spotify brunch ad

This week we learned: Data drives outdoor ads, kids get a messenger of their very own & animated ads are all the rage

Hey there friends and welcome back to another edition of our (mostly) weekly ad news round-up. Big changes in the Facebook world this week and of course, as 2017 winds down, brands are debuting both their year-end spots and new year's resolutions. 

Facebook remains ever the social media behemoth, so it makes sense that it's the platform with the most changes, updates and new product offering. Now in preview mode: Messenger Kids. The idea for this standalone app is that it's controlled through a parent's Facebook profile, so that moms and dads can approve their kids' contact lists. Not only can kids chat with grandparents, cousins and friends, there are also fun features like group video chats and Snapchat-esque masks. 

In more Facebook news, they've launched a "Did You Know" feature. This is Facebook buying the TBH app popular with teens to ask anonymous questions. If you're looking to find it and test it out, go to the Interests section of your own profile or scroll through the list of options from your newsfeed and select "answer a question." This is Facebook going after that younger demographic, getting more info about them and trying to make it a fun place to spend time. 

Snapchat, ever the innovator, did a whole redesign, simplifying the app into three main windows: friends, camera, discover. The Discover feed will sort content from media partners and celebrities, but everything will be verified by Snap employees, presumably to avoid a Fake News propaganda-type content. 

Are you seeing more cartoon characters on your various devices? It's not just you, animated ads are definitely on the rise. Since this blog post is coming to you from Outcrop's Yellowknife office, we'd be remiss not to include the example from KFC. (For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this frontier city, Yellowknife loves its fried chicken.)

And finally, we're gonna take you back to the old school, because this out of home (that's ad-speak for posters and billboards etc) campaign for Spotify is just *chef's kiss*. Spotify is known for mining its data to create the best user experience (Think weekly discover playlists based on what you listen to most) and they're now using that data to create cheeky billboards. Under the heading "2018 Goals," each poster provides a playlist-based factoid that may or may not provide some very necessary and cathartic social commentary, or might just be good fun. You're right, Spotify, we DO want to hit the dance floor with whomever made a "Daddy Pence Come Dance" playlist. 

That's all for this week as we catch up on trends and campaigns we might not have seen while travelling/devouring non-ad news. Is there a particular update we should cover? How are you feeling about all the holiday ads? Not over them yet, we hope -- they'll be on for another two weeks! 

As always, feel free to reach out to us on social: @outcropcom@outcropnunavut and @outcropyukon on Twitter and Outcrop Communications on Facebook.