A great campaign Channel 4 Paralympics Campaign - UK First Broadcasting subtitles and signed version of 'We're the superhumans' to cinema screenings for impaired people

Channel 4 has claimed a UK first by broadcasting a subtitled and signed version of its "We're the superhumans" ad at dedicated cinema screenings for hearing impaired people.

The move comes as Channel 4 launches the next phase of its "Superhumans" campaign, which also features posters accompanied by audio commentary of Paralympians winning gold at London 2012. 

The cinema ad will display subtitles and be British sign language interpreted in dedicated screenings for hard of hearing people. The spot was produced with support from the charity Action on Hearing Loss.

Meanwhile, outdoor ads on city bus shelters will feature images of Paralympics GB leading athletes Ellie Simmonds, Richard Whitehead and David Weir. Channel 4 has also partnered with Metro to take over its masthead in a print campaign.

Facebook content has also been created that incorporates the social media platform’s audio assisted technology tool by providing audio description of the video for people with sight loss. 

The ads have been created by 4Creative, Channel 4’s in-house agency, with media handled by OMD UK.

The broadcaster’s ambition to make the campaign accessible to everyone comes as research carried out by Channel 4 shows that 82% of UK adults agree that the Paralympics are important for improving society’s perceptions of disabled people. 

The research also shows that more than 90% who saw the "Superhumans" ad said it was a positive portrayal of disability. 

Dan Brooke, Channel 4’s chief marketing and communications officer, said: "From the outset our ambition was to make this Channel 4’s most accessible campaign ever. 

"We want everyone to be able to share in the excitement of the Rio Paralympics and join in this wonderful celebration.

"The Paralympics and our 'Superhumans' campaign get right to the heart of what Channel 4 stands for – championing diversity, innovation and new talent and celebrating the amazing abilities of both Paralympians and everyday people."

Read more at Channel 4 Paralympics Campaign, Read More

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How to Make Online Advertising a Safer Place - MediaTel

'More Peppa Pig' - Children's Media Consumption Habits and Attitudes

One evening my 2 year old toddler was requesting 'More Peppa Pig', I'd reluctantly allowed her a 30 minute slot to watch her favourite programme, the episode had finished and she pointed to our Samsung Smart TV repeating 'More Peppa Pig' then a little louder 'More Peppa Pig'.  She then grabbed the control and pressed the Sky remote attempting to forward the adverts to get to the next episode.

All too aware of Why to avoid TV before 2 research which suggests screen viewing has negative effects on children's language development, reading skills, short-term memory as well as sleep and attention, I wanted to understand the media consumption of other children.  There is a survey telling us that 40% of infants watch some sort of video by the age of 5 months and this rises to 90% by the age of 2.

What do other data sources say?  OFCOM conducted a study which they started in 2005 analysing Children and Parents Media Consumption and Attitudes.  Over a 10 year period we are able to understand how media consumption habits have changed.  Here are some highlights from the latest 2015 report -

The amount of time 8-11s and 12-15s spend online has more than doubled, from 4.4 hours a week in 2005 to 11.1 hours in 2015.

In 2005, 61% of 8-11s and 67% of 12-15s had access to the internet at home. In 2015 close to nine in in ten 8-11s (91%) and nearly all 12-15s (96%) have internet access at home, either through a fixed broadband connection or through using a mobile network signal.

In 2005 3% of 8-11s and 13% of 12-15s had internet access in their bedroom. In 2015 this has increased to 15% of 8-11s and 34% of 12-15s who have internet access via a desktop, laptop or netbook in their bedroom, and many also use portable devices, like tablets and mobiles, to go online. One in ten 5-15s now only go online

According to OFCOM tablets are proving popular with toddlers, over half of 3-4s and three-quarters of 12-15s use a tablet in 2015.

And since 2005 the mobile phone has overtaken the TV set as the device 12-15s would miss the most.

In 2015 traditional TV is being challenged by other types of audio-visual content. Among 12- 15s who watch both TV and YouTube content, for the first time more say they prefer to watch YouTube videos (29% vs. 25% in 2014) than TV programmes (25% vs. 30% in 2014).

Fewer 12-15s in 2015 nominate Facebook as their main social media profile while more are nominating Snapchat.

So back to the challenge of TV time, a separate article by Babycenter provides the best way to tackle TV time.  The idea is to think of it as refined sugar, the advice is to limit the time your toddler spends watching TV, make screens physically inconvenient, go with calm and quiet programs, watch programming and not television and watch with your child whenever possible.

