping industry will be around 40 percent year-on-year in coming quarters," said iResearch analyst Zhang Jing.

There was a particular factor behind the first quarter slowdown. "Several large-scale promotional campaigns at the end of 2012 consumed buyers' purchasing power — that's the major reason for the decline," explained Zhang.

During November and December, leading e-commerce websites, including Tmall, JD and Suning, launched a series of sales promotions that saw fourth quarter online sales increase by more than 100bn yuan to reach 425bn yuan.

Meanwhile,  a separate survey from the consultancy PwC has indicated that the Chinese are more enthusiastic than most about shopping online, with 58% of online shoppers doing so at least once a week, compared to an average of 29% globally. Price and convenience were cited as major factors behind the channel's popularity.

But analysts expect that factors other than price will come into play. "Future competition among e-commerce websites will no longer just be about price – players will focus on lifting service quality to attract customers," said Zhang.

Elsewhere, Alibaba Group Holding has unveiled plans to expand its two ecommerce platforms – Taobao, a consumer-to-consumer platform and Tmall, a business-to-consumer platform – beyond mainland China and into Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.

"We want to partner with local companies in payments systems and logistics to reach the overseas Chinese market," said Daphne Lee, director of overseas business at Taobao.com.

Data sourced from China Daily, Bloomberg, Camnpaign Asia-Pacific; additional content by Warc staff , 13 May 2013

Warc Prize longlist announced

LONDON: The longlist for the 2013 Warc Prize for Innovation has been announced and includes 18 case histories from 16 countries and nine sectors.

The full list of contenders for the $10,000 cash prize can be read here. This takes in work from major brands, such as McDonald's, Honda, K-mart, Mars, and OREO, as well as lesser known organisations.

The Asia-Pacific region features strongly, accounting for almost half the shortlist with five entries from Australia and three from India.

Several agency networks have two entries still in the running, including Lowe and Partners, Leo Burnett, McCann, Naked Communications, Mindshare and Starcom MediaVest.

The judges, chaired by Howard Draft, Executive Chairman of Draftfcb, have praised the innovative thinking and insights displayed by this year's entries and will decide the winner in June.

In addition, Warc is, for the first time, awarding a Popular Vote trophy for the entry that attains the highest combination of "likes" of its video on our free Warc Prize Vimeo page and downloads of its case study on warc.com.

Warc subscribers can read the long-listed case studies in full now on www.warc.com/prize. Non-subscribers can request a trial by visiting www.warc.com/trial.

Data sourced from Warc , 13 May 2013

Consumers value brand experiences

NEW YORK: Having a unique experience with a brand is an important factor in determining purchase and 40% of consumers would pay more for those offering this type of interaction, new research has determined.

A study, Best Experience Brands, from the brand experience agency Jack Morton Worldwide, surveyed 4,000 adult consumers in the US, UK, Australia and China as it sought to understand the impact of experience on consumer brand choice.

Experience was defined as "interactions with the products, employees or people who represent a brand, as well as anything [they] learn from that brand's marketing, word-of-mouth or recommendations from friends, colleagues or social media."

"What we found is that no matter their geographic or cultural differences – when it comes to brand choice, consumers around the world are placing increased importance on experience," said Josh McCall, Chairman & CEO of Jack Morton.

Fully 87% of respondents said they were more likely to recommend a brand based on a great experience, a metric that scored highest in China (90.9%) and lowest in Australia (81.1%).

Some 80.4% agreed they were more likely to consider a brand if they knew they would have a great experience. Again, China registered the highest figures here with 93.8% agreeing, while Australians were more skeptical on 74.2%.

Nearly six in ten consumers (58.1%) were prepared to pay more for a brand that offered a great experience. Once again, Chinese consumers were in the forefront, with 63.7% ready to pay a premium, compared to just 49.5% of Australians.

The trend was especially evident among Millennials. Over 95% of 25-34 year olds in China were more likely to consider a brand if it offered a great experience, while 88% in the UK were more likely to recommend a brand offering a great experience.

And more than 70% of the same demographic in the US were more likely to pay a premium for brands that offered a great experience.

There was, however, a gap between expectations and actual performance in this regard. The report cited the example of car brands and customer service. Two thirds of respondents thought it was important for car brands to provide excellent customer service, but less than one third agreed that car brands were delivering on this.

Data sourced from Jack Morton Worldwide; additional content by Warc staff , 13 May 2013

Government to partner with brands

LONDON: The UK government has relaxed the rules surrounding departmental advertising campaigns so that brands will in future be able to sign exclusive sponsorship deals.

In addition, departments will no longer be required to match funding from partners, so that campaigns can be majority-funded by brands.

