Global Perspectives is your regular round-up of the best marketing ideas and insights to inform and inspire. Here’s what’s grabbed our attention this week…
As readers of the GMA will know we believe that the biggest tech companies need to be broken up or at the very least regulated further. The concept of self regulation isn’t working. As Dina Srinivasan, Antitrust scholar at Yale said, leaving Facebook to regulate its own ad marketing is like “trusting J.P.Morgan to run the New York Stock Exchange”.
However we recognise that for regulators it’s complicated. China is not about to break up any of its dominant players so therefore it could be argued that breaking up tech companies in western countries will weaken our competitive position.
It’s also not technically easy especially as Facebook has been working to integrate the back office across its platforms, essentially turning them into one service. This may be clever but is it the right thing to do. Your data can now be shared across more platforms, allowing you to be “monetised” even more ruthlessly while stamping out competitive opportunities. It’s also emerged that post Brexit Facebook will be moving more of its UK customer data to the US – a significant challenge for data regulators and companies.
Jeff Bezos is a smart guy and he can see that the prevailing wind with legislators is that they must be seen to do something. Unlike Facebook they have an easy way to take the pressure off – spin out AWS.
For the last decade AWS was the cash cow paying for rapid expansion of Amazon’s global infrastructure and subsidized Amazons commerce platform. However the recent rapid growth of both businesses, driven partly by the pandemic means now is the perfect time to cut them loose. Both companies will then be able to pursue the growth strategies that are best for them while offering regulators an easy win. Win win as they say.
Another search startup taking on Google – You.com, but maybe, just maybe this time it will be different. They have focused on areas they know customers worry about when using Google – data, privacy, paid results vs real results, fake reviews etc.
Like all who have tried before them it will only work if the quality of results matches Google, something no one else has managed yet.
Zoom is great for work but it has limitations for more social interactions. Mibo aims to put that right by enabling video calls in a fun, interactive way. Whether anyone cares is a good question and, of course, the long term business model may be challenged as we go back to real world social interactions.
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Are your marketing ideas getting a bit stale? Are you struggling to create something something that’s truly outstanding? Perhaps, you’ve been guilty of playing it safe.
The latest content from Content Marketing masters Velocity guides you through the benefits of being brave with ideas and willing to be wrong. Because great ideas never came from playing it safe.
This year has seen creativity explode, from print covers to direct mail it seems that many are now seeing “traditional media” through new eyes. This very much follows the theme of one of my favourite books of 2020, Obsessed by Emily Heyward, a thought-provoking exploration of why brand is again the key differentiator – even for startups.
The UN’s open brief to the creative and marketing community around Covid education and prevention garnered over 17,000 responses, some open brief to the creative and marketing community.
For more reading don’t forget our open brief to the creative and marketing community, highlights from copy legend Herschell Gordon Lewis.
What have you been reading this week? Let us know in the comments below.
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Craig Hanna is part owner and regular contributor to the GMA. He is also a product manager at Acquia for Site Studio, a low-code platform for building and managing enterprise websites in Drupal 8 (Craig was a co-founder of what was known as Cohesion before its acquisition by Acquia). Previously Craig established the training and consultancy business at www.econsultancy,com (Now part of Centaur Plc) and was responsible for the launch of their US office..
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