Author: lpadmusr

Just hear us out on this one.

What might seem at first to be a random reason for a live streaming event (starting today, lasting the full week), has actually been turned into a rather fantastic marketing niche. Waitrose, with their brand of earnest simplicity and premium rural luxury, are proving how all their cows are given normal, everyday grazing opportunities, how all of their bees are real, free-flying bees, how their crops are grown and livestock flourish. The tranquil idyllic environment is allowed to speak for itself – Waitrose are innovating in a fun and accessible way. (Though, after a half hour watching bees slowly crawl out of a hive, it does get a bit dull)

You can watch the live stream here:

On Thursday 14^th April the IAB released their biannual UK Ad Spend study revealing spend figures for 2015. Last year was an exciting year for digital, seeing a 16.4% increase in overall spend, notably also the highest growth rate since 2008. Overall digital adspend now totals £8.6bn – a consistently growing figure.

This growth has been bolstered by the gains in mobile adspend, which soared by 60.3% over the course of the year to hit £2.65bn– now accounting for 30.5% of all UK digital advertising. Mobile has secured itself as a dominant player in the digital advertising space, and going forward marketers will undoubtedly factor it as an even more significant part of their campaigns and strategies.

Even within mobile, video and display has progressed massively. Over the course of the year, adspend on mobile video rose from £179m to £353m – a 98% increase. 55% of all standard display adspend is now on rich media formats – a growth of 11% since 2014. Marketers are moving towards more sophisticated and exciting ad formats capable of being delivered to devices.

All of this comes during an exciting time for mobile. Smartphones are now the most popular internet device (with an average of 2.1 per household) and a 21 percent increase in smartphone ownership since 2014.

For the first time, programmatic spend was factored into a separate category within the report. What is clear is just how significant programmatic spend is for both mobile and the digital space. By 2019, the IAB expect for programmatic to account for 80-90% of all UK display adspend, and potentially even higher for mobile video. At the moment this figure the total spend is £0.35bn around 71%, with 47% on direct and 24% on indirect.

The stats were an exciting continuation of the existing trend, with Tim Elkington, CSO at the IAB, noting ‘The increasing array of devices people use to go online has helped digital ad spend hit another gear as advertisers look to reach them and time spent online increases. Smartphones are the major driving force behind this, as people increasingly use them for activities they used to do on desktop, from searching and shopping to social and watching video.’

You can read the full adspend report on the IAB website here.

LoopMe are happy to announce we’ve been nominated 5 times at The Drum’s MoMAs (Marketing on Mobile Awards) – a celebratin of campaigns, brands and agencies at the forefront of the mobile industry.

The award nominations were:

• Interactive Entertainment, Mobile Strategy / Campaign – Paddington with Target Media
• Travel/Leisure/Sports Mobile Strategy / Campaign – Celebrity Cruises with Goodstuff
• Best Use of Video / Rich Media – The Forest with Icon
• Best Use of Video / Rich Media – Legend with Target Media
• Best Use of Video / Rich Media – Paranormal Activity 5 with MEC

Great results for our sales, AdOps and all the agencies involved, and we look forward to celebrating these fantastic results!

Roll on the awards evening on the 18th May!