A third significant change will see the removal of the need for departments to inform all competitors if a brand proactively approaches them with a strategy. The government believes this will incentivise brands to seek deals when in the past they may have been deterred by having to share their strategy with rivals.

The opportunity for a brand to strike an exclusive deal could give it a competitive advantage over rivals and the new guidelines indicate that any such arrangement will need "senior management and ministerial sign off".

The guidelines further note that "Departments must ensure that they are not limiting the scope or reach that a multiplicity of partners would deliver", which suggests that any exclusive deals are likely to be restricted to those areas where there are fewer options for the choice of partners.

The UK government spent £300m on communications last year, including several co-branded campaigns. These included Asda, the supermarket, working with the Department of Health on anti-obesity ads, while Coca-Cola, the soft drinks giant, ran a designated driver campaign with the Department for Transport.

"Partnerships with organisations in the private and charity sector have produced some of the most creative and powerful government campaigns, and we will do all we can to encourage these collaborations," said Alex Aiken, executive director of the government's communications unit.

"The opportunity for partners is clear: Helping government answer interesting and large-scale communication challenges, and in turn, government can access audiences in new ways," he said.

Data sourced from The Guardian, Marketing Week; additional content by Warc staff, 13 May 2013

Indian brands engage on social media

NEW DELHI: Indian businesses are using social media primarily to build communities and highlight brand news, with the most aware companies already moving beyond Facebook and onto emerging platforms, according to a new study.

The Social Media Marketing - India Trends Study 2013, from consultancy Ernst & Young, was based on a survey of 48 social-media savvy organisations in that country.

As well as building communities (95.7%) and highlighting brand news (76.1%), companies polled for the report said they were using social media engagement to provide customer service (58.7%), generate leads (43.5%) and carry out research (41.3%).

"Social media is fast emerging as a means of partnership between organisations and their customers, leading to continuous engagement and deeper loyalty," Dinesh Mishra, an Ernst & Young Advisory Director and Leader, told the Times of India.

"Many Indian organisations are already using social media," he added.

Facebook was most important platform for marketers in India for engaging customers, followed by Twitter, YouTube and blogging, but almost half of respondents were already using emerging platforms such as Pinterest, Google+ and Foursquare.

There were 78m Facebook users in India in 2012, according to digital research firm eMarketer, with that figure predicted to almost double by 2014 and then almost double again by 2017.

Most organisations (83%) told Ernst & Young they had used social media ads to promote online campaigns and brand awareness, and 89% said they had found them beneficial in achieving campaign objectives.

Image-based contests also proved popular with online fans and many companies are organising these on a monthly basis.

Measurement of social media efforts was largely based on platform-specific parameters, with 81% of respondents citing likes and comments as effectiveness metrics.

A small proportion were looking at leads and brand visibility (both 7.1%) and changes in sentiment (4.8%).

Almost half of indicated that social media accounted for between 1% and 5% of marketing budgets. But there was also a general expectation of a greater focus on this channel in future.

Data sourced from Ernst & Young, Times of India; additional content by Warc staff , 13 May 2013

Coke tackles obesity issue

ATLANTA: Coca-Cola has announced plans to put calorie counts on packaging and to distribute diet options in all its markets as it takes steps to neutralise arguments that sugary drinks are contributing to a global obesity epidemic.

"The key here is to ensure that in every market where we operate to have no- or low-calorie beverages of our main brands available," Muktar Kent, Coca-Cola's chairman and chief executive, said in a conference call.

"There is a place for all of our beverages in a healthy lifestyle," he added.

Around one third of Coke's sales volume in North America comes from low- and zero-calorie drinks, but this pattern is not replicated in other markets, where concerns about the effects of soft drinks are growing.

"They need to take this head-on given all the pressure they're facing, certainly from a regulatory perspective and without a doubt from the consumer perspective," Ali Dibadj, analyst at investment group Bernstein, told the Financial Times.

"If they get painted with this bad-guy brush, I'm not convinced they have the support of the local communities and the local governments that they really need for all the local distribution, manufacturing and buy-in to grow the business," he added.

The company also said it would sponsor physical activities in every market it operated in and renewed a pledge, first made in 2007, not to market drinks to children under the age of 12.

But it made clear it would continue to show families in its advertising and to use the long-running and popular images of Santa Claus and polar bears.

"It's not about what's shown in the ad, it's about the audience for the ad," said April Jordin, a Coke spokeswoman.

The company gave no details of the timetable or costs involved for these initiatives.


