The UK’s top storytelling brands 2015

Technology brands have overtaken FMCG favourites, such as Cadbury and Walkers, as those rated best for storytelling, new research shows. Although Apple retains the top spot in the 2015 Brand Storytelling report by marketing agency Aesop, fellow tech names Xbox (fifth), Samsung (seventh), PlayStation (eighth), Google (ninth) and Facebook (10th) also break into the top 10 for the first time. The report, now in its third year, surveyed 2,800 UK adults about their views on 154 major brands. Respondents rated all of the brands they were familiar with against nine criteria, including the brands they feel have “a clear sense of purpose and vision”, those that “produce content you want to share or talk about” and those where “you are intrigued to see what they will do next”. Aesop took an average of the scores across all the criteria to create the ranking of the top storytelling brands. The rise of technology brands has come at the expense of the food and drink category. Cadbury falls from second place in 2014 to 27th, McDonald’s is down from third to 43rd, Walkers from fifth to 29th and Coca-Cola from sixth to 39th. Ed Woodcock, director of narrative at Aesop, suggests that technology brands are performing strongly because they are seen as “platforms for other people’s stories”. Increased investment in advertising by these brands, such as Facebook’s ongoing TV campaign, may also have boosted their storytelling credentials in the public’s eyes. Meanwhile, seasoned advertisers such as McDonald’s have slid down the ranking at a time when they are struggling to create growth within their own businesses. “Tech brands are now with us day in, day out,” notes Woodcock. “They are in our hands, taking up a lot of mental space in the way that FMCG brands used to. Now the brands that we’re closest to are the ones on our screens.” Supermarket brands are also big fallers in this year’s report, with no UK supermarket making it into the top 20 for the first time. Marks & Spencer is the top-performing grocer, coming in at 22nd, while Morrisons sees the biggest fall as it drops out of the top 100 from 47th place last year to 111th. Woodcock suggests that Morrisons has struggled to tell a coherent story owing to its internal challenges this year, which include a management overhaul and a 52% slide in profits in March. Only 13% of respondents cite the retailer as a brand they ‘feel an emotional connection with’, while just 15% say it produces content that is ‘memorable’. Similarly, the UK’s biggest supermarket chain Tesco has seen a dramatic fall in its storytelling ranking from 27th in 2014 to 51st this year. Tesco announced its biggest ever loss in April and has also undergone significant internal restructuring over the past year, prompting it to put brand storytelling efforts on hold. Last month, it launched its first TV advertising campaign with new agency BBH, in which it is seeking to breathe new life into its ‘Every little helps’ strapline. Discount retailer Lidl outperforms all of the ‘big four’ supermarkets, coming in 29th. The retailer launched its widely praised #Lidlsurprises campaign by agency TBWA last year and scores strongly in the report (33%) for ‘vision and purpose’. “I don’t think Tesco knows what it is about anymore,” says Woodcock. “I know it’s sorting out its strategy, but is it about value, food, or breadth of offer? It used to be very clear about what ‘Every little helps’ means, but I’m not quite sure what that stands for in this day and age.” Purposeful storytelling Certain business categories appear better disposed to storytelling than others. The charity sector, for example, is the best performing category overall for the second year running, with each of the charities included in the sample featuring in the top 20. Macmillan Cancer Support is second, while Cancer Research UK is sixth, followed by the British Heart Foundation (12th) and Oxfam (16th). Although charities lend themselves to emotional, purposeful storytelling, other categories such as financial services and utilities struggle to tell stories that the public cares about. Npower is the lowest ranked brand at 154th, while British Gas makes it to only 143rd place. By contrast, SSE performs relatively strongly, coming in 89th. Woodcock attributes this to the success of its advertising this year, in which a CGI orangutan is seen wandering around a city environment marvelling at the things powered by electricity. By focusing on creativity, emotional resonance and purpose in this way, brands from all sectors can strike a chord with the public, he claims. “SSE hasn’t shied away from its central purpose – providing energy,” says Woodcock. “With many utility brands it’s the last thing they talk about. When a brand talks about what it’s here to do, it helps people to understand its purpose in their lives.”

