At Facebook we get things wrong – but we take our safety role seriously

Monika Bickert, Head of Public Policy Management at Facebook

Last month, people shared several horrific videos on Facebook of Syrian children in the aftermath of a chemical weapons attack. The videos, which also appeared elsewhere on the internet, showed the children shaking, struggling to breathe and eventually dying.

 

The images were deeply shocking – so much so that we placed a warning screen in front of them and made sure they were only visible to adults. But the images also prompted international outrage and renewed attention on the plight of Syrians.

A ton of innovation from the sell side – but who’s innovating on behalf of the buyer?

  Written by Jason Cooper, General Manager, Mobile at Integral Ad Science

Today we find ourselves in a market centered around the seller, rather than the buyer. Innovation is mainly being led from the sell side, be that from the walled gardens, the mobile SSPs or the DSPs. There are a limited number of options available for the agency and brand, outside of the ad servers and verification companies.

How retailers can use mobile data to help drive shopping behaviour

Warren Mills , Client Partner: Entertainment, Media, Retail & Technology at Telefonica

As an industry, we’re increasingly understanding the critical role mobile plays at at each stage of the consumer journey. While these journeys will undoubtedly change and fragment, the role of mobile is here to stay as mobile data plays an ever-important role in how we identify, target and measure retail behaviours.

Historically, we’ve always treated the retail journey as a linear process, with the key aim to move the customer through the funnel: building awareness, driving consideration and intent and, ultimately, encouraging purchase. The importance of loyalty and advocacy were only considered once the customer had been acquired, rather than considered as an integral part of an evolving process.

Becoming A Mobile-First Agency

Tom Farrell, Senior Marketing Director at Swrve

At Swrve we spend a decent amount of time in the company of agencies. I don’ think that’s a surprise – certainly when it comes to some of the more creative mobile campaigns a large number of organizations trust their partners in agency land to work with them on smart, cutting-edge mobile marketing campaigns.

What’s stopping mobile being as creative as it could, and should be?

Rhoanna Glenn, Media Practice Lead, Nimbletank

We’re now well in to 2014 and are starting to see whether this year’s predictions for innovation in mobile are coming true. More advertising budgets are indeed moving from traditional channels to mobile, as the industry starts to understand the epic power of mobile advertising. But why, when there is such potential for mobile advertising to be creative, can’t we find many examples of mobile at its best? We can think of four main barriers standing in the way:

1) Mobile is still an afterthought in many cases and brands often end up running standard media, rather than utilising rich media due to time constraints. We need to ensure than mobile becomes a starting point for every campaign. After all, mobile phones are central to peoples’ lives, and should therefore be a central piece to any campaign or media plan, not an afterthought. There’s no doubting that the more thought-out a mobile strategy is the more creative it can be.

2) The majority of brands are still relying on their media agency to develop, create and execute their mobile strategy, rather than a mobile agency. More often than not, they haven’t got the time or knowledge to produce an effective mobile campaign with outstanding strategy and creativity. Working in partnership with a full service mobile agency can ensure that mobile gets the full attention it needs.

3) Although this is slowly changing, publishers are not always willing to accept certain types of creative. Take interstitial ads, which lend themselves perfectly to creative content, but are not yet fully scalable.

4) Tracking and analytics can also become barriers when it comes to a brand’s faith in mobile and their ability to push agencies to be more creative. Brands who are unwilling or slow to include full tracking within their campaigns are missing out on crucial insights. Learning through iterative testing is proven to be worthwhile and enables us to discover so much more about the effectiveness of rich media units, compared to standard. Without the required analysis mobile will struggle to be recognised as truly effective.