Data sourced from Wall Street Journal, Financial Times; additional content by Warc staff , 10 May 2013

BBDO wins marketing awards

SHANGHAI: Clemenger BBDO Melbourne has been named Agency of the Year and BBDO Network of the Year at the 2013 Festival of Asian Marketing Effectiveness.

In the agency category, second and third places went to McCann Melbourne and Leo Burnett Melbourne respectively, while in the network category Ogilvy & Mather took second and McCann third.

In all, there were 55 winners from the shortlist of 139, with 16 gold, 19 silver and 20 bronze trophies awarded.

"We saw some amazing work," said Ajay Kaul, jury president and Executive Director for Global Brand Communications at Lenovo, the electronics firm.

"It was pretty tough picking only a few winners given the overall quality of work, the majority of which was truly world class," he added. "Asia is clearly on a trailblazing path driving some innovative use of technology and media."

Terry Savage, chairman of the organisers, Lions Festivals, echoed his remarks, saying that "the region and the industry are continuously innovating and driving forward".

The winning work was, he suggested, "setting the benchmark for the future of brand marketing".

Australia was country winning most awards, with 15 trophies, followed by China which took ten, while New Zealand and Singapore both received five.

Data sourced from Festival of Asian Marketing Effectiveness; additional content by Warc staff , 10 May 2013

Mobile marketing spend to rise

NEW YORK: Mobile marketing expenditure is likely to reach nearly $20bn in the US by 2015, almost tripling the spending levels recorded by this channel last year, a report has predicted.

The study was commissioned by the Mobile Marketing Association and presented at the MMA New York Forum. It stated that brands and retailers spent $6.7bn on mobile marketing - including ads, direct response and CRM - in 2012, a figure projected to stand at $19.8bn by 2015.

Data sourced from MMA; additional content by Warc staff , 10 May 2013

Sports sponsors look for success

LONDON: Observers have warned that managerial changes at Manchester United Football Club could be a concern for the club's sponsors such as Chevrolet, the automaker.

The club's announcement of departure of Sir Alex Ferguson "will be a worry for sponsors," Rob Mason, managing director at IMG consulting international, told Marketing. Chevrolet recently signed a seven-year shirt sponsorship deal with the club worth about £25m a season.

"Manchester United is the best-supported club in the country and there will be a worry as to whether this success will be continued under the new manager," Mason added.

"Ferguson has been a fundamental reason for the success of the club and you are now taking that away."

Meanwhile, Andre Spicer, professor of organisational behaviour at Cass Business School, pointed to the impact on an organisation of forceful individuals such as Sir Alex. "Typically, the retiring leader casts a shadow over the whole organisation for many years," he told the BBC.

During his 27-year tenure, Manchester United has developed into a global brand, with sponsors in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Harry Philp, football finance expert at Portland Advisors, said the club's commercial success was in part due to a strategy of segmenting commercial partners and seeking different sponsors in different countries in different markets.

Others were more sanguine about Sir Alex's retirement. "Ferguson is obviously an incredible asset to the club and actually is likely to have more involvement with sponsors commercially, as he moves to be a club ambassador and director," said Rupert Pratt, managing partner of Generate Sponsorship.

Nike, the club's current kit supplier, concurred with that view, saying they were "delighted" he would continue his involvement with the club in that role.

The news comes as one of Nike's rivals stands ready to replace it as the kit supplier to another Premier League club. Puma is understood to have agreed a record £30m a year deal with Arsenal.

Further down the pecking order, upmarket grocery retailer Waitrose plans to renew its sponsorship of Reading Football Club, despite the club being relegated from the Premier League. As part of the deal, special offers will be made available to season ticket holders.

Waitrose also extended its sports sponsorship in a new direction to become the official sponsor of the England cricket team, a move aimed at building its brand around the world.

Data sourced from Marketing, BBC, Marketing Week; additional content by Warc staff , 10 May 2013

Luxury brands can tap Asian "gateways"

SINGAPORE: Global luxury brands are missing an opportunity to reach Chinese consumers travelling to the "gateway" shopping destinations of Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore because they are not digitally optimised in those locations, a new report has argued.

The thinktank L2 noted in its Digital IQ Index: The Gateways that Chinese consumers accounted for one third of global luxury consumption and that two thirds of their purchases were made outside mainland China.

But with the rising value of the euro, more are choosing to journey regionally to the aforementioned three territories. Chinese travellers are, for example, projected to account for 60% of luxury sales in Hong Kong in 2013.

L2's research, however, found that only 23% of prestige brands offered a mobile-optimised China site for use when travelling, while the visibility of Hong Kong and Taiwan sites on the Baidu search engine was poor, with two thirds of searches ("brand term + country") appearing outside the top three results.

