Best Free Online Marketing Guide For Online Entrepreneur

While remote working has become commonplace worldwide, it comes with its own particular challenges. The Drum finds out what needs to be done to better engage employees and support them in adjusting to unique and uncertain work conditions. In early February 2021, a 22-year-old employee of Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo collapsed and died due to exhaustion . Soon after, a young Pinduoduo worker died by suicide; the next day, a third employee was reportedly fired after criticizing Pinduoduo’s work culture. The company has since said it will offer employees psychological counselling. Pinduoduo’s case is not unique, and a corporate culture of  overworking has long existed in Asia Pacific. Dentsu Group previously created The Dentsu Working Environment Reforms Commission, an action group that aims to stamp out the issues that led to deaths partly caused by overwork at the agency. Businesses today are under more scrutiny from staff and consumers to ensure...

The year 2020 marked a pivotal moment in time with the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement shining a spotlight on the stunning lack of diversity across the advertising industry and the urgent need for change and action. Yet, while the B2B sector has as much of a role to play as its consumer counterparts in adland, many companies are grappling with what actions should be taken. From eliminating conscious and unconscious bias, to raising awareness of career opportunities among people of colour, to creating pathways from school to the workforce, marketers still have much to do to translate intent to action to impact. As part of the recent B2B WorldFest, The Drum and Stein IAS sought to explore key strategies and approaches to achieve that in the B2B sector. “Often people think about this topic in terms of B2C and the rising pressure brands face from consumers to practise what they preach but I think it’s equally true for B2B brands,” said Collette Philip, managing director and founder, Br...

Art has always acted as a time capsule for capturing the human experience. It’s an incredibly powerful driver of culture, and fleshes out our understanding of history with emotionally driven context. I would argue that today’s content ecosystem and the way it operates is reflective of a new era of art — one in which artists and creators are continually finding new ways to express what it means to be human in the digital age. Perhaps this seems dramatic, but stick with me: how many Michelangelos do you think went undiscovered during the Italian Renaissance? The answer is probably more than you can count. Centralized power has always dictated who was given the opportunity to develop their talents, allowing their art to flourish and go down in history. But today, art is in the hands of the people. Technological advancements in entertainment and media have lowered the barriers to entry and placed the potential for global exposure at everyone’s fingertips. As a result, the way in which ar...

The Drum has been taking measure of the UK’s digital agency landscape this past year, polling clients, peers and staff of the country’s top digital shops, as well as toting up the number of awards they’ve been winning. We are now in a position to paint a pretty comprehensive picture of this fertile field, with our survey providing insights into how successful as well as how respected each of these agencies are. Continuing to be successful and maintaining the respect of your peers is impressive enough in a year that saw the world turned upside-down, but perhaps even more impressive is that many of these agencies still score highly for staff satisfaction, despite stretched bottom lines and strained team dynamics – and all without the office dogs, massages and happy hours their sleek city center shopfronts once offered. So, how have they done this? The employee journey At Somo Global – the digital product and experience agency that has its headquarters in London’s leafy St James’s as ...

Publicis Groupe UK is pledging to help young people from marginalised communities find jobs in the advertising industry with its Open Apprenticeship programme. The interactive platform, currently in testing, acts as a starting point for anyone keen to learn the fundamentals of the industry, including the types of role on offer and the career opportunities available. Up to 10,000 people from ethnic-minority and low social mobility backgrounds will be provided with training, mentorships and job opportunities in the first year. What’s the deal? Today's launch sees Publicis play its part in addressing an alarming decline in job prospects for young people wrought by the pandemic with ethnic minorities, the disabled and people from low-income backgrounds being disproportionately affected. Publicis will initially prioritise its outreach programme toward young people from ethnic minority and low-income backgrounds before broadening the net from 2022 to encompass other disadvantage...

Another week another wave of agency account news, reviews, agency launches, rebrands and acquisitions. Check out our global round-up to see what business is on the move (and why it matters) below.  Over the past seven days, we’ve seen fresh appointments, reviews and acquisitions from Adidas, UKTV, TikTok, Jellyfish and more. Looking for a new agency partner of your own? Check out The Drum Reccomends where you can search for trusted partners and access expert industry knowledge that could help you make your selection.  If you’ve got a business on the move story for us, send it to businessonthemove@thedrum.com  for consideration before next Thursday. Account wins London-based marketing agency Kaizen has been appointed by Adidas to lead activity across digital PR, influencer marketing and SEO in Europe . The sporting giant will be managed by Kaizen’s team of in-house specialists, aiming to create unique content for both digital PR and SEO.  Dark Horses, the ...

You may not be anywhere near the office water cooler right now, but we still want to spotlight creative that should be on your radar. Today, we look at Facebook’s very public defense of personalized advertising ahead of a privacy update from Apple, in which the social media giant says ‘Good Ideas Deserve to be Found’. Facebook is injecting some pizazz into its online marketing business by launching a glossy, upbeat campaign designed to illustrate how it can ‘bring to life how personalized ads level the playing field’ for small businesses during a time of hardship. Andrew Stirk, Facebook’s head of brand marketing, concedes that online advertising can be a ”pretty dry topic” at the best of times, prompting the social network to dive off-piste with ’Good Ideas Deserve to be Found’. Featuring exotic locales and glamorous people, all set to a catchy beat, the spot documents thriving small businesses that have embraced digital advertising, with an expansive TV, radio and digital campaign ...

