We couldn’t see it coming, but it has happened… Yoghurt brand Activia’s Brazilian-themed ‘Trackvert’ has overtaken that Super Bowl ad from Volkswagen ‘The Force’ to claim the crown of most shared ad of all time.

The figures, from social video marketing platform Unruly, show that Activia’s music video ad, released in partnership with the World Food Programme and featuring Colombian pop starlet Shakira, overtook Volkswagen’s ‘The Force’, which had held the number one spot since February 2011, with a whopping 5,498,593 shares versus VW’s reigning 5,272,500 (at time of writing).

The Activia ad has also been viewed on YouTube a staggering 315,439,228 times!

Let me speak in defense of the click for a moment.

There's no term I find more puzzling in modern media jargon than "clickbait." A story lives to be told. Writers write for their readers. What does a storyteller long for more than a rapt listener?

Back in the early days of the Web, the click was novel, a brain-busting rush of seemingly endless information. We clicked and clicked and clicked, surfing the Web until we reached the end of the Internet.

Two decades on, the click has become a trick—one some disillusioned scribes played on their readers, who may not have been aware they were involved in a game.

Got your eyes set on China? Don’t take the plunge before you’ve read this…

In a land seen as the holy grail of growth it seems every industry wants to know the secrets to building their brand in China. With its huge population, vast geography, exploding wealth, a great appetite for brands – and let’s not forget some enticing government-backed incentives for select businesses to invest in China – what’s not to love about this economic powerhouse, and what could possibly go wrong?

I’ve been working globally for nearly 25 years, and I’ve seen countless examples where the local team exaggerate consumer differences to justify their own marketing initiatives. I’ve also worked on and lead countless cross-country projects where the team’s first meetings are peppered with cultural gaffs and insults but end with hugs and “hi-fives”. “People are people” is my mantra and I firmly believe that we are bound more by common values than differences. However, when it comes to China it is how well you acknowledge the differences that will make or break your brand, campaign, project, team or business.

Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen an explosion in the number of screens, devices and services available to watch TV, but how has this affected the way video is consumed?

Global broadcast solutions provider BroadStream has released a new infographic that looks at the changes in viewing habits over the last decade. It found that 85% of people still prefer to watch TV on the biggest screen in their home, as well as watching their favourite shows live rather than on catch-up services.

Check out the infographic below for more findings about TV viewing then and now.

The most common mistakes in Millennial marketing, so you can avoid them - written by a Millennial.

Millennials are a tricky bunch. They're a huge generation raised on tech, hyper-speed media, and rapid-fire cultural change, making them difficult for previous generations, not to mention marketers, to understand. At Ypulse we've studied Millennials day in and day out for a decade, and for every successful campaign aimed at young consumers that we see, there are three more that miss the mark. Luckily, we've rounded up some of the biggest, most common mistakes we've seen in Millennial marketing, so you can avoid making them.

Robin Williams sadly died on Mon 11^th August, 2014 at the age of 63 following a long, hard battle with depression. But as fans around the world took to social media to mourn the loss of, who for many was, a childhood favourite, they weren’t the only ones paying tributes…

Here are a few of our top most moving tributes:

1. Apple - “Remembering Robin Williams”

In a rare but special move, global tech giant Apple has set up a dedicated ‘Remembering Robin Williams’ tribute web page on its website.

Imagine the scenario: It’s planning time and budgets are still really tough. Many consultancies and agencies will be talking to their clients about incremental growth, incremental volume, incremental profit, and incremental process improvements.

It’s such a lovely, feel-good adjective. It’s like the growth is there so long as you can find best practice, harness capability and galvanise action… yes, this is straight from the manual of consultants’ ‘bullshit bingo’. 

The problem with ‘incremental’ is that it says improvement, but with no real effort or worse, anything will do. While businesses are shuffling the deck chairs looking for internal best practice, the consumers and market are making their own best practice. And, at a pace that will outrun any ‘ways of working’ manual or online toolkit.

Very generally speaking, the consumer buying cycle can be broken down into three stages: awareness; consideration; and purchase. Traditionally, this was quite fragmented across platforms, while digital has meant that you can theoretically hit all the stages online, in many ways it has also made the process more complex.

According to Forrester, today’s buyer could be anywhere between two thirds and 90% of the way through their buying cycle before reaching out directly to the brand, because they are now so much more in control of the process. Furthermore, that process is now much more fluid and non-linear. 

This creates a problem for marketers who are trying to target particular consumers along this journey. Fortunately, the amount of data available online today means there is help at hand for marketers to prepare more targeted media plans. Publishers know their readers and the kind of content experiences that resonate with them most, and now the data and tools are available to engage with those consumers more efficiently. Indeed, now that we have all this information, marketers are urged to engage with consumers in more personalised ways online.