The report also said that, despite digital and mobile fluency across the gateways, e-commerce and m-commerce remained under-developed. Just 10% of prestige brands supported e-commerce in Taiwan, and even less in Hong Kong and Singapore.

In addition, just 20% had a mobile-optimised site in Hong Kong and 15% in both Taiwan and Singapore.

More than half of luxury brands had local sites for Hong Kong (54%) and Taiwan (56%), but just 37% had an equivalent for Singapore. Language was also an issue, with one third of Hong Kong sites being in English, despite being the national language in Singapore.

Site functionality was generally limited, with only half the brands across the three markets supplying a dedicated customer service number, while facilities such as live chat, social sharing, ratings and reviews were less common.

L2 also noted the failure of the majority of prestige brands to maintain a dedicated YouTube channel in any of the three markets, despite APAC markets accounting for around 30% of global video views.

Data sourced from L2; additional content by Warc staff , 10 May 2013

Ferrari focuses on exclusivity

MARANELLO: Ferrari, the Italian luxury automaker, plans to cut sales of its iconic cars to below 7,000 during 2013 in order to maintain the marque's distinctiveness.

"Those who buy a Ferrari buy a dream, and they must be reassured that their dream of exclusivity will be fulfilled," said chairman Luca di Montezemolo, adding that "the exclusivity of Ferrari is fundamental for the value of our products."

"We made the decision to make fewer cars because otherwise, we risk injecting too many cars on the market," he explained.

In 2012, Ferrari sold 7,318 cars worldwide, as sales grew in China, the US and Middle East. But with a crackdown on corruption and gift giving in China, sales of luxury goods there have slowed.

Although Ferrari production may be slowing, its parent company, Fiat, is planning to use Ferrari engines in a new range of Maserati models aimed at consumers in emerging markets.

Analysts anticipate that these premium cars will be given an extra boost with the tie to Ferrari, a form of brand extension.

Montezemolo also indicated that Ferrari could help out Alfa Romeo, another Fiat brand. "There are surely collaborations in sight," he said.

On one issue, however, he was adamant: "We will never manufacture an electric car as long as I'm chairman."

Data sourced from Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, Yahoo!; additional content by Warc staff, 10 May 2013

Time spent online increases

NEW YORK: US consumers are spending more and more time online at the expense of traditional media, with social networks and online video the fastest growing usage areas, according to new research.

Data from GfK and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, reported by eMarketer, indicate that the average daily time spent online rose from just under three hours in 2011 to three hours and seven minutes in 2012.

Consumers spent an extra seven minutes on social networks, a total of 37 minutes daily. Online video saw a similar increase, from 17 minutes to 24 minutes, thanks to the growing amount of television and film content available to viewers.

Email continued to occupy a substantial part of consumers' time, rising five minutes to a total of 33 minutes. Other areas seeing significant usage included search, on 22 minutes, and online games, on 17 minutes. 

News and comment all recorded times of less than ten minutes, with blogs most prominent (seven minutes), followed by online radio (six minutes), online newspapers (six minutes) and online magazines (three minutes).

Among the traditional media, video games was the only one to show an increase in daily usage, rising nine minutes to a total of 48 minutes.

Television remained the most-used channel, but saw a decline of one minute to five hours and five minutes. Meanwhile, radio was down ten minutes to one hour and 50 minutes.

Newspapers lost one minute, falling to 18 minutes, while magazines remained steady on 14 minutes.

But these figures do not reveal the way in which some media interact with each other. When the IAB asked how people found out about TV shows that could be watched online, 26% cited social media sites.

Data sourced from eMarketer; additional content by Warc staff , 9 May 2013

Chinese digital adspend booms

BEIJING: Digital adspend in China will grow by more than one third in 2013, with an average of RMB 23m being allocated to this channel, and will account for almost a quarter of the nation's total marketing spend, new research has indicated.

The China Digital Media Survey, from consultancies R3 and AdMaster, forecast that digital spend will rise 38%, significantly faster than the 27% seen in 2012, with the expansion being funded through larger budgets as well as the redirection of money from other channels.

"Digital is not 'new media' any more. It's firmly mainstream," Fora Liu, a senior consultant at R3, told Campaign Asia-Pacific. "Ramping up digital expertise, both external and in-house, is now a big priority for marketing teams."

Liu added: "We're seeing the demand for digital grow faster than some marketers can keep up."

Online video is forecast to account for 36% of the annual increase in spending, followed by industry verticals, on 20%, and micro-blogs, on 16%.

Search and portal will each take 12% of the increase, with social networks the remaining 4%.

