CANNES/HANGZHOU: Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, wants to develop collaborative relationships with Western advertisers and believes its "Uni Marketing" framework provides the means to achieve this goal, the company's CMO has said.
Speaking to The Drum at last week's Cannes Lions festival, Chris Tung sought to differentiate Alibaba from arch rival Amazon by suggesting that it offers advertisers a certain degree of impartiality because it doesn't sell its own products across its various online marketplaces.
"We are running a totally a totally different marketplace to Amazon. We're supporting our partners to build their brands through our data capability," he said.
"And so, the key words from Alibaba are that we're open, collaborative and can make it easy to do business anywhere," he added.
Data and the gathering of insights into the behaviour of Alibaba's 450m active users are key to helping Western brands engage with consumers in China, Tung believed, as he promoted the company's Uni Marketing suite of tools.
According to Alibaba, Uni Marketing aggregates and analyses data so brands can better identify, target, reach and retain their customers, and Tung described it as "a system that leverages the multi-dimensional data around our shoppers to help build brands in a different way".
Specifically, marketers can access its "Brand Databank", an online dashboard that shows brands how many consumers are interested in their products and that can also track the success of campaigns.
Other tools in the Uni Marketing suite include "Uni Strategy", which is said to provide "a complete picture" of consumer behaviour across touchpoints.
There is also "Uni Communication", a media planning and ad-serving tool, and "Uni Operation", which enables brands to create and deliver personalised content and manage consumer relationships across Alibaba touchpoints.
Finally, "Uni Desk" is a planning tool that allows agencies to access a brand's data bank account to service them more effectively. "It's a co-creation process between agency, Alibaba and advertiser for a much more targeted and better ROI type of advertising," said Tung.
These and the other capabilities on offer certainly seem to have persuaded Publicis Groupe to get involved, with the French communications giant announcing last week that it had become the first agency to adopt Alibaba's Uni Marketing tools.
"I'm delighted to announce that our clients will have priority access to the Uni Desk tools as they are rolled out and we're already working with several of our clients across both FMCG and Luxury categories," commented Bertilla Teo, CEO of Publicis Media Greater China, at the time.
TOKYO: Apple, the electronics giant, will launch the iAd mobile advertising platform in Japan next year, as it seeks to gain ground in a country known for its digital maturity.
Dentsu, the advertising agency, is assuming responsibility for creative executions, media planning and selling inventory, while Apple hosts, targets and delivers ads to the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Having rolled out the iAd system in its home market this July, Apple is now hoping to generate considerable interest in the Asian nation.
"After an incredibly successful launch in the US ... we've already doubled the number of brands on the network," said Andy Miller, Apple's vice president of iAd. "We're excited to bring iAd to Japan."
Dentsu has also endeavoured to enhance its digital capabilities in the recent past, and suggested Apple could soon play a leading role among Japan's wireless operators.
"Mobile advertising is Japan's fastest-growing platform," said Ryuichi Mori, Dentsu's senior executive vice president.
"iAd's rich media experience and engaged audience of iPhone and iPod touch users make it uniquely positioned to capture mobile's full potential for advertisers and developers."
SYDNEY - Nestlé, the world's biggest foods group, this week took another step in its strategy of bolt-on acquisitions with the A$890m ($671.59m; €522.88m; £357.06m) purchase of Uncle Tobys, one of Australia's best known food and cereal brands.
The deal will boost Nestlé's position in breakfast cereals in Australasia - which accounted for 40% of Uncle Tobys' A$400m sales last year - as well as in nutritious snacks and instant soups.
Uncle Tobys, a household name in Australia, is the country's second biggest breakfast cereal maker after world leader Kelloggs.
America's telemarketing industry was dealt another severe blow Monday when the US Supreme Court rejected an appeal to overturn the recently enacted 'do not call' telemarketing registry.
The appeal was lodged by a trade body, the American Teleservices Association, whose membership ranges from charities to investment banks and major companies like Verizon.
The justices refused to accept the argument that the "First Amendment rights of legitimate telemarketers" had been violated. ATA executive director Tim Searcy described the 'don't call' legislation as "truly a case of regulatory overkill."
As a result of the registry, introduced in October 2003, the number of telephone solicitations (which previously had soared to a high point of 100 million calls a day) there has been a dramatic reduction in the number of unsolicited calls to US households.
Violators are open to penalties of $11,000 for each offense, although charitable and political calls are exempted from the ban.
Promised the Federal Trade Commission, the government agency that introduced the legislation: "[We} will continue to champion consumer privacy by maintaining the registry and taking enforcement action against violators as appropriate."
LONDON: The UK's sole cable services provider, Virgin Media, has escalated its row with the nation's sole satellite TV operator BSkyB, claiming that the latter is abusing its "dominant position in pay-TV".
In papers submitted to the High Court in London, Virgin alleges that BSkyB "engaged in abusive behaviour involving a disproportionate attack targeted at its only material competitor".
The two broadcasters are locked in a dispute over the amount BSkyB was charging Virgin to broadcast its channels. As a result they were pulled from the cable company's platform.
Virgin claims this has damaged its business, and also states that it was essentially strong-armed into providing its own content to BSkyB in an earlier deal because of the News Corporation-owned company's dominance of the market.
The court papers also referred to BSkyB's controversial purchase of shares in ITV, the UK's largest commercial broadcaster, which is now under investigation by communications watchdog Ofcom.