Think Fast, Move Faster | LoopMe’s Sports Marketing breakfast

We’re excited to launch our first vertical session of 2018, which takes a deep dive into sports marketing on Jan 24th . RSVP to secure your spot here.

The value of sports marketing                                        Pic

According to Forbes, the most valuable sporting event in the world is the Super Bowl, worth approximately $663 million. This is $244 million more than the Summer Olympics Games, while the Winter Olympics completes the top 3.

Interestingly, the UEFA Champions League is the only specifically European based event that makes the top 10.

‘Moment marketing’, which delivers advertising at a specific time is most common around sports events. 61% of digital brand marketers said that they used sports events to trigger digital campaigns.

But far from sticking to TV and the traditional 30-second spot, sports marketers are turning to different platforms and devices to distribute their video content.

What does this mean?

With the Winter Olympics, the World Cup and the Champions League all taking place in 2018, this event will help you plan ahead.

In this jam-packed agenda we’ll be ‘bouncing’ through the following:

–     Case studies of effective sports marketing

–     How to harness data for targeted & effective marketing

–     What brands can do to stand out in a highly cluttered sports sponsorship environment

RSVP here to be the first to hear about speaker details. ‘Ping’ us a message if you have any further questions. We look forward to seeing you there!

How Artificial Intelligence Improved Norwegian Air’s Brand Awareness

In this series, we’re highlighting campaigns nominated for the 2017 LoopMe Awards. The awards celebrate the best in AI-optimized mobile video advertising. These campaigns have used artificial intelligence in combination with PurchaseLoop, LoopMe’s brand optimization product, to deliver enhanced campaign results and fulfill brand marketing objectives.

 

Today’s travel consumers are mobile, so when affordable airline Norwegian Air wanted to drive awareness of its new routes between the U.S. and Europe, it created custom mobile video units that could be targeted geographically.

The results? The interactive ads increased awareness of new non-stop routes to Ireland and Scotland by 94 percent. The campaign used LoopMe’s flagship PurchaseLoop technology to optimize the mobile advertising.

In fact, the Norwegian Air campaign took home the top prize in LoopMe’s first annual LoopMe Awards. Three other brands—Butterball, Jockey and Audi—were also finalists, but Norwegian Air won the public vote.

Each brand had run its own campaign using PurchaseLoop, LoopMe’s flagship product, which uses real-time, self-learning AI to optimize mobile advertising to brand outcomes such as purchase intent, brand favorability or foot traffic.

“The LoopMe Awards were created to celebrate the best in advertising innovation,” notes LoopMe CEO Stephen Upstone. “Norwegian Air was a worthy winner and congratulations go out to all the finalists.”

 

Norwegian Air’s winning campaign

Over the course of 2017, Norwegian Air has rapidly expanded its list of American origin cities, offering dozens of new European destinations. Despite the proliferation, the affordable airline knew awareness for its newly accessible routes in key Northeast markets was not at optimal levels. Vizeum, Norwegian Air’s agency, partnered with LoopMe on the airline’s inaugural 737 MAX 8 campaign to drive awareness of the new non-stop routes to Ireland and Scotland.

To generate a big splash in the Northeast about these new direct routes, LoopMe created a custom rich media unit specific to each DMA that encouraged users to discover the various Ireland and Scotland destinations Norwegian Air serviced. Users could engage in a fun and interactive way by dragging the plane from their local airport to potential destinations.

To measure brand impact outside of standard metrics, LoopMe asked a group of control and exposed users within the target audience if they knew of these new non-stop routes to measure initial awareness. Once the responses were analyzed, LoopMe’s AI and DMP worked in tandem to actively target an optimized audience segment with the Norwegian Air creative to increase awareness. LoopMe’s custom creative and optimization was able to increase awareness of Norwegian Air’s new non-stop routes by 94 percent.

“As a pioneer of low-cost air travel, Innovation is in our DNA, but finding advertising solutions that break through today’s crowded media environment remains challenging,” explains Ben Kaufman, Norwegian Air’s marketing manager, North America. “The LoopMe interactive solution deployed by Vizeum to help raise awareness of our new point-to-point transatlantic flights perfectly paired Norwegian’s unique value proposition to a modern, easy-to-use custom unit that, in a word, delivered. The units offered a clean brand introduction to millions of prospective buyers and helped propel Norwegian’s position in the market as the leader in low cost long-haul air travel.”