Mobile is not expected to see any increase in spending, and just 24% of respondents regarded investment here as being a 'very important' part of their marketing mix.

That said, more than 40% of marketers planned major investments in the fast-growing mobile app WeChat.

The investment in video is to be expected since 84% of marketers surveyed said they were happy with the digital communication outcomes for their online video and search activities.

But just 8% said they were pleased with the ROI from social media actions, indicating that there is work to be done in this area.

Another factor that concerned marketers was effective measurement, with half expressing worries about inflated site traffic figures. Vincent Yan, chief executive of AdMaster, said that discrepancies between data from websites and from independent tracking companies could be anywhere from 2% to 30%.

Data sourced from Campaign Asia-Pacific; additional content by Warc staff , 9 May 2013

UK adspend hits pre-recession levels

LONDON: UK advertising expenditure reached its highest point for five years in 2012, according to new figures from the Advertising Association and Warc.

The latest AA/Warc Expenditure Report revealed that adspend rose 2.3% in 2012, when it totalled £17.17bn. The last time such a figure was recorded was in the pre-recession year of 2007, when adspend reached £17.36bn.

Growth is predicted to accelerate over the next two years, with increases of 2.7% and 5% forecast for 2013 and 2014 respectively.

A change in the report's methodology means that, for the first time, the impact of digital adspend for newspapers, magazines and TV was tracked separately. This reflects the move away from print-only publications to multi-platform properties and the rise of video on demand (VOD).

In the case of the latter, strong growth is predicted to continue, albeit from a low base. Broadcaster VOD adspend grew 73.3% in 2012, with rises of 44.2% and 33.3% expected in the two subsequent years. Overall, TV expenditure grew only 0.4% in 2012 but this is forecast to pick up by 3.8% in 2013 and 6.9% in 2014. 

National newsbrands, previously classified as newspapers, saw a 6% decline in 2012, with zero growth predicted for 2013. But this will pick up in 2014, with 2.7% growth, driven partly by a 20.3% increase in digital newsbrand adspend.

A similar pattern is expected for magazine brands, previously magazines, with a 1.7% decline in 2013 partly cancelled out by growth of 1.1% in 2014.

The change in methodology was welcomed by Tim Elkington, Director of Research and Strategy at IAB UK, the digital trade body, as bringing greater clarity to where advertising budgets are being invested.

"The increase in granularity shows just how vital digital is to the wider market," he said. "Digital is making a really positive contribution to the advertising economy - whether you consider the internet advertising total or the contribution that it makes to individual media." 

Suzy Young, Warc's Data and Journals Director, added: "We believe this unique approach is a truer representation of today's changing media landscape and provides a view of adspend that is relevant to agencies, advertisers and media owners."


Data sourced from AA, Warc , 9 May 2013

VOD highly rated by consumers

SHERMAN OAKS: Video on demand is rated more highly by US consumers than rival offerings such as DVRs, HD channels and premium channels, new research has revealed.

Vubiquity, a provider of multiplatform video services, sampled 1,700 US consumers with access to VOD services in the fourth quarter of 2012 and found that respondents ranked VOD at the top of the available subscriptions and services in terms of value.

Some 62% put VOD as the number one choice, followed by DVRs, cited by 60%, HD channels, mentioned by 55%, and premium channels, referred to by 47%.

Fully 65% of users agreed with the statement "Everything I might ever want to watch is easily available" on demand, a sharp rise from the 12% who agreed in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Vubiquity attributed this increase to the greater availability of free on demand (FOD) TV content. "In 2012, we managed over 85,000 total hours of FOD content, 86% more than 2 years before, and the increase in HD was 285%," said Laurie Lawrence, CMO of Vubiquity, adding that "the amount of content continues to grow".

The survey also discovered that VOD was fuelling binge viewing. More than three quarters (76%) of respondents admitted to watching three or more episodes of a TV show consecutively in one sitting.

In addition, almost 40% said they did this more often now compared with 12 months earlier.

With consumers increasingly able to access this content via connected devices, there has also been a move to viewing on alternate screens. This was particularly notable in the case of children's animated content, where 35% of respondents accessed On Demand content this way.

Vubiquity concluded that the volume of content, coupled with its speedy availability, would help the market to monetize digital video content.

Data sourced from Vubiquity; additional content by Warc staff , 9 May 2013

Digital marketing lags in India

MUMBAI: Indian consumers are adopting digital technology faster than marketers are embracing the medium, with effective measurement metrics a potential stumbling block, a leading industry executive has said.

Nick Seckold, head of digital (Asia-Pacific) at Mindshare, told the Business Standard, that in common with many other Asian countries, Indian consumers were rapidly adopting technology but marketing investment had not seen the same growth.

