The publication, which is owned by the Economist Newspaper Group, has approached agencies directly in a bid to appoint a retained agency to its DM business.

In recent years, The Economist has used an in-house marketing team to handle its DM and CRM campaigns.

However, before bringing the work in-house, the publication had held a long-term relationship with EHS 4D (then EHS Brann).

Last year, The Economist launched its first film campaign since 2001, a 70-second cinema ad.

The spot, by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, featured a man tightrope-walking on a series of red wires through various cities. It carried the strapline “Let your mind wander”, and aimed to portray the sheer amount of knowledge that can be gained by reading the publication.

AMV has been the incumbent on The Economist’s ad account for more than 25 years. Media planning and buying is handled by PHD.

Source: Brand Republic

News brought to you by Bearing Partnership, specialists in Digital Recruitment

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/989669/Economist-seeks-agency-DM-business/

MacMillan had been working at the original pocket-sized title since 1988.

The administrators for Reader’s Digest are in talks with potential buyers, understood to include the Budworth family, the owners of 125-year-old title The Lady.

The Lady’s owners refused to comment on reports that it was in the bidding, but did not deny the claims

Reader’s Digest UK arm had 117 staff prior to moving into administration.

Despite the uncertainties surrounding its future, the remaining team is working on its May issue and say that its April issue will be published in the second half of March.

Moore Stephens, the Reader’s Digest administrators, claim to have received approaches from 25 potential bidders.

The 70-year-old title went into administration in the UK on 17 February. Its US parent blamed the move on the UK pensions regulator turning down a rescue plan to resolve its pension liability.

Source: Media Week

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http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/989537/Readers-Digest-ad-director-Flora-MacMillan-leaves-22-years/

The new report by search marketing agency Greenlight, found that 8.4 million job-related searches were made online in December, a considerable decrease on 13.8 million in October.

The report, ‘Recruitment Sector Report – Issue 1’, the first of a quarterly series, classified 3,300 of the most popular keywords used by UK consumers to look for jobs online. It included generic, job and location specific terms, to determine the 60 most visible websites and brands for related searches in natural search* and the most prominent in paid search.

With 49 per cent share, job-specific terms were the most queried, accounting for over 4.1 million searches made in December.  ‘Sales jobs’, ‘IT jobs’ and ‘Engineering jobs’ were searched for 110,000 times each cummulatively accounting for 9 per cent of all job-specific terms in December.

TotalJobs was the most visible website in the job-specific search term category, achieving 35 per cent share of voice. It was followed by Reed and JobRapido with 26 per cent and 25 per cent visibility, respectively.

Generic keywords specifically made up 35 per cent of recruitment-related searches in December 2009.  The term ‘jobs’ was searched for 1.5 million times, accounting for 51 per cent of all generic job searches. Monster was the most visible website for this category, attaining 64 per cent of visibility. JobCentrePlus followed with 60 per cent then Reed with 52 per cent.

Location-specific keyword searches accounted for 16 per cent of all job-related searches. ‘London jobs’ accounted for 27 per cent of location-specific search terms. Bristol, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham each accounted for 5 per cent. Gumtree was by far the most visible website attaining 68 per cent visibility.

This it achieved through ranking at page one, position one of Google for 10 of the most searched for keywords analysed. Londonjobs and JustLondonJobs followed with 31 per cent and 21 per cent share of visibility, respectively.

In paid search and across all key term searches, TotalJobs, UKMysteryShopperJobs and Jobsite were the top three most visible recruitment advertisers, attaining 65 per cent, 39 per cent and 29 per cent visibility, respectively.

Of the top 10 advertisers, seven were recruitment agencies, two were multi-channel websites (Gumtree and The Guardian) and one was a government website (direct.gov.uk).

Greenlight determined which ad creatives featured most frequently across the top 90 job-related keywords in the Google paid search space. Share of voice is based on the number of times Google displayed the individual ad creative, also taking into account ad position, search term volume and Google’s ad rotation. In addition Greenlight analysed how many unique creatives were present for each advertiser in December.

UKMysteryShopperJobs featured the most visible individual ad creative in paid search, achieving 39 per cent share of voice. The ad creative was salary-specific incentivising the consumer, stating: ‘Earn up to £28/hr’.

 Top 5 of the 60 most visible recruitment websites in paid search, UK  

Source: Greenlight 

TotalJobs was the only brand to achieve strong integrated search visibility as it attained considerable share of voice in both natural and paid search.

Source: Netimperative

News brought to you by Bearing Partnership, specialists in Digital Recruitment

http://www.netimperative.com/news/2010/march/online-job-related-searches-2018down-5-million2019

Stndrd.org has been set up as an open-source approach to tackle issues such as the best way of establishing contracts between ad agencies and production companies and what to include when writing a request for proposal.

Andy Reid, partner at creative agency Clicktag, said, “A lot of charlatans are setting themselves up as digital production agencies, but the difference between those guys and us is huge.”

The digital ad production sector is going through a boom period in the UK, with new shops setting up and established agencies in Scandinavia and the Netherlands coming to London, including Media Monks, which opened in the UK in January.

While agencies are happy to collaborate to improve and promote the industry, moves so far have fallen short of establishing a formalised trade body for digital ad production.

