WeChat is commonly referred to as China’s ‘app for everything’.
Combining instant messaging, social networking, online shopping, mobile payments and more – there’s a reason why 902m people are logged in on a daily basis.
The charity sector has been one of the slowest to adopt new technology, with smaller charities in particular struggling to keep up with the demands (and costs) of digital innovation.
Mobile is one area that has stayed particularly stagnant in recent years. According to Episerver, one quarter of the UK’s largest non-profit organisations still don’t have a responsive mobile website. This is pretty disastrous considering that 45% of consumers say they will immediately leave a mobile site if they have difficulty accessing it.
Print sales might be on the rise, but that does not mean publishers are turning their backs on digital content altogether.
While pop-up books used to be the only way to make reading an interactive experience, the rise of augmented reality means that publishers are now able to bring stories to life in a whole new way.
We are now spending more time than ever on our mobile phones. Recent research suggests US consumers are dedicating five hours per day to their mobiles, with the time spent in apps rising 69% year on year.
Interestingly, with media and entertainment apps like Facebook and Netflix taking up the largest share, shopping apps are said to account for just 5% of users’ daily time.
Adidas is no stranger to the world of apps. It has already released two in the form of Confirmed and All Day, allowing users to reserve new products and monitor their fitness and nutrition.
Now, the sports brand has released Shop & Style – a shopping app that allows users to buy Adidas products and browse editorial content without the need to use their mobile browser.
If you’ve used Duolingo, the language education app, you’ll know that it feels like a game.
That’s no coincidence of course. Duolingo is acutely aware of the power of gamification, and in a recent talk at Canvas Conference, product manager Zan Gilani detailed some of the A/B tests it has used to tap in to habit-forming behaviour in users.
I recently wrote a round-up of current Halloween-themed marketing campaigns, which included Topshop’s partnership with Netflix.
This got me thinking about the positive aspects of a co-branding campaign or collaboration, where both brands are able to benefit from a combined power in order to build awareness and reach a wider audience.
The US video games market generated $30.4bn in 2016, making it a record year for the industry.
Interestingly, the female demographic contributed to a large proportion of this spend, with the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) recently reporting that 40% of all gamers are now women.
At Econsultancy we’ve been talking quite a lot recently to football clubs and their agencies (see the bottom of this article for links).
After chatting to Reading Room about their work with Swansea, Stoke and Middlesbrough, I was contacted by Other Media, who are the app developers for Swansea City FC.
Apple introduced iOS 11 earlier this month, and along with it came ARKit – a new way for developers to add augmented reality into apps.
One of the first brands to take advantage of it has been Ikea, with its new ‘Ikea Place’ app.
We’re constantly hearing about the downsides of artificial intelligence.
According to PwC, 30% of UK jobs are potentially under threat from breakthroughs in AI, while 38% of US jobs have a ‘high risk’ of being entirely wiped out by 2030.
Until a few years ago, Superdrug was losing in the UK retail battle against long-time health and beauty rival, Boots.
Fast forward a couple of years and it’s a different story. Superdrug has just reported a 10.4% increase in revenue in 2016, with profits soaring 41% to £80.4m for the 53 weeks ending 31st December.