"I would like to see more advertisers learning from other regions or markets that are probably a bit ahead, and figuring ways in which they can say 'yes' more often than saying 'no'," he said.

He conceded there was a challenge in reaching the non-smartphone users who form the greater part of the population but said work was "evolving" in this area.

He noted that advertisers tended to default to television, but suggested they should "think more about how they can extend that reach from the first stream onto the second and third."

Some advertisers were "starting to get it", he said, and they were looking especially at online video.

One of the problems he cited, however, was how to measure effectiveness. "It's much more difficult for digital channels to factor in traditional metrics just because the platforms and inventory levels are different," he observed, adding that he regretted the lack of a Nielsen-like audience panel.

He argued that the effectiveness of a digital campaign in support of a broader activation could not be assessed without studies about such things as research online and purchases offline, making it little different from TV in that respect.

"So, it annoys me slightly that often, advertisers use this as a convenient excuse for not investing," he added.

He also said digital agencies faced a challenge in demonstrating to advertisers the value of their work.

"We are not saying 'stop spending on television and put everything on digital'. We are merely saying 'address the balance of your channel investment strategy'," he concluded.

Data sourced from Business Standard; additional content by Warc staff , 9 May 2013

Gamers shun TV

LONDON: Marketers are looking for new ways to reach users of video games as viewing habits change and television is no longer regarded as an automatic marketing choice.

Jonathan Simpson-Bint, chief commercial officer of Twitch TV, an online video network that specialises in games, noted that video-on-demand and live video online had been growing very rapidly.

"Live internet video allows for interactivity between broadcaster and user, and among users," he told MCV, "so the dream of an 'interactive' and 'shared' TV experience is now finally happening, but it's happening on phones and computers and not the TV set. "

"This interactivity creates lots of engagement opportunities for advertisers, so it's natural that they'd start to gravitate there," he added.

Noting that TV was no longer an "omnipotent entertainment and information force", he remarked on how online availability had changed consumer expectations, especially among the younger age group.

"We've got generations of people growing up now for whom the web is primarily a 'now' experience," he said, as he described Facebook, Twitter and Reddit as "instant gratification machines".

Andrew Mallandaine, the UK sales director of Turner Media, observed that a lack of major hardware releases had also had an impact on expenditure, but cautioned that TV still had an important role to play in the advertising of video games.

"TV gives instant scale, the ability to regionally target, very defined launch dates, the ability to control the way the message is received and a defined target market," he said

"Anybody who wants control over the way their brand is being perceived is always taking a risk in the online space," he added.

Harvey Eagle, UK marketing director at Xbox, concurred. "TV advertising is still one of the most effective – but no longer the only – means to create awareness by reaching lots of people repeatedly over a short space of time," he said, citing the use of an international football match to air the worldwide premiere of the Halo 4 live-action trailer.

Among the youngest age group, however, TV remains as effective as it has ever been. Children tend to watch TV live and make little use of on-demand facilities, a fact recognised by games publishers such as King which uses TV ads to promote its popular Candy Crush game.

Data sourced from MCV; additional content by Warc staff , 9 May 2013

Mobile marketers target exact location

NEW YORK: Mobile marketers are turning away from geo-targeting of consumers, based on broad geographical areas such as zip codes, in favour of increasingly precise methods that narrow a consumer's position to a much smaller zone, according to new research.

A report from xAd, a mobile ad network, entitled Mobile-Location Insights Q1 2013, was based on its own network and campaign data spanning 200 brand campaigns from January through March. This found that the proportion of campaigns that used geo-targeting had fallen to 40% in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 64% a year earlier.

Conversely, the share of national brand campaigns using "geo-precise" techniques, such as geo-fencing or targeting based on location-specific consumer behaviours, had increased to 58% in the first quarter, up from 27% in the year-earlier period.

"The rapid adoption of geo-precise targeting techniques, which enable brands to target users based on their exact location, comes as no surprise," said Dipanshu Sharma, xAd's chief executive.

"National advertisers are becoming better acquainted with the power of precise mobile location and its ability to not only reach specific audiences based on their current or past location behaviours, but its unique ability to reach users at the specific moment they are most likely to view and engage with an ad message," she added.

The report cited the example of Pinkberry, a frozen yogurt chain, which successfully used geo-precise mobile targeting to serve relevant ads to mobile users within a one-mile radius of its stores and so generate awareness of promotional offers and drive traffic in-store to try a new Greek yogurt.

Within the first two weeks, the yogurt chain said the effort had doubled the benchmarks it set for the campaign.