US air strike targets 'Jihadi John' in Syria

A US strike on Syria that targeted British militant "Jihadi John" was "an act of self defence", Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday while acknowledging his death was "not yet certain". Mohammed EmwaziCameron said the operation against Mohammed Emwazi, who appears in a string of graphic videos showing the execution of Western hostages, was a combined British-US effort. "We cannot yet be certain if the strike was successful," Cameron said in a statement delivered outside his Downing Street office. If it was confirmed, it would be "a strike at the heart of Isil," he said, using an alternative term for the Islamic State militant (IS) group. But analysts said the impact of his death would likely be symbolic rather than tactical for the jihadist group which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria and is known for perpetrating widespread atrocities. The Pentagon said Thursday's air strike hit Raqa, the group's de facto capital in war-torn Syria. "Emwazi, a British citizen, participated in the videos showing the murders of US journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, and a number of other hostages," the Pentagon said.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said four people were killed in a strike in Raqa late on Thursday. "The car was hit in the centre of town, near the municipality building," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said, quoting sources who said one of the victims was a "senior British member of the group". - Executioner with an accent - Emwazi, a London computer programmer, was born in Kuwait to a stateless family of Iraqi origin. His parents moved to Britain in 1993 after their hopes of obtaining Kuwaiti citizenship were quashed. Dubbed "Jihadi John" by British and US media, he first appeared in a video in August 2014 showing the beheading of Foley, a 40-year-old American freelance journalist who was captured in Syria in November 2012. Foley is seen kneeling on the ground, dressed in an orange outfit resembling those worn by prisoners held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay. Emwazi is dressed entirely in black and wears a mask. Foley's mother Diane told ABC News that if Emwazi's death were confirmed, it would be "small solace" to his family. "Jihadi John" was six years old when his family moved to London. He grew up in North Kensington, a leafy middle-class area where a network of Islamist extremists was uncovered in recent years. As a child he reportedly was a fan of Manchester United football club and the band S Club 7 who went on to study information technology at the University of Westminster. Court papers published by British media connected Emwazi to a network of extremists known as "The London Boys" that were originally trained by the Shebab, Al-Qaeda's East Africa affiliate.

EU leaders approve 1.8-billion-euro migrant 'trust fund' for Africa

European Union leaders have agreed on a 1.8-billion-euro "trust fund" for Africa, aimed at tackling the main causes of mass-migration. Brussels hopes the amount can be doubled with contributions from member states.European heads of government attending a summit with their African counterparts on Thursday approved the fund, with Brussels calling on EU nations to pledge more. "For the Africa Trust Fund and our response to be credible, I want to see more member states contributing and matching the 1.8 billion euros ($1.9 billion) the EU has put forward," European Commission President Juncker said as EU leaders signed the deal. The European Commission has been establishing the trust to tackle causes of migration such as poverty and armed conflict. It has urged member states to collectively match the figure. At the end of the summit on Thursday, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, warned that Europe's passport-free Shengen area could collapse "without effective control of our external borders." "We must hurry," he added, "but without panic."The money is, in part, aimed at persuading African leaders to take back more economic migrants, with many countries reluctant to lose out on money sent back from their citizens living in Africa.Mahamadou Issoufou, president of Niger, said the trust fund would be "far from enough." "What we want is not just official develpoment assistance in this form but reform of global governance," he added, calling for fairer world trade and more investment in Africa. Senegalese President Macky Sall has taken issue with EU demands that African countries take back failed asylum seekers and other migrants. "Europe is insisting too much on this aspect," Sall said, claiming it was "discriminatory" to expel Africans while keeping Syrian refugees. Sall also noted that most migrants to Europe do not come from his continent. The European Asylum Support Office says that - between January and September - the top five areas of origin for the more than 1 million asylum seekers registered in EU states were Syria, the Western Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. EU leaders were meeting separately on Thursday to discuss migration from Turkey, which has now surpassed North Africa as the main launch point for migrants and refugees coming to Europe. However, migration from the world's poorest continent is seen as a more long-term issue.

