EU Cookie Law

A new EU online privacy law will come into effect from 26th May 2012. This will directly affect many websites across the UK, as it requires all website owners to make sure that it is clear to users if cookies will be loaded onto their computer.

Cookies may be used for a variety of reasons, from simple tasks such as remembering login details for the website, through to tracking the journey of consumers throughout the site using tools such as Google Analytics. Online advertising is often heavily reliant on cookies, as this may require using a tracking cookie which is used when retargeting or tracking the path to a sale.

The official guidelines state that appropriate action must be taken to inform consumers according to what cookies you have in place. AdConnection would strongly recommend running a ‘cookie audit’ on your website in order to understand these and exactly how these are used. There are many free tools you can use to do this yourself; in most cases there is no need to pay for an external company to take care of this for you. 

For more information on the classification of cookies and guidelines on what steps to take towards compliance, AdConnection would recommend reading The International Chamber of Commerce Guide to Cookies.

All of the external networks and websites we use at AdConnection are IAB certified and sign up to the Good Practice Framework, from which consumers are able to opt out of advertising.

In reality, this law is going to be extremely difficult for the EU to police. As long as you are taking positive steps towards informing users about cookies used on your site then it is unlikely any sanctions will come in to force. Adconnection would suggest updating your privacy policy at the very least, but if you are advertising it is important for your website to still be cookie adherent so consumer journeys can still be tracked from advert exposure to conversion.

If you are keen to talk to someone about cookie law and how this may affect your website, particularly from an advertising point of view, then feel free to give us a call on 0207 401 4830.

Facebook Buy Mobile App Glancee

Facebook have been on another spending spree, although this latest move will not raise as many eyebrows as the acquisition of Instagram. The target this time is another mobile app – the location based app Glancee . 

Glancee has been described as a ‘Foursquare for people’, working by using your location to inform you when friends or people who share a common interest with you are nearby.


Whilst not being of the same scale as the Instagram purchase, it does further illustrate Facebook’s desire to prosper in the mobile space. It is currently unclear if Facebook have bought the company to make use of the app or the skillset in the team behind the company, as was the case with the company’s purchase of Gowalla.


Glancee has been downloaded around 30,000 times and has around 20,000 users. It created a lot of buzz at SXSW earlier this year, along with its rival Highlight.


There are few details available about the deal other than a short statement on the Glancee website as follows;


“We started Glancee in 2010 with the goal of bringing together the best of your physical and digital worlds. We wanted to make it easy to discover the hidden connections around you, and to meet interesting people. Since then Glancee has connected thousands of people, empowering serendipity and pioneering social discovery. We are therefore very excited to announce that Facebook has acquired Glancee and that we have joined the team in Menlo Park to build great products for over 900 million Facebook users.” 

Facebook's Billion Dollar Bet

A lot has been written about the $1bn purchase of Instagram by online giant Facebook. The media and business world was surprised to say the least, for two main reasons.

Firstly the timing. As covered previously in this blog Facebook is in the process of preparing for a huge stock market flotation. Given that, most normal companies would try not to rock the boat too much, or make any investment decisions that could potentially spook new investors. Facebook is far from a normal company however.

Secondly, and perhaps most eye-catching, is the price.

Facebook have agreed to pay $1bn albeit in a combination of cash and shares. Most media analysts have declared their view that this has vastly overestimated Instagram’s value.  Commentators have been quick to point out that the company, which has less than 20 employees and no revenue streams, has in effect been valued at more than venerable ‘old’ media institutions such as the New York Times. In addition, it has since emerged that Instagram had only two weeks previously been through a funding round with venture capitalists that valued it at $500m.

So, did Facebook overpay?

As ever, it depends on the reason they bought the company.

The first fact to point out is that the service already boasts 30m registered users and is growing fast. Its Android app for example was downloaded more than a million times in just 24 hours after its launch on April 3^rd.

On the simple mathematics of the price one Google executive has noted that Facebook is paying around $28 per user for Instagram, whereas other social apps have been valued at anywhere between $20 and $50 per user. Many of Instagram’s fans are probably Facebook members, but access to even more data about consumers is what is currently motivating Facebook and driving its ability to successfully monetise its own content.

Another key reason for the purchase is the mobile space that Instagram has expertly navigated, and Facebook still struggles in. As we pointed out a few weeks ago in this blog, the mobile internet is the area that Facebook will have to crack. Nearly half of its total monthly users are now accessing the social network through mobile devices. The expertise that resides in Instagram that has produced such slick, user friendly apps in contrast to Facebook’s own is invaluable to the company right now.

Lastly, one other thought behind Facebook snapping up Instagram is simply to remove a potential rival from the marketplace. Instagram’s growth has showed Facebook how a small, nimble start up could potentially take users away from the more established social networks. Its very speed of growth had certainly alerted rivals such as Twitter and Google to the company, and Google in particular were rumoured to be eyeing a bid in order to give some much needed impetus to its Google + platform.  

$1bn is certainly a hefty price tag. But time will tell if it was a price worth paying.

The Sun rises on Sunday

From the moment last Friday that Rupert Murdoch stood up at News International’s offices in Wapping and announced a launch of a new Sunday paper ‘very soon’, there has been speculation about what the new product would look like and when it would launch. Here we try to separate the fact from the rumour, and give our view on the biggest new launch in the newspaper market in decades.

On Monday the Sun, in typically bombastic style (and under a banner of ‘another Sun exclusive’ – another blow struck for investigative reporting) declared that ‘very soon’ meant this weekend. In advance of the launch, there are a few facts and a lot of speculation doing the rounds.

The title will simply be called the Sun, with an identical masthead to the daily, rather than being a separate Sunday title. It will not have its own editor, but will share staff with the daily with the with the exception of some ‘Sunday only’ writers. The title is expected to be a more family-oriented product than its predecessor the News of the World, and as with the Saturday edition will not feature topless models on page 3.

