brand-e

All three of the UK’s main political parties are failing miserably in their use of new digital channels to reach voters, according to a report released by UK advertising agency Cheetham Bell JWT on the eve of today’s local elections.

Coca-Cola has allied with Spotify, but Pepsi has Twitter – the beverage brand is partnering with the microblog to provide streamed live music concerts and Pepsi will use the Pulse platform it launched last year to host the content. “Pepsi’s first of its kind Twitter music partnership will enhance consumers’ music experiences and bring them closer to what is hot in music today,” says the brand. “The Twitter partnership will kick off in the US in early May.”

Most executives have no idea how to harness social media’s power – though companies diligently establish Twitter feeds and branded Facebook pages, few have a deep understanding of how social media interacts with consumers to expand product and brand recognition, drive sales and profitability, and engender loyalty, says McKinsey in the Demystifying Social Media article in the McKinsey Quarterly.

BMW will show off a series of sound works presented during the inaugural programme for Frieze New York in May. Frieze Sounds will feature three audio works from commissioned artists Martin Creed, Rick Moody and Frances Stark. For Frieze Sounds, Creed will compose a short song that doubles as a hypnotic lullaby. Moody will produce a sound version of The Undependable Global Positioning System, a literary composition that will function as an ‘anti-destination device’.

Pinterest might be largely for the girls – though the boys are finally starting to get it and come onboard too – but that hasn’t stopped Premier League football from joining in the digital-pinboarding fun in the shape of Liverpool Football Club. So, we asked the brand-e campaigns panel what they made of it. “Football is not a natural choice for Pinterest, supposedly the home of women, weddings and cakes,” says Nadya Powell of Dare London.

The majority of television viewers have noticed – and are familiar with how to interact with – social media symbols while watching TV. A survey conducted by Accenture found that one third of respondents have actually interacted with such symbols while watching TV by ‘liking’ a TV programme on Facebook (20%), scanning a QR code (11%), searching for the hashtag on Twitter (7%), or scanning the Shazam symbol (5%).

Coca-Cola has launched its Olympics My Beat Maker app, which detects the movements of users’ phones and converts them into music so they can make their own beats. The music is based on the official Coca-Cola anthem for the London 2012 Olympic Games – Mark Ronson featuring Katy B’s Anywhere in the World. And when that beat is ready, users can upload and share it to The Global Beat, the brand’s global musical collaboration.

Data analysis and visualisation have become indispensable business tools, but in the hands of digital artists, data is undergoing a metamorphosis – from a unit of information into a fascinating, beautiful, and expressive medium, writes Aaron Koblin, head of Google’s Data Arts Team, in the latest Think Quarterly: Creativity, from Google.