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NHS named as the UK’s most relevant brand

Prophet’s Brand Relevance Index – which is based on a survey of 12,200 UK consumers – has named the NHS as the UK’s number one brand for relevance.

Streaming giants Spotify and Netflix took second and third place respectively, with Lush and Samsung entering the top 10 for the first time, replacing Amazon and Android.

Interestingly, in comparison to the 2018 Index, British brands appear to have bounced back, occupying more than a quarter of the UK’s Top 50 this year. Overall, Prophet found that the most relevant brands share the four characteristics of being customer obsessed, ruthlessly pragmatic, distinctively inspired, and pervasively innovative.

relevant brands

Half of marketers want complete control over influencers’ marketing posts

A new report by Takumi has revealed that half of marketers say they want complete control over posts by influencers. The report, based on a study of over 4,000 consumers, marketers and influencers across the UK, US, and Germany, states that 45% of marketers feel they should have complete control over the written captions and visual elements of an influencer’s post, viewing it as the same as an advertisement they have paid for another channel, such as TV or radio. 

Elsewhere, the report reveals that 37% of consumers trust influencers to clearly signpost paid partnerships. Shockingly, 62% of influencers say they have been pressured by brands to contravene guidelines at least once.

Eighty-eight percent of marketers and 87% of influencers in the UK and US agree that their markets’ regulatory guidelines are clear, but in Germany, this falls to just 52% of marketers and 11% of influencers being confident about ad disclosure guidelines. Overall, there is a strong feeling that these guidelines need further development, with 46% of marketers in all three markets agreeing with this.

influencer stat

Instagram now matches Facebook for audience size

The top 50 brands on Instagram now have the same audience size as the top 50 brands on Facebook, according to Socialbakers’ Key Social Media Trends for Q2 2019 Report.  However, despite audience sizes being identical, the majority of user engagement now happens on Instagram.

The report also states that over the past year, Instagram’s interactions have remained steady. Meanwhile, median interactions for Facebook posts are 3.3% behind where they were in June 2018.

Finally, Socialbakers has revealed that more than 60% of all ad spend is still allocated to the Facebook News Feed – despite marketers increasing their overall spend on Instagram. More than half of all ad spend is still allocated to this channel, with only 20% on Instagram Feed and 10% across Stories, Suggested Video, and In-stream Video placements.

Interactivity makes DOOH eight times more impactful than static displays

Digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaigns which use enhanced technology are eight times more impactful than creative content carried by static displays. This is according to a recent study by Neuro-Insight for Ocean Outdoor, which involved the analysis of brain responses to four different forms of interactive content, each one with advanced functionality including wi-fi, live streaming, augmented reality and social media interaction.

The results show that while both static and full motion content delivered high levels of positive emotional response, full motion content delivered even higher emotional and memory intensity peaks when it was combined with interactive technology. For example, the use of wi-fi within a campaign elicited a 52% higher impact of memory encoding. Meanwhile, the use of augmented reality using image detection equated to a four times stronger impact of memory encoding.

Overall, the net impact of these measures in combination equated to an eight times stronger impact for full motion DOOH with technology, compared to static content.

The rise of programmatic outdoor: What advertisers need to know

The New York Times’ podcast, The Daily, hits 1 billion downloads

The news podcast, the Daily, hosted by the New York Times political journalist, Michael Barbaro, hit one billion downloads last week. This milestone comes two and a half years after the podcast was first launched.

The podcast has also been credited with contributing to a 13.7% rise in digital advertising revenue for the New York Times in Q2. The Times has stated that The Daily generates more than two million downloads per day, and is approaching 10 million monthly unique downloads.

Recommendations based on previous purchases or searches is the most popular form of personalisation

A new study by Dept has uncovered how UK consumers feel about personalisation techniques within retail ecommerce. In a survey of 1,000 consumers, most people responded positively to time-saving and functional techniques. However, the survey also found an underlying sense of indifference towards personalisation, potentially because it’s still evolving and opinions are heavily demographic-dependent.

Overall, younger consumers are more positive than older generations, with the latter older being more conservative, especially when it comes to transactions.

Dept’s study also found that location-based, interest-based and past purchase-based recommendations and offers are the most popular, as consumers like to be helped in finding what they want. As such, guidance throughout the decision-making process is appreciated. Recommendations based on previous purchases and searches is the most commonly seen form of personalisation, cited by 58% of respondents.

In terms of what consumers dislike, desperate, pushy, overtly sales-driven personalisation plans should be avoided, as should any personalisation that can be interpreted as ‘intrusive’, and features that interrupt the consumer journey.

dept survey