The sectors that most utilised mobile-location based advertising were financial services, telecoms and restaurants, while Houston, Chicago and Los Angeles were the most targeted cities

Data sourced from MarketWatch; additional content by Warc staff , 8 May 2013

Online video doubles in India

MUMBAI: Online video consumption in lndia has doubled over the past two years, with the number of viewers increasing rapidly at the same time as they watch more videos, a new study has revealed.

The latest Video Metrix report from comScore, the digital measurement company, showed that between March 2011 and March 2013, the number of videos watched increased 99% to a total of 3.7bn per month.

The number of unique viewers was up 69% to 54m and these were, on average, watching 18% more videos, 69 each per month, and spending 28% more time watching them, 431 minutes per month.

"The rapid online video growth we're witnessing in India represents a significant opportunity for both marketers and media companies in India," said Kedar Gavane, Senior Director, comScore India.

"As the Indian online video market begins to realize the value of its existing inventory while continuing its growth in viewers and consumption time, there will be a substantial upside for the key players in this market," he added.

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, was out in front as the top online video properties with 31.5m unique viewers in March 2013.

Its nearest rival was Facebook with 18.6 million unique viewers, and that in turn was far ahead of the third placed Yahoo! Sites on 8.2m.

The video ad platforms VDOPIA (6.4m viewers) and TubeMogul (5.5m viewers) completed the top five, with comScore noting that these platforms can deliver reach similar to that of the top video content networks.

In terms of total video views, Google Sites recorded a total of nearly 2.1bn, which represented more than half the total online video market in India.

Facebook was a distant second with 150m views, followed by Dailymotion.com on 83m.

Dailymotion also came in second place to Google Sites in terms of viewing times, at nearly one hour per viewer during the month. Time spent viewing on Google Sites was more than four times as much, at 258 minutes.

Another aspect of the increased time spent on video consumption is that advertisers are moving beyond traditional 30-second TV ads when developing online content.

Some, such as Shoppers Stop, the country's largest fashion retail brand, claim to be getting better returns than TV and at a fraction of the cost using internet and video advertising through the brand's YouTube Channel.

Data sourced from Asia Media Journal; additional content by Warc staff , 8 May 2013

FMCG companies tap Middle East growth

DUBAI: Unilever, Nestlé and Coca-Cola are among the international FMCG companies targeting the Middle East and North Africa, increasing production there as the territory benefits from rising incomes and a growing population.

"As the region becomes bigger it makes more sense to have production near the market," Abhik Gupta, Nielsen director for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan, told The National.

"We see a lot of these companies investing in Egypt and in the Gulf Co-operation Council, and as these economies grow they are likely to consider opening output here," he added.

Arijit Ghose, Unilever Gulf's managing director, confirmed the trend. "At the moment we get 35% of our products from outside the region," he said, "but as we grow and get critical mass more of those products will come onshore."

He also pointed to the tax advantages from such a move, as the Greater Arab Free Trade Area allowed for lower tariffs on the flow of goods in the region.

Nor was he deterred by the region's recent history of political unrest. "The Arab Spring is a social phenomenon, which is not the first social phenomenon we've encountered in the region," he noted, adding that the company continued to do well in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia.

"In Egypt 100% of our business is growing market share," he said. And he suggested that as the economic situation of the 50% at the bottom of the pyramid improved "Egypt has the potential to become the most important market for Unilever".

Nestlé echoed this confidence, with Lynn Alkhatib, a media relations manager, declaring: "Nestlé Middle East is an important growth engine of our company globally."

The firm is also planning a major investment in Dubai. "Producing locally allows us to bring products faster and therefore fresher to consumers," said Alkhatib. "This is a clear advantage we have already experienced with our many manufacturing plants in the Middle East."

Nielsen's Gupta also addressed the region's stability and compared it favourably with Africa. "Mena has better infrastructure and by and large is more stable than Africa," he said.

Data sourced from The National; additional content by Warc staff , 8 May 2013

Brands note changing Japanese values

TOKYO: Brands operating in Japan are having to recognise how consumer values and behaviour have changed in the wake of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, with greater openness and increased use of smartphones and social media evident.

Masashi Kawamura, founder of the Party agency, noted how the outlook of the marketing community had changed. "Brands are trying to tap into a form of social goodness," he told Campaign Asia-Pacific.

The sentiments were echoed by Phil Rubel of Saatchi & Saatchi Fallon, who observed that "astute brands are trying to become more integral, more of a facilitator in people's lives".

As an example of this, he cited the practice of running shoe companies providing shower and changing room facilities at a popular running location. "That's a much better way to integrate themselves into people's lives than simply showcasing footwear at a one-off event," he suggested.