Exxon: Attacking The Media Over Climate Change Research

Beginning in the 1970s, Exxon conducted research that confirmed the occurrence of climate change, and that the burning of fossil fuels is a major contributor to it. But--at the direction of then-CEO Lee Raymond--the company kept the research quiet. Then it spent the better part of two decades funding groups that denied the science of climate change. That's the conclusion of a recent series of reports, which appear to have the company--now ExxonMobil--hot and bothered. ExxonMobil is attacking the media outlets that published these reports, which indicates it views the situation as a crisis in the making, argues Quartz. And that concern may not be unfounded. Politicians and social-action groups are calling for investigations into ExxonMobil's activities, arguing that they constitute deception over a potential public health risk.That would put ExxonMobil in the same position as tobacco companies, which in the 1950s and '60s conducted internal research that showed tobacco to be a health hazard and highly addictive. They suppressed this evidence, and funded public campaigns saying otherwise. The companies were eventually prosecuted for hiding the risks of smoking. The charges against ExxonMobil rest on a series of reports from the online newsletter Inside Climate News and the Los Angeles Times, based on a trove of publicly-accessible but little-known company documents.They include roughly a decade's worth of climate-change studies, published beginning in 1977. The studies consistently lined up with what has largely become the consensus of the mainstream scientific community--that the planet is heating up, and that the burning of fossil fuels is largely to blame. But beginning in the 1980s, the company embraced a policy of emphasizing the controversy of climate-change science, which ramped up in the 1990s with a campaign to discredit findings that indicated the occurrence of climate change.ExxonMobil's attitude has softened somewhat. In 2009, under current CEO Rex Tillerson, it endorsed the idea of a carbon tax. It denies that it deliberately hid evidence of climate change, and officials have called Inside Climate News an "activist" organization, and accused it of biased reporting. In response to the reports, 40 environmental and social-action groups drafted a letter demanding a Federal investigation into whether Exxon squelched evidence of climate change. Similar demands were also made by three Democratic presidential candidates: Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley. New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman is already investigating the company, reportsBut the case may not be as clear cut as it was with the tobacco companies.That's because the work conducted by Exxon's in-house researchers has never been kept secret. And while the company has funded some dubious research, its own researchers' findings have generally lined up with those of other climatologists. But if a case can be made against ExxonMobil, it could open up a new legal front in the war over climate change.

Justin Trudeau to push middle-class message in debut on world stage

Justin Trudeau will push for investment over austerity to help the middle class as he makes his debut on the world stage as Canada's prime minister. Trudeau leaves Friday to attend the G20 Leaders' Summit in Antalya, Turkey, his first foreign trip in a busy series of international summits. He and other world leaders will tackle a range of issues ranging from youth unemployment to migration and refugees.During a news conference Thursday, the prime minister said the need for "inclusive growth" will be at the centre of his discussions with colleagues from around the world. "I'll be talking about the fact that in order to create more global growth, particularly in support of the middle class around the globe, we need to be investing in our countries' future. We need to be investing in the kinds of opportunities that are going to allow us to grow and continue to flourish as nations," Trudeau said. Trudeau will meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and other world leaders, including those of China, Mexico and Italy on the margins of the summit, before traveling to Manila for the Asia-Pacific Economic Partnership (APEC). There, he's expected to press for leader-level commitments to tackle economic challenges and will hold a bilateral meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama. And before he sets off for the next round of international meetings, Trudeau will sit down with the premiers on Nov. 23, one week before the United Nations climate change summit in Paris. This will be the first time in six years that a prime minister has sat down provincial and territorial premiers. Trudeau's office said the invites have been extended to all first ministers, but the list of attendees has yet not been confirmed. Meeting 'bodes well for the future,' Selinger says Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger, a New Democrat, sees the meeting as a good sign for federal-provincial relations. Selinger said Canada should strive to use climate change as the impetus to create green jobs and infrastructure to stir a sluggish economy. "Obviously, none of these things are easily done, but we see the upside as being opportunities for innovation, doing things in new ways," he said Trudeau said he and the premiers will receive a briefing from top climate scientists before sitting down for a working dinner "to exactly discuss the kind of strong and cohesive message we will be delivering as Canadians." The last first ministers' meeting was held in early 2009. At the time, then prime minister Stephen Harper gathered with premiers to discuss the economy after the 2008 global financial crisis. From that time on, Harper met with premiers one on one. Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley suspects there will be a "fair amount of consensus" on the climate change agenda. "I'm looking forward to being able to have a more co-operative and collaborative relationship between the prime minister and all of the premiers again because I think all Canadians benefit from having these first ministers conference.

