Global Marketing News – 27th July 2016
Verizon buys Yahoo’s search advertising arm
Verizon Communications has bought Yahoo’s search advertising operations for 5 billion US dollars.
Marissa Mayer, chief executive of Yahoo, said that Yahoo had changed the world and “will continue to do so through this combination with Verizon and AOL”.
Mayer also said in an internal email that she planned to stay at the company.
The American internet company announced earlier this year that it was looking towards “strategic alternatives” for its internet business.
Since 2012, when Mayer took the role of chief executive, the company has failed to return to profit, with Yahoo reporting a 440 million US dollar loss in the second quarter of this year.
Verizon has also recently bought AOL for 4.4 billion US dollars, giving it ownership of the Huffington Post, TechCrunch and other online news outlets.
China bans original news reporting
The Chinese internet regulator has ordered news companies to stop reporting original news.
In the latest effort by the government to limit the information and web industries, The Cyberspace Administration Of China has targeted companies like Sina Corp and Tencent Holdings.
The news outlets will now have to report identically-worded articles apparently provided by an unnamed source in the agencies’ Beijing offices.
The Chinese newspaper, The Paper On Sunday, said that companies like Sohu and NetEase had “seriously violated” regulations by carrying original content, and that they had caused “huge negative effects”.
The ban now gives authorities in the country near-complete control over news distributed over the web, and lets them control published political opinion.
This is just the latest in a string of strict regulations, after new rules aimed at reducing mobile app freedom were introduced earlier this month.
President Xi has said in the past that it is important for the Chinese media to follow the interests of the country and its ruling party.
South Koreans are highly engaged by in-app ads
A new study has found that smartphone users in South Korea are highly engaged by in-app ads.
Research from June 2016 on the use of smartphones in the country found that over two-thirds of users clicked on in-app advertising.
When the study was split by gender, it showed that over 70% of females clicked on the ads whilst only 64% of males did the same.
However, another aspect of the study, which looked into the reasons why people clicked on the ads, showed that 68% of people said they clicked on them by accident, and only 1.4% did it to purchase the product advertised.
According to eMarketer, levels of engagement for in-app ads are dependent on the app’s category, with shopping, games and social content being the most effective.
Grab and Lippo Group to develop digital payments system
The ride-hailing app, Grab, has announced plans to introduce a digital payment method with the Lippo Group.
The Malaysian app sent out a statement saying that “Lippo Group will develop a universal payments platform”, which Grab will then integrate with.
The Lippo Group owns chains across Indonesia including department shops, supermarkets, cinemas and the ecommerce site Matahari Mall.
Grab’s statement also refers to these areas of the business as usable with Lippo’s new payment app.
Expected to be rolled out just before the end of the year, the payment platform is to be targeted at both companies’ combined “50 million existing customers”.
Grab’s main competitor in Indonesia is Go-Jek, which recently expanded its digital payment option called Go-Pay.
Alibaba names Australia and New Zealand as next target markets
And finally, Alibaba Group’s President, Michael Evans, has visited Australia on a roadshow educating companies about how Alibaba can benefit them.
The Chinese ecommerce giant is looking to expand further into international markets and has recently said that Australia and New Zealand are its next targets.
Speaking at one of the events, Evans said the potential for the company’s growth is enormous, and that “ANZ is one of our key markets”, and that a strong position there would “advance our global goal of serving two billion consumers”.
Currently, 1,300 Australian brands are on Alibaba’s Tmall site, with 80% of those entering China for the first time via the platform.
Evans’ visit to the region comes at the same time as the Chinese brand looks to open its first office in the Australian city of Melbourne.
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Cal O'Connell
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