The title is expected to focus on some of the other, less controversial elements that contributed to the success of the NotW, namely sport and TV, with more features and a commitment by the editorial team to ‘ continue with investigative reporting’. The paper will contain 28 pages of football news and 16 pages of other sports.

In order to broaden the appeal of the paper to a more female audience The Sun have signed up Sven Goran Eriksson’s former girlfriend and 'Strictly Come Dancing' star Nancy Dell'Olio to write a weekly style column and TV chef James Martin to provide a recipe and cookery section.

The first edition will have a print run of c3m, and according to Rupert Murdoch’s twitter feed has ‘sold out’ of advertising space. Launch price is rumoured to be 50p, which may trigger a price war with other publishers.

Other publishers have already been bullish in response, even before pricing strategies are revealed. Richard Desmond has ramped up marketing spend to support the Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday, albeit mainly on the (Northern & Shell owned) Channel 5. The Express is advertising that the Sunday Express is giving away a free gardening mat as well as its "action-packed" sports pullout and S magazine.

The Sunday Mirror is also taking to TV, whilst the main paper has carried editorial highlighting that there will be "four great sections in your great Sunday Mirror" which includes the main paper, the Carling Cup special sport pullout, a celebrity magazine and homes and holidays supplement.

The Mail on Sunday, which was the initial winner in the race to pick up the NotW readers has started running a TV campaign and is running ads about Mail on Sunday's "stunning free magazines" (Live, You and bi-annual fashion supplement You Inspire) which it says are "for him …and for her".

It is estimated that rivals could spend as much as £7m defending themselves from the Sun onslaught, which includes TV, radio and outdoor advertising.

We expect the Sun to sell strongly this weekend, and as the News of the World has proved in the past, there is space in the Sunday newspaper market to accommodate it. The NotW always had a surprisingly large element of upmarket adults reading, as it was often taken as a ‘sports supplement’ to broadsheet titles like the Sunday Times. Whilst there will be an element of the audience that will not buy in protest at News International’s role in the phone hacking scandals, we don’t expect this to affect sales to any great effect. Advertisers are back on board, and we expect the Sun to shine strongly on Sundays.

If you would like to discuss the impact the Sun’s Sunday launch will have on the newspaper market, or access the papers readership for your brands campaigns please get in touch, we’d love to help.

Latest Circulation Data for Home Interest Magazines Released

The Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) have just released Consumer figures for July-December 2011. Overall, the Home Interest market is up 5.2% on 2010, and 2.2% on the first half of 2011.

Despite this, a few titles have experienced significant losses in their circulation figures, most notably House Beautiful, which suffered a 19.5% decrease in circulation figures compared to the same period in 2010. 25 Beautiful Homes had a 7.2% drop in circulation figures and Country Living Magazine had a 6.9% fall.

However, on a brighter note, some brands did see a sales increase in the period, including Good Homes which experienced a 26% increase in circulation figures, and Country Homes & Interiors, which had a 7.8% rise.

The table below gives more detailed information for each publication.

Facebook Gets Mobile

Facebook has been in the news a lot recently. The company announced plans on 1^st February for an IPO that values it at between $75 billion and $100 billion. This seems like a crazy price until it is noted that the social network is closing in on one billion users – that’s almost 15% of the entire world’s population.

Last year Facebook generated $3.7 billion in revenue and $1 billion in net profits. This makes the price tag look expensive but not as wildly as at first glance. Other technology companies are also very highly valued - Google’s market capitalisation is $190 billion, Microsoft’s $250 billion and Apple’s $425 billion.

To please investors going forward, the company must solve the mobile conundrum. Mobile is hugely important to the business. According to recent figures just over half of the company’s monthly active users are mobile.

Nearly all of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising; virtually none of those ads are served to mobile users, either in Facebook apps or on the company’s mobile web site.

In addition the parts of the world where Facebook is still growing in total users (for example high population areas such as Brazil and India) are adopting mobile computers faster than they’ve adopted PCs.

However, the smaller space on a mobile screen and the relationship people have with their Facebook friends has meant that advertising in this space poses problems. How best to provide the undoubted reach that Facebook can offer without intruding on a space that has been ad free? How can marketeers harness the data that Facebook has on its members, without stoking existing fears around online privacy?

To try to answer some of these questions, Facebook has started discussing plans about introducing "featured stories" ads, based on the sponsored story format, into users' timelines on mobile devices from March. Earlier this year Facebook had paved the way for mobile advertising, by rolling out "featured stories" within users' news feeds for the first time.

Featured stories are perfectly tailored for display in mobile apps or browsers; no intrusive pop-ups, no annoying video, — just updates given premium space inside a user’s feed for a price. This is very similar to the Twitter’s advertising model with promoted tweets on its site and in its mobile and desktop apps.

Given the volume of user data Facebook hold, these ads have the potential to be more personalised and better targeted than any other mobile ad platform we’ve seen to date.

2012 Set Fair for Outdoor Media

National networks of connected digital screens are growing. There is increasing experimentation with interactive technology, an increase in the use of smartphones and tablets and digitisation and synchronisation of all media.

The opportunity to combine new technologies with the visual impact posters have always delivered with interactivity is becoming a more established part of the OOH.

Opportunities are there to be exploited with perfect examples coming from Lynx "angels" augmented reality campaign which led the way for larger-scale use of interactive creative.

The strides made by linking campaigns with social media and location-based communications means that OOH has become a relevant and connected means of communication which has the ability to impact consumers on a personal level and on a daily basis.

Considering the above and the extra visitor numbers brought to the UK by the Olympics 2012, the signs are that 2012 will be a definitive year for out-of-home media in the UK.