Saudi Arabia launches climate change PR drive

Riyadh claims 16% of global crude oil reserves, second only to Venezuela, and is home to the planet’s fifth largest natural gas reserves. The Gulf Kingdom has long been accused of underhand efforts to slow or block global climate talks, but appears keen to show journalists it’s on board with plans for a new UN pact. A website launched for COP21 offers pictures of solar panels, a foreword from the country’s oil minister dated 2014 and a cheery ‘meet the team’ section. One email from an account owned by state oil producer Saudi Aramco offers media a sense of “six things you need to know” about the Paris summit, known as COP21. “The event is of significance to a wide range of audiences and seen as highly important,” it says, adding later “the consequences of climate change could be significant and lasting.” Committed player Another mailshot sent on Thursday quotes Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser assuring the world that the government is “committed to playing its part”. The kingdom’s strategy at the talks, he adds, will be to “maintain our position as the world’s largest, most reliable oil and gas producer”. Liz Gallagher, head of climate diplomacy at the E3G think tank told Climate Home the Saudi awakening ahead of Paris is not unusual. “Saudi Arabia has a tendency to increase their PR exposure ahead of COPs – over the past year they’ve made some positive and negative contributions to the climate talks,” she said. “This recent example demonstrates they understand that the Paris moment and agreement will profoundly alter their economy.” Saudi Arabia’s wall of shame – December 2009: Negotiator Mohammad Al-Sabban is accused of undermining scientific evidence base for a UN deal in Copenhagen – April 2013: Saudi Arabia calls for climate change to be omitted from the UN’s 2015 Sustainable Development Goals. – April 2015: Negotiations to cut the use of HFCs, Saudi Arabia refuses to begin discussions: ‘We will never agree in one year, five years, or 100 years’ says Taha Zatari, head of delegation. – May 2015: Ali Al-Naimi, the country’s oil minister, says idea of ending reliance on fossil fuels needs to be put ‘in the back of our heads for a while’ – In June 2015 country takes lead blocking reference to a UN report about the need to stabilise temperatures to below 1.5C Earlier this week Saudi Arabia submitted its contribution to a UN climate deal, proposing “mitigation co-benefits” of up to 130 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year by 2030 The plan, known in UN jargon as an INDC, was an historic step from the country, but was heavily criticised for being too vague and lacking any clear carbon emission reduction figures. Riyadh says it will generate 23.9 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2020 and 54GW by 2032 through its Renewable Energy Programme (REP), launched in 2012. But sceptics point to the country’s lack of climate change related laws and absolute economy-wide targets as further evidence its green energy drive is more spin than reality. Plans for 40,000 megawatts (MW) of solar power by 2032 have been pushed back to 2040, and so far only 25MW of solar has been installed in the sun-drenched state, less than Germany. In a sign of Saudi Arabia’s significance, the UN and France have invested heavily in diplomatic efforts to assuage its concerns over a deal. A recent Saudi-French communique stressed the need for a long-term transition for all countries towards low GHG emitting development and the importance of avoiding warming above 2C. And in an interview with the New Yorker UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said she understood why the country saw proposals for ‘decarbonisation’ in a Paris deal as a threat. “The Saudis are sitting on a vast reserve of very cheap oil,” she said. “Can you blame them for trying to protect that resource and that income for as long as they can? I don’t blame them. It’s very understandable.”