The research is in and the statistics are eye-opening, I prefer the refined sugar approach and who knows what platforms and media my toddler will be consuming by the time she is a 12 year old, gone will be the days of Snapchat and Facebook?!?

3 Things your Boss wants to know about this Week - Snapchat, Bots and WeChat

Snapchat takes over Twitter

Wow more people are using Snapchat than Twitter for the first time since it launched as reported by the BBC. Snapchat now boasts 150 million users surpassing Twitters 140 million user base. They both have some way to go to catch up with Facebook's 1.6 billion users though, while Instagram is on around 400 million users.

The Bot Bandwagon

There has been a lot of hype about 'Bots' however Techcrunch reports a dirty secret.  At present, the bots that are even remotely useful at non-trivial tasks are largely supported by humans behind the scenes. While the industry continues to promote bots as a panacea for everything from app development to reducing headcount, companies are quietly employing human labor to buy time while developers attempt to implement AI solutions that can work autonomously and scale as promised.  Techcrunch advises brands should proceed with caution.

Everyone in China are on WeChat and Only WeChat

It's reported by Techcrunch WeChat is a replacement for the mobile operating system. WeChat is the best example of what a modern mobile OS can be: not just an app, or static platform for apps, but a tight ecosystem that uses a social graph as the fabric for a connected web of services that cover almost every aspect of your digital life, from communication to entertainment to shopping to banking. Chat comes first, but it’s more important as the front door to a series of apps that have nothing to do with messaging. Want to get pizza? Call up Pizza Hut’s official account in WeChat and order via a web app.


In this sense, WeChat is not providing a revolutionary new way to interact with services through chat. In fact, WeChat’s official accounts did start that way, with basic text inputs replacing app taps, but it soon found that the app-within-an-app approach was more effective. Instead, WeChat is providing a better way to interact with mobile services. Dan Grover, an American who works as a WeChat product manager in China, recently made this point in an essay that clears up any misconceptions about how WeChat really works. Grover argued that WeChat has succeeded because it is an effective solution for a broken OS. He cites multiple OS shortcomings, including increasingly meaningless notifications, a lack of baked-in QR code scanners, bloated apps that hog memory, contacts that are disjointed from social graphs, cumbersome authentication systems and an absence of universal payments solutions, to name just a few. WeChat fixes all those problems, while nothing in the U.S. or UK has been able to fix any more than one or two.

The Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Google I/O 2016

So if you don't have the time to watch the inspiring 2 hour video from Google's CEO Sundar Pichai, here is the Ultimate Cheat Sheet on the key take outs from the developer conference.

 

Key Note by Google CEO Sundar Pichai

 

Google Home, an Amazon Echo rival, was announced on 18 May 2016 at Google's I/O 2016 keynote event. It's a speaker which lets you have a conversation with the Google Assistant - another new feature announced at the launch. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said "all credit to Amazon for creating interest in this space." The demonstration is in a family setting. You can ask Google to turn on music in one room or multiple. Google will help with your homework. Google Home will even make and change restaurant reservations. PC Advisor expects the cost of the product to rival Amazon Echo.

Google Allo is the answer to the likes of Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and iMessage. Allo is a new text messaging app that isn’t a Hangouts replacement but its own standalone app coming to iOS and Android soon. The key difference is that Allo comes with some machine learning built in, courtesy of Google Assistant, the company’s virtual assistant. As explained by Engineering Director Erik Kay on stage at Google I/O 2016, Allo is a ‘smart’ messaging app that learns over time to make conversations both easier and more productive.

Smart Replies is a great functionality within the app and Google claims that Assistant will learn over time and provide you with personalised answers that you can use. It’ll work when asked things like if you want to go out for dinner, but will also suggest responses to photos through image recognition technology, Google are able to understand the context and suggest a response.

Google Duo is the attempt at providing a human video chat experience, the main new feature is the Knock Knock functionality where you can see the caller before you actually pick up. There's obviously still plenty about Duo we don't know, and won't know until it is finally available later this summer. What we've seen so far promises a lot, and it's on Google to deliver. Assuming that happens, Duo has the potential to be a huge deal when it comes to showing people that video chat isn't clunky and mechanical anymore. It's possible that Duo can start the process of encouraging people to use video chat as though it were a normal thing, and not just for special occasions and meetings. If you haven't already, you can pre-register for access to Duo right now.