In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, people turned to Twitter and Facebook in the search for information which they were unable to get from television or by phone, and this trend has subsequently continued.

Japanese reticence about making personal information available in the public sphere had held back sites like Facebook, but since the earthquake the number of accounts has risen sixfold, while Line, an instant messaging application, has gained 100m users in 18 months and in April 2013 was one of the top five revenue-generating apps globally in Google Play.

"The beauty of social media is that it's proactive, as opposed to websites, which are becoming more like catalogues or brand communication tools, said Kaz Maezawa, founder of the Naked Communications agency.

In reference to a recent campaign he was involved with he explained that consumers had been encouraged to post information about themselves.

"What brands are trying to do is engage," he explained, while warning against becoming too pushy. "They [brands] have to balance between what they want to say and listening to the customers."

An increasing amount of this engagement is taking place via smartphones, use of which has risen sharply.

"Up until the disaster the phone wasn't used for web browsing, it was used to make payments or watch TV," said Antony Cundy, business and strategy director at Beacon Leo Burnett in Tokyo.

"The smartphone penetration through 2012 has been astonishing," he added. "Now you can't have a campaign without a mobile element to it in Japan."

Data sourced from Campaign Asia-Pacific; additional content by Warc staff , 8 May 2013

US malls look to rebrand

NEW YORK: Innovative US shopping malls are turning to mixed-use facilities and social media to tackle the threat of closure as their traditional tenants shut stores and e-commerce gains share.

David Ginsburg, chief executive of Downtown Cincinnati Inc., a business development non-profit, told Ad Week that in the past shopping malls had been set up for developers rather than retailers.

"We need to learn the lesson from the empty malls and make our new shopping centers adaptable for what residents will need in the future," he said, adding that bricks-and-mortar stores would probably become a small part of community mixed-use malls.

Doctors' offices, clinics, churches, indoor sports fields, grassy parks and schools are being explored as alternatives to fill up empty retail space and attract shoppers.

The 25-year-old Cincinnati Mall is currently three-quarters empty, but has been rebranded as the Forest Fair Village. "We are transforming into an indoor family activity and shopping center," said general manager Karla Ellsworth. "It will be a place where parents can browse for clothes or shoes while their children are taking hockey or gymnastics classes."

Raj Kumar, partner in the retail practice of consultancy A.T. Kearney was critical of the traditional mall, saying: "We know cookie-cutter, middle-of-the road shopping environments don't cut it anymore."

He argued that a reinvented mall needed its own brand identity, which could involve activities like ice skating and bowling alongside retail stores carrying unique private label products.

But these stores would have to change the way they operated. "Customers need to feel at home in the retail space," said Kumar, and that meant taking steps to "customize the buying experience to make you feel special".

His words echoed a recent report from the National Retail Federation, which advised that retailers should recast stores as places for discovery and interaction with products.

"No one is ready to abandon the mall concept entirely," said Peter Breen, managing director at the Path to Purchase Institute, but he also noted that major chains had done little to help the situation.

"The emphasis for most of these dinosaurs has been on opening digital channels," he observed, "with the logic that if you can't coax the shoppers out to the mall anymore, then go find them at home."

Data sourced from Ad Week; additional content by Warc staff , 8 May 2013

Android apps favour utility

UTRECHT: The leading apps downloaded from the Apple App Store tend to be games while those downloaded from Google Play are more likely to be related to social networking or utilities, a new analysis has shown.

Distimo, the apps analytics business, compiles data to create monthly leaderboards of the most downloaded free, paid and top grossing global apps.

In April 2013, four of the top five free download apps in the Apple App Store were games, with Candy Crush Saga from King.com topping the list. Google's YouTube was the only non-game.

In contrast, Google Play's top five contained only communication/social networking apps, with Facebook in the number one spot.

A similar picture emerged for paid apps, with the Apple App Store having only one non-game in its top five, WhatsApp Messenger. Paid-utility apps dominated the Google play leaderboard, with just one game, Minecraft from Mojang, featuring.

In terms of revenue generating applications, however, games led the way in both stores.

But there was a significant difference in the origin of those games. Four of the top five in Google Play were based in Asia, with most revenue coming from these countries rather than the US.

The one non-game app was LINE: Free Calls & Messages, a fast-growing Japanese instant messaging service set up in June 2011.

Supercell remained one of the most successful developers in the Apple App Store, with both its offerings, Clash of Clans and Hay Day, featuring in the top five. This list was dominated by free apps with in-apps, as all the leaders used the freemium business model.

Data sourced from Distimo; additional content by Warc staff , 8 May 2013

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