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In the same week we’ve written about why brands should get serious about Snapchat’s ad offerings, influencers from its community - including marketers and brands - have announced they'll be speaking at the world’s first ever Snapchat event in London this September.

While not directly affiliated with Snapchat itself, influencers and large brands are already...

Rebranding a company is no mean feat for a marketer, particularly one that’s been around for over a decade.

But for Nihal Pekbeken, whose previous roles include VP of marketing for Ticketmaster and positions at NBC Television, the whole process was a satisfying challenge.

Pekbeken joined online platform Rated People as chief marketing officer around eight months ago, a site that connects tradespeople with those looking to do home improvements.

In the last year,

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Google has once again stolen a lead as the top brand in the 2016 BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking, pushing Apple back into second place.

The analysis, by WPP and Millward Brown, shows that Google has achieved a brand value of $229.2bn – up by nearly a third (32%) on last year. Apple meanwhile fell 8% from its 2015 brand value to $228.2bn.

Google’s success is said to be largely thanks to a focus on continual innovation, increased advertising sales and the...

Today, data is how we do business. In the space of just over a decade, data has gone from obscure entity, to secret weapon, to a must-have for any brand wanting to weather turbulent economic times and grow.

It has revolutionised consumer insight and, as a result, we have seen brands get up close and personal with their customers as they come to understand exactly who they are and what makes them tick.

The way we use data has also evolved. Brands no longer just use the information they capture about their...

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The impact of the internet on productivity and growth in the Chinese marketplace has been nothing short of transformational and the revenue potential that this emerging eCommerce market offers makes China a very tempting digital business proposition. 

According to a report from the McKinsey Global Institute, the projections are that new internet apps could fuel seven to 22% of China’s incremental GDP...

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It feels like not a day goes by without a new VR story — and yes, this is another one. But, despite Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance at a Samsung press conference and the noise around some great PR stunts, no one should be under any...

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B2B businesses need to do more to drive up their revenue share from digital, according to a new report from Accenture Interactive. 

The report, which surveyed organisations of more than 1,000 full-time employees to analyse their digital efforts and effectiveness, showed that 40% of B2B businesses earn less than 10% of their sales from digital, a number which is much lower for businesses serving the B2C market. Yet for the same amount more than half of revenue flows through digital...

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Media intelligence agency Meltwater has launched a new Influencer Contacts Database, featuring more than 350,000 international media contacts across 23 countries, 28,000 of whom are based in the UK and Ireland.

The database allows users to search by publication, journalist, channel, job role or keywords and comes as figures from the Office of National Statistics show that the number of PR professionals has risen by nearly 50% in the last two years.

The increase comes as the number of...

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KLM and Ryanair come out top on social media when it comes to engagement rankings for airlines serving the UK, according to a new report. Meanwhile Emirates is one of the most powerful for offline word of mouth conversations.

The rankings, by technology and data company Engagement Labs, showed that KLM topped on both Facebook and Instagram, followed by Ryanair in second place. Meanwhile on Twitter Ryaniar topped, followed by British Airways in second place.

The rankings were...

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Italian restaurant chain Zizzi has embraced the concept of gamification for the second year running to deliver a new loyalty and promotional campaign that allowed customers to compete for food and holiday prizes and the chain to radically increase its marketing database. The campaign attracted 22,000 new customer names to the brand.

Zizzi ran an eight-week online board game promotion in association with 3radical Voco, which users could access through a mobile optimised website and on...