With the Android N update,  which is the latest OS for Android devices and yet to be fully named.  We see Android Virtual Reality Mode which is a series of optimisation to improve VR functionality.  Google announced Android 2.0 which has standalone apps, you can also display more information onto your watch for example and tailor the display to your specific needs.  Android will also offer instant Apps, so you can use apps without having to wait for installation.  You will be taken straight to the content within the App.  Another great highlight is Split-screen and picture-in-picture modes are coming to Android! You can search on your phone but also split the screen and complete another related task on the bottom have of the device. Picture in picture mode is limited to Android TV, allowing you to watch a live channel in one corner while you do something else in the Android interface. The new multi-window feature, which allows you to run two apps side by side, each getting half the screen, should be a major upgrade for Android tablets especially. It's handy on phones too, but Android tablets have long been in need of features that capitalize on their greater screen real estate.

Google Day Dream is Android's powered Virtual Reality platform. Daydream — which encompasses both hardware and software — is a more advanced successor to Cardboard, the disposable headset standard that Google released two years ago. It's a mobile VR system powered by the next wave of Android N devices, built to a company-approved standard. Where Google Cardboard worked with almost any smartphone, Daydream will only work on new phones with specific components like special sensors and screens. A Daydream home screen will let people access apps and content while using the headset; an early look shows a whimsical forest landscape with the slightly low-poly look that Google has used in Cardboard apps. Inside this environment, Google has created special VR versions of YouTube, Street View, the Google Play Store, Play Movies, and Google Photos. It's also recruited a number of outside media companies to bring apps to Daydream, including streaming platforms like Netflix and gaming companies like Ubisoft and Electronic Arts.

Google has announced eight hardware partners that will make Daydream-ready phones, including Samsung, HTC, LG, Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE, Asus, and Alcatel. Read more here at The Verge

 

Android Auto will soon be available via an app to all and with it comes the Waze navigation app too, a great app for crowd fuelled traffic data and geo specific offers for drivers.

 

Google also talked about the Self Driving Car Click the title for some pics of the autonomous automobile.

 Project Ara is Google's Modular phone, this means building a phone from different components, allowing users to personalise and chose features based on needs and cost, this has been confirmed for release. Now when we say personalise we really mean it, one of the examples featured a glucose sensor!

 Project Jacquard is about connected clothing that can become a handy phone control.  At I/O a collaboration with Levis was unveiled, whereby the staple denim jacket became a handy phone control for an on-the-go hipster cyclist.

A lot of the release dates will be in Winter so we will be eagerly awaiting.

Hot Topics, from Facebook and Snapchat to Mobile and Native

Today's blog will cover trending topics which have been arising across the Advertising Industry.

Instagram now allows you to use Video in Carousel Ads, the company has revealed carousel ads on its photo-sharing app will now support use of videos and it hopes this will create “a richer storytelling experience.”, advertisers can have carousel ads entirely made up of videos, photos, or a mixture of the two formats. see the latest here from Venturebeat

Find out the leading brands buying into Snapchat as presented by Adweek. Leading the way are Activewear brands like Nike.  In the UK today we see the Crunchie Snapchat filter with the sound bite 'Give Me Crunch' making waves.

This brings me onto our next topic, should we be worried about facial recognition technology, from Facebook tagging to Snapchat lens filters and MSQRD who are joining Facebook. Is it possible that these companies are using this data for other purposes, and without consent? Curious? See what this Mashable video has to say.

Mobile is a hot topic, we know Google redesigns mobile adwords and adds in some programmatic ad features. This week we also see Facebook axe its desktop exchange in favor for mobile advertising. Facebook says consumer usage has primarily moved to mobile and that products such as Dynamic Ads for Carousel, video campaigns and custom audiences have mobile re-targeting features that are not supported by exchange.

Facebook is also busy focusing on Virtual Reality and has created a London based oculus virtual reality team as reported by The Drum. The office will be the first European VR base for the social giant, which bought Oculus for $2bn back in 2014.

Digital is taking precedence in Manchester. The report released by The Digital Powerhouse found that the digital sector is fueling the growth in the North's economy. We know Manchester now has a world class digital marketing cluster, we have seen Havas Media and MEC having a strong hold over the North. HealthTech is strong for Leeds and Liverpool is building a reputation for expertise in the IoT.

The IAB are set on delivering best practice across Content and Native and looking to launch a green paper. With the explosion of content-based and native advertising in recent years, the breadth of what the term ‘content’ now covers —formats, platforms, message and strategy—and almost every brand now looking to have a digital content strategy (over a quarter of all display advertiser spend now goes on Content & Native (inc. in-feed)—£776m) it comes as no surprise that measurement is such a hot topic.  The next event will be 31st May and you can book your tickets here.