The huge success of Amazon’s Alexa device, and the growth of voice recognition software (VRS) in general, throws up a number of very interesting conundrums for the marcomms industry – and for search in particular. It’s now becoming clear that in the same way communication has moved from the desk/laptop to mobile devices like tablets, […]
Proper investigative journalism is, in these straitened times for newspaper publishers, sadly something of a rarity at the moment. There have been examples in recent times – The Guardian’s expose of phone-hacking, the Telegraph’s campaign on MPs’ expenses and Private Eye’s often fearless investigations into corruption and incompetence – but carefully-researched stories and campaigns that […]
An interesting mergers trend has been making itself felt in the marcomms industry over the past few weeks. Not mergers between agencies, though – but within them. Only last week Havas Media announced that it was merging its creative and media departments. So instead of having separate media and creative groups, it will organize itself […]
Over the past few weeks, I (and, I suspect, a lot of other people) have been thinking about news. Not just the news, but news. Ever since last year, with Brexit, Trump and events in Europe and elsewhere, news has been moving to the top of the news agenda. Ever since the inauguration of Donald […]
I’m talking about yesterday’s announcement that Arthur Sadoun is to succeed Maurice Lévy as chairman and chief executive of Publicis Groupe. While speculation as to who would succeed the charismatic and energetic Lévy has been going on for years, Sadoun has been the bookies’ favourite for the last couple of years, so his elevation to […]
The Drum reports UK ad industry greets Theresa May’s Brexit plan with bated breath. Prime minister Theresa May’s much-anticipated reveal of a “bold and ambitious” Brexit from the European Union’s (EU) single market has been met with reserved optimism by the country’s advertising industry. Her admission that Britain cannot remain part of the single market […]
Omnicom’s TBWA is poised to take a stake in independent agency Lucky Generals in a deal that could be announced as early as next week, The Drum has learned from multiple sources. It is understood that the founders – Danny Brooke-Taylor, Helen Calcraft and Andy Nairn would remain in the management team and take on […]
If there’s anyone in the media industry who is guaranteed to spring a surprise, it’s Rupert Murdoch. And he certainly did that when he announced (through his 21st Century Fox corporation) an audacious bid to fully take over the satellite TV giant Sky. Sky said on Friday that 21st Century Fox had reached a preliminary […]
At the start of this year, we flagged Karmarama as one of the last independent agencies of scale left in the UK. We also said that it was unlikely to sell up unless a really interesting offer came along. Well, as of yesterday (29 November) it is no longer independent as that offer arrived. In […]
There was an interesting piece of news last week. Global network Publicis merged two of its biggest digital agencies, Razorfish and SapientNitro, to create SapientRazorfish. We’ll come back to that in a moment. I found the story interesting – as well as timely – because I’d recently had a conversation with someone in the marcomms […]