Here are The Hub’s Winners and Losers for the week of June 16:
WINNERS:
Tumblr advertisers
Brands advertising on Tumblr will now be able to get extended reach on its parent platform. This week Yahoo announced that it would be able to cross promote sponsored posts from Tumblr across its search page and other content properties, giving advertisers far more reach, analytics and targeting capabilities for the same ad.
Twitter and SnappyTV
Like most other social media channels, Twitter’s been getting crazy amounts engagement because of the World Cup, but this week it’s been working extra hard to make its content even more attractive. Yesterday Twitter announced that it would now support animated GIFs on its platform, and it also acquired SnappyTV, a video clipping service that TV networks use to edit and distribute short clips of key moments from TV shows, sports and news. Suddenly Twitter is less about boring 140-character text and all about the visuals, adding short videos, images and animated GIFs to its stream.
Adobe
When Adobe announced that it was moving all its software to the cloud in 2012, it was seen as a risky move, with plenty of naysayers. Two years later, as Adobe announced its strong Q2 2014 earnings and increased subscribers to both its Marketing and Creative Cloud solutions, the company hit an all-time high at the stock market, posting a record $74 a share. It also released a slew of welcome updates to its Creative Cloud, making it a pretty good week for the software giant.
LOSERS:
The professional networking platform has been formally ordered to face the wrath of its users. This week, a San Jose judge ruled that LinkedIn must face a lawsuit from a group of its users who are claiming damages over the company’s practice of accessing their external email contacts to send spammy messages. The judge said even though the users had consented for the emails to be sent, they weren’t aware of just how many times those emails would be sent out, irritating other users and damaging their reputation. LinkedIn denies any wrongdoing on its part and is is sticking to its “We totally got your permission to do this” defense.
Delta Airlines
After the US soccer team’s thrilling victory over Ghana in the World Cup, Delta Airlines rushed to take advantage of the real-time marketing opportunity, tweeting this picture to congratulate the US team.
Moments later, Twitter users started pointing out that Ghana does not have any giraffes in it, chiding Delta on its ignorance for using the animal to represent the country. In addition, many thought the tweet was slightly racist, using the Statue of Liberty to represent America, while using a wild animal to represent Ghana. Delta scrambled to delete the picture and apologize for any offence. Oh airlines, you just can’t win at social media can you?
Marissa Mayer
Yahoo’s usually charismatic CEO came under fire for a her decidedly uncreative presentation at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Wednesday. Audience members were not impressed with Mayer’s convoluted art/advertising analogies, awkward stage props, and shameless self-promotion for Yahoo, and they took to Twitter to criticize her. Apparently the one thing you can’t do at a festival to celebrate advertising is advertise yourself.