The leading digital agencies in the UK are to be revealed in The Drum's UK Digital Agency Census 2021. After a momentous year for digital marketing, The Drum's research team has undertaken a major poll of UK agencies' clients, peers and staff to benchmark their performance on a national scale. The result is a comprehensive picture of the field, with our survey providing marketers and agency leaders with deep insights into the running, reputation and output of the country's digital shops. Sign-up to receive updates about the The Drum UK Digital Agency Census here . What's the survey about? The Drum UK Digital Agency Census 2021 identifies the best-performing agencies in the country, across a number of measures – including client relationships, creative output and the mutual respect of their rivals. The findings of the Census will be published over the next four weeks alongside a special series of reports looking at how the best agencies operate in 2021. ...

On this episode, we're joined by Waste's head of strategy Christian Perrins to discuss the opportunities for marketers around gaming. From Ford's partnership with Rocket League to high-end fashion brands debuting lines in Animal Crossing, there are growing opportunities for brands to reach this growing and lucrative audience. <iframe width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src=" https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks... style="font-size: 10px; color: #cccccc;line-break: anywhere;word-break: normal;overflow: hidden;white-space: nowrap;text-overflow: ellipsis; font-family: Interstate,Lucida Grande,Lucida Sans Unicode,Lucida Sans,Garuda,Verdana,Tahoma,sans-serif;font-weight: 100;"><a href=" https://soundcloud.com/thedrum-2" title="TheDrum" target="_blank" style="color: #cccccc; text-decoration: non...

This is an extract from The Drum’s Future of Media briefing. You can  subscribe to it here  if you’d want the full thing in your inbox once a week. John McCarthy ( Twitter ,  Linkedin ,  email ) with a final reminder to enter  The Drum Online Media Awards  and get your work and your teams the recognition they deserve. Now to the stories.  Media Innovation Round-Up  I'm pleased to welcome new columnist Marek Wrobel, head of futures at Havas Media to The Future of Media coverage. Yes, there are a lot of futures and medias in that sentence. In his regular video newsletter, Wrobel sniffs out innovative media tech like AR, VR, gaming, phygital, QR, whatever you can think of, and analyses its utility to marketers.  For The Drum, once a month, he'll round up cool activations you need to know about (if you want to be at the cutting edge of media that is). In his debut, he goes deep on a Lego mus...

Marek Wrobel vigilantly tracks emerging media tech for Havas Media Group. In his new monthly column in The Drum, the Media Innovation Round-Up, Wrobel will talk you through the “new and shiny“ things, and their role in the ever-evolving marketing mix.  As head of media futures at Havas, I explore the potential of media innovations, as well as their limitations. In my video newsletter, I dig into the most exciting media news stories and put them in context for brands.  Let’s explore.  It’s all a game Lego launched a new app called Vidiyo , ‘a unique mash-up’ of Lego elements, music, and augmented reality. It’s yet another building block for a bigger trend, one that Lego has part of for some time now – the gamification of everything. Back in 2019, Lego launched Hidden SIDE set , which used AR to add storylines to Lego sets. Last year it worked with Nintendo to create an interactive Super Mario set – turning it into an interactive gam...

What has been the single best implementation of digital advertising I’ve seen? There are loads of nice ads and implementations out there (and loads of humdrum stuff, too). The Discovery Channel’s pioneering 360° videos on YouTube and the Lego Rebuild the World campaign spring to mind as great recent examples. But beyond being beautifully produced, well-targeted, entertaining and whatnot, what really appeals to me is a digital experience or advert that understands the medium it’s created for - and has fun with it. That’s why Geico’s series of Unskippable digital ads really hits home. We all know the pain of our carefully curated YouTube playlist being interrupted by a Grammarly ad… for the fiftieth time that day. Like a reflex action, we immediately look to the bottom right-hand side of the screen as we watch that five- (but-feels-like-500) second delay tick down. It’s this truth that Geico understood and played on with brilliant results. Their Unskippable ads from around 2015 front-...

Both informal and organized mentorships have long been popular within the ad industry, and the idea that such a relationship could be bought and sold has led to a great deal of anger of late. Following a recent social media outcry over a junior-level ad industry worker being charged for a mentorship, an initiative has now been launched to connect mentees and mentors pro bono.  The program invites mentors from across the industry to share their contact details with those searching for guidance and experience, with a collaborative Google Doc now reaching some 90 pages long.  A good mentee and mentor relationship should be mutually beneficial, says Sara Patel, fundraising director at Nabs, with “the sharing of information and learning coming from both directions”. “It needs to be a supportive and constructive relationship, so it’s important to have clear check-ins to monitor progress and development, but it must also be a safe and supportive space, to be honest and have an o...

Marek Wrobel vigilantly tracks emerging media tech for Havas Media Group. In his new monthly column in The Drum, the Media Innovation Round-Up, Wrobel will talk you through the “new and shiny“ things, and their role in the ever-evolving marketing mix.  As head of media futures at Havas, I explore the potential of media innovations, as well as their limitations. In my video newsletter, I dig into the most exciting media news stories and put them in context for brands.  Let’s explore.  It’s all a game Lego launched a new app called Vidiyo , ‘a unique mash-up’ of Lego elements, music, and augmented reality. It’s yet another building block for a bigger trend, one that Lego has part of for some time now – the gamification of everything. Back in 2019, Lego launched Hidden SIDE set , which used AR to add storylines to Lego sets. Last year it worked with Nintendo to create an interactive Super Mario set – turning it into an interactive gam...