Australian software developer and cybersecurity expert, Mick Esber, will this September launch the beta version of bhapi, a safe social media platform he has developed for Apple and Android.

Reddit has made its official debut on Australian shores and brought on former marketer, digital strategist and Woolies X leader, David Ray, as its country manager.

Half of the Federal Government’s $6 million digital advertising spend over the past 15 months has been related to Covid, but just $32,000 of it reflects vaccine-related messaging.

Facebook Shops is expanding to WhatsApp and Marketplace and developing new ways for businesses to personalise ads and use new technologies to enhance the shopping experience.

Winning over generation Z has seen Afterpay, Samsung and Mars Wrigley populating Tik Tok, Snapchat and Twitch with video campaigns to coincide with product promotions.

Long before COVID-19 made it an essential service, Menulog faced a challenge. Australia’s original online multi-outlet food ordering service had come under pressure from well-funded arrivals such as Deliveroo, DoorDash and Uber Eats, which had connected better with Gen Z consumers.

The pandemic has accelerated the shift to online shopping, and with it has come innovative ways retailers and brands are connecting with consumers. Livestreaming is one of the growing new ways consumers can shop in real time while watching live videos.

All the latest martech, customer and adtech news from Salesforce, Taboola, Oracle, Klaviyo, Salesforce, SugarCRM, Twilio, GRIN, ADA and Styra

Beauty brand, LÓreal, has become the latest organisation to join the Australian Influencer Marketing Council (AiMCO) as part of efforts to elevate transparency of its influencer marketing practices. The news comes as a fresh global report highlights a raft of other Australian brands appearing to breach the recently introduced AANA Code of Ethics despite growing legal action against those who don’t follow the guidelines.

Carbar, by its own admission, is a brand with a complex proposition. “We have a complicated story to tell, and to tell it, we needed to nail our proposition, build a category, establish a new audience and educate them on our service,” Carbar CMO, Kