Taco Bell UK has announced its plans to offer the UK the chance to taste an emoji by exchanging taco emojis for free Crunchy Tacos to celebrate National Taco Day 2021. Available all day today on National Taco Day (Monday 4th October), taco fans will be able to claim a free Crunchy Taco simply by WhatsApping the taco emoji from their phone to http://ta.co/UK. Each texter can then head to one of the 71 Taco Bell UK restaurants nationwide and exchange their taco emoji text for a real-life taco. To drive taco-lovers to Taco Bell, media agency Spark Foundry has activated paid media, digital OOH and social, directly tapping into the key demographic of 16–34-year-olds. Spark Foundry handled media planning and buying. OK COOL were involved in the Organic Social and responsible for the partnership with Chunkz. The PR agency involved in this campaign is Stir.
London-based conversational media platform Octaive has raised £500k in an angel investment round. Backed by high profile industry leaders, the funding round is the first external investment by the two year old creative technology startup, which has seen revenues more than double in the past year, making it already profitable. Octaive’s ‘conversational media’ technology generates ‘active attention’ through conversations between consumers and brands within standard display and video inventory. This means users are highly engaged in two-way conversations without having to click through to the brand’s site, whilst providing agencies and brands with vital consumer data and insights.
The Kite Factory has been appointed as the primary media planning and buying agency for Blue Cross, recently winning the account. Blue Cross will be celebrating its 125 anniversary in 2022 and The Kite Factory will be working as partners across key campaigns covering everything from fundraising to driving greater awareness of the organisation.
Diabetes UK has launched its new brand campaign, This Is Diabetes, across the UK. Living with diabetes is complicated and different for everyone. This bold new campaign shows the world what it’s really like, through the stories of people who live with diabetes day in, day out. Through the campaign, Diabetes UK hopes that individuals will see some of their own experiences and know they’re not alone. The film was created by Robbie Greatrex and Nick Moffat at Creative agency Mere Mortals, and directed by Chris Fowles through Hoi Polloi, in collaboration with Diabetes UK’s inhouse Marketing & Communications team. Having successfully won a competitive media pitch process, data marketing partner, Medialab, has devised a media strategy that embeds relatable diabetes moments in daily media. The campaign will run across TV, Broadcaster Video on Demand, Radio, Paid Social, and Digital Display.
Trainline has been integrated into Google Maps in the UK, providing Android users with the option to click through to Trainline’s website or app to buy tickets for their journey, as part of a more seamless user experience. Trainline has also recently made Google Pay available to all customers and made it possible for those in the UK to save a ticket into Google Pay, providing more flexibility and choice for Android users.
Unity has unveiled Unity Metacast, an innovative new platform that will lead the real-time 3D (RT3D) evolution for professional sports. Metacast is an RT3D sports platform for creating and delivering interactive content, direct to the consumer. UFC, a mixed martial arts organization, and one of the most popular sports brands in the world, will collaborate on research and development of potential applications for Unity Metacast within UFC content. Unity Metacast uses volumetric technology, which encompasses the process of capturing, viewing, and interacting with the real-world, from moving people to static objects, in 3D. This content can then be viewed from any angle, in real-time, giving audiences the ability to see every bead of sweat, blow, takedown and submission, as if they were going toe-to-toe on the famous Octagon canvas themselves.
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd has revealed a bold new brand campaign for its Samsung for Business division, the first since 2017. ‘Work Wonders’ celebrates the multitude of ways that businesses of all shapes and sizes in the UK can achieve remarkable things with the power of technology at the heart – highlighting how the business world is no longer grey and black, but full of vibrancy. Driven by Starcom as the media agency behind the work, the partnership is made up of a compelling three-part video series that highlights three brilliant UK businesses, focusing on the human element of business technology. This element of the campaign will air on Independent TV – the Independent’s new TV arm – in its first-ever brand partnership on 6th October. Work Wonders kicked off earlier this week, with the OOH campaign going live on Old Street roundabout and a series of fun teasers launching on Independent TV to build up to the first full episode of the media partnership. Over the coming days, Samsung will also be launching online videos across YouTube, which will be supported by advertorials about the products themselves, weaving in featured businesses, and paid media activations in Teads, social media targeting, and in print in ES Magazine.
Rawnet has announced that it has expanded its service offering and team expertise, following its acquisition by Castelnau Group, a Phoenix Asset Management Partners Ltd company, which is a newly formed group with an investment strategy around digital growth. Since the completion of the acquisition in February 2021, Rawnet has been able to increase its headcount by 20% in 2021, strengthening its skill-set in its strategic and marketing teams. This growth means the agency can now focus on delivering digital consultancy to allow businesses to rediscover new revenues. With new additions to the team, Rawnet has been able to add resources to accommodate larger projects, making a real difference to the company’s client portfolio over the past year.
Seedtag has announced the launch of Seedtag LAB, a program specifically designed to help brands find their target customers in a world without cookies through contextual AI (artificial intelligence). Designed in response to an increasing shift in targeting audiences within the advertising industry, Seedtag LAB provides value by enabling marketers to precisely understand their true audience, whilst respecting consumer privacy. Through Seedtag LAB, ads will be relevant for customers and will resonate with their real-time interests. In order to achieve this, Seedtag relies on its Contextual AI LIZ© to create “The Content Universe”: a multidimensional representation of digital media consumption, containing the information of each and every article being read.