No.62 In Deloitte’s 2017 EMEA Fast 500

Following from our ranking in Deloitte Fast 50 UK at no.12, LoopMe have also been announced at no.62 in the EMEA Fast 500 list.

The Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ EMEA program is an objective industry ranking that recognizes the fastest-growing technology companies in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) during the past four years.

The program is supported by the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 initiatives, which rank high-growth technology companies by location or specifically defined geographic area.

Now in its seventeenth year, the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 program includes regional rankings for North America and Asia-Pacific as well as EMEA. Check out the full shortlist here. 

‘This is a fantastic way to round off 2017, and we’re delighted to have been ranked so highly,’ commented LoopMe CEO and Co-Founder, Stephen Upstone. ‘Congratulations again to our team, who have worked hard to develop AI driven products that meet marketer needs.’

Gear up Your Mobile Advertising Efforts for 2018 Winter Olympics

Much has changed in the 4 years since the last Winter Olympics, so why keep your advertising the same? The Sochi Olympics broke records with a total of 3.3 billion streaming minutes; but with mobile streaming on the rise, now is the time to move your advertising efforts to mobile.

Here are five reasons why your advertising efforts for the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics should skew toward mobile:

  • Time spent watching TV is on a steady decrease, with a drop of viewership dropping by roughly 30 minutes.
  • According to GeoMarketing, in 2014 average time spent on mobile per day by US adults rose from 2 hours and 37 minutes to a projected 3 hours and 23 minutes in 2018.
  • 56% of viewers choose streaming because it allows them to watch the events live while they happen, while 50% choose streaming due to the convenience of on demand.
  • Even when a viewer isn’t streaming on mobile, they’re still using their mobile devices. While viewing, 59% are using their smartphone and 47% are using their tablet.
  • Approximately 30 million Americans watched NBC’s coverage of the Olympics opening event. Many viewers choose to watch the event at the bar but still, 81% of Americans spend time looking at their phones while dining out.

These stats will also be useful when considering your advertising strategy for the upcoming World Cup and other major sporting events.

Sources: GeoMarketing, eMarketer, NBCSportsGroup and Deloitte via Time

 

Holy Frap: How Starbucks is using data to increase customer acquisition

This is our last instalment of our ‘Data Champions’ series which looks at those championing ‘big-data’ and using it to achieve their business objectives. Read our earlier blogs which look at Under Armour and Morrisons.

Starbucks is approaching its 50th anniversary, but have recently adopted AI to improve their offering.

Dubbed the ‘digital flywheel’ strategy, it looks to improve their store sales through their Starbucks Rewards programme, which currently accounts for 36% of US company-operated sales.

It’s designed to boost customer acquisition and spend-based rewards, offering personalised consumer offers.

Using algorithms Starbucks can look at numerous factors and data sets (including order history, time of day, current weather conditions, location and more!) to make suggestions via push notifications from their app.

Crucially, Starbucks have recognised that their mobile customers are receptive to these schemes. With this in mind, they’ve designed an app with the sole purpose of driving customer loyalty.

Starbucks have really grasped the idea of ‘value exchange’ with consumers giving their personal data to Starbucks regularly in return for discounted products.

Not only is the programme a way in keeping up with a mobile-first world, it also shows how companies can create personalised experiences to encourage loyalty.xMAS

A recent report by KMPG said that ‘customized promotions’ helped to influence customer loyalty. Millennials are the most receptive to personalised promotions with 29% of respondents saying that it creates loyalty between them and a brand. Gen X and baby boomers were 28% and 25% respectively.

Matthew Ryan, Global Chief Strategy Officer at Starbucks commented on how this strategy had benefited them:

“The data is clear that when we acquire a new customer, the act of signing up for a digital relationship results in a sudden and sustained lift in spend as measured by careful pre-post tracking.”

“That’s how we’re able to drive so much value from a relatively small portion of customers, 13.3 million active reward customers compared to a total of approximately 75 unique customer visits to our stores each month. We know that even modest increases in the total universe of active customers drive tremendous long-term value.”

Under Armour, Morrisons and Starbucks are three of thousands of companies using data to enhance their business.

Find out how you can use data and AI to support your marketing goals: contact@loopme.com