Growth in the industry is coming from clients increasing marketing budgets and because the production agency model − used by agencies producing TV ads for years − works well, according to clients.

Source: New Media Age

News brought to you by Bearing Partnership, specialists in Digital Recruitment

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/uk-digital-ad-production-agencies-team-up-to-establish-good-practice/3011007.article

The agency is headed up by Ilana Fox, who left her role as Social Media Manager at ASOS at the end of February 2010, along with Holly Seddon and James Seddon.

Their combined experience includes The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Guardian, thelondonpaper, FreshNetworks, iVillage, and Adoption UK.

Spoke Digital has launched following high industry demand for training and consultancy packages in social media, community engagement and content. Training on offer is modular and bespoke, ranging from introductory courses to crisis management, analysis and ROI.

Ilana Fox, Partner at Spoke Digital, commented: “The industry is begging for quality, informative training in social media. We’re in a perfect position to utilise our combined expertise to spread these skills among a company’s existing staff who already know their business best.”

Holly Seddon, Partner at Spoke Digital, commented, “This is a great year to be launching Spoke Digital. This sector is maturing. People are starting to ask for proof of return on investment, for efficiency in processes and for best practice models. Digital media is growing up and organisations need guidance through this new age.”

James Seddon, Partner at Spoke Digital added: “Through social media, organisations are finding themselves recast as content producers. We want to help companies say the right things, the right way, while enticing new customers and engaging existing ones.”

Source: Netimperative

News brought to you by Bearing Partnership, specialists in Digital Recruitment

http://www.netimperative.com/news/2010/march/spoke-digital-launches-social-media-consultancy

In his new role, Matchett will have responsibility for the marketing of Sky’s film proposition, including Sky Movies and Sky Box Office.

He will manage relationships with relevant media and creative agencies, and all above and below-the-line activity.

Matchett will report to Naomi Gibney, director of marketing and communications at BSkyB, who joined earlier this year from the BBC, where she was marketing director for BBC Vision.

Matchett brings 10 years of broadcast marketing experience to the role, most recently as a broadcast and internet marketing consultant.

His previous experience also includes stints at Flextech, Bravo and Trouble, UKTV, UK Gold and UK Play and Sit-Up TV where he was broadcast and marketing director.

It was announced in January that Gilshan was to move to the new role of head of marketing at The Times, reporting to Alex Lewis, marketing director at Times Newspapers.

Gilshan’s appointment followed the departure of Richard Larcombe, head of brand marketing at News International, who joined Virgin Media in the same month.

Source: Brand Republic

News brought to you by Bearing Partnership, specialists in Digital Recruitment

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/989197/Sky-appoints-Glen-Matchett-lead-Sky-Movies-marketing/

The report from marketing analyst Outsell forecasts that marketers will spend $119.6 billion on digital strategies and $111.5 billion on print, including ads in newspapers and magazines and all direct mail.

Overall, US ad spend is expected to return to growth and increase 1.2 per cent to $368 billion.
Despite the growth of online, magazine advertising is expected to increase by 1.9 per cent to $9.4 billion after falling 26 per cent last year.

Chuck Richard, vice president and lead analyst at Outsell, said: “Advertisers are directing dollars toward the channels which generate the most qualified leads and most effective branding.

“As they emerge from the recession, they need more accountability, and they’re spreading their spending over a widening set of options.”

The Outsell report surveyed more than 1,000 US marketers online in December.

Last September, a report from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) suggested that online had usurped TV to become the biggest advertising medium in the UK after rising 4.6 per cent in the first half of 2009.

According to the biannual IAB report, internet UK ad spend generated £1.75 billion pounds and accounted for 23.5 per cent of all spend. This compared with 18.7 per cent in the first half of 2008. Elsewhere, Television accounted for 21.9 per cent, press display for 18.5 per cent and direct mail for 11.5 per cent.

Source: Media Week

News brought to you by Bearing Partnership, specialists in Digital Recruitment

http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/989179/US-online-ad-spend-overtake-print-DM/

Reporting to the director of brand marketing − a role yet to be filled since the departure of Andy Brent last September − the post-holder will be responsible for Sky’s social media activity in its brand marketing department and encouraging audience engagement.

The creation of the role followed Sky News’s appointment last year of Ruth Barnett as its first Twitter correspondent. She’s responsible for sourcing news stories on Twitter and relaying them to the Sky News team. The Sky News Twitter feed has more than 47,000 followers.

Sky is the latest company to create a social media role. Last month homewares site Mydeco appointed a social marketing manager to lead all of its social media activity, while Condé Nast Digital Britain appointed Louise Howells as social media strategist across titles including Vogue, GQ and Glamour.

Last year ITV created the role of social media manager, which was filled by Ben Ayers. He aims to increase traffic and video views on ITV.com through social media. BBC News also has a social media editor.

Tony Effik, chair of the IAB social media council, said such specialist media roles “are needed as companies learn to master this sector”, but warned that by 2012 the roles would be absorbed within departments.

A Sky spokesman said, “The aim of this position is to offer an in-house specialist to develop digital strategies alongside above-the-line planning.”

Source: New Media Age

News brought to you by Bearing Partnership, specialists in Digital Recruitment

http://www.nma.co.uk/news/sky-creates-first-head-of-social-media-position/3010907.article