2016 Predictions: Key Trends Will Transform Mobile Engagement

2016 will be the most consequential year for companies on the path to customer obsession, and that includes adapting to empowered customers who expect to get anything they want immediately, in context on their mobile devices. Today that represents nearly 50% of consumers in the U.S. alone. The consumers pick up their mobile devices 150 to 200 times a day. In aggregate, that adds up to nearly 30 billion mobile moments each day. These mobile moments are the next battleground where companies will win, serve and retain their customers. Tragically, few companies will make the leap. Those that do will reap the rewards. What role does mobile play in customer obsession, and how can businesses leapfrog their competition to deliver superior customer experiences? Here are three ways Forrester predicts mobile will change the ways business leaders operate in 2016. 1. Mobile will act as a catalyst to transform businesses in the Age of the Customer. Mobile is the tail that wags the dog that is digital business transformation. Mobile is changing the way businesses have to operate and serve customers. It is the central force in the Age of the Customer. In 2016, the gap between customer-obsessed leaders who will embrace mobile as a means to create new value and laggards who consider mobile to be a stand-alone channel will widen. Today just 14% of companies surveyed use mobile to try to transform their customers' experiences. Most companies will fail to create the business case for the tens if not hundreds of millions in spend they need to transform how they engage with consumers. Simple use cases from Apple Pay to Starbucks order-head to mobile boarding passes for airline flights may seem like simple apps, but the execution no doubt cost tens of millions and took years if not longer. Those companies that do embrace mobile as a means to transform customer experiences will accelerate the business benefits they reap in the form of new revenue, cost savings and consumer loyalty derived from higher satisfaction and delight. 2. Ownership of mobile moments will continue to consolidate. Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon in the US and Baidu, Tencent, Xiaomi and Alibaba in China are aggressively building, buying and amassing the audience and data or information about consumers they need to dominate consumer mindshare on mobile devices. This trend will continue in 2016. Retailers, banks and travel apps collectively garner less than 10-15% of mobile moments as measured in minutes. Consumers will download and use branded apps where they shop and bank, but consumers do not have unlimited bandwidth to hop in and out of lots of individual apps to get stuff done. Already today in the US, consumers spend 84% of their time each month in five or fewer apps. Third parties like Google and Facebook will extract content and services from third party apps and use context to reassemble them into streamlined task flows and curated content that offers unprecedented convenience to consumers. Consumer brands must look to partner with mobile leaders to serve their customers in addition to supporting their own apps.3. Need for mobile automation will fuel massive technology investments. Thirty billion mobile moments each day in the US demands a technology that can help businesses automate how they engage with consumers. In exchange for sharing vast amounts of information with companies via accounts, purchases and mobile apps, consumers expect companies to use that context to deliver relevant services and content. Unlike the web however that offers all things to all people, mobile serves individuals with just want they want in their moment of need. Where the web is static, mobile is dynamic and depends on context. Companies lack the talent and tools today to ingest information, develop insights, make decisions about how to serve customers and take action in real time. They will depend on technology and experts who understand mobile well to do so. Vendors who help companies automate and master serving their customers in their mobile moments will elevate their valuations and attractiveness to larger enterprise solutions targeting CMOs. In 2016, marketing tech vendors will find themselves at an arms race to provide not just automation, but machine learning to derive insights from big data and campaign optimization. They will focus on improving data management capabilities and predictive algorithms. In the end, a majority of firms will struggle to cope with growing mobile expectations from customers and will simply think of mobile as channel to optimize their conversion rates. However, CMOs and CIOs at companies that do incorporate mobile into their overall strategy will cooperate to execute cross channel integration of mobile across the customer life-cycle and to prioritize the integration of mobile with backend systems. This will allow them to evolve their culture, organizations and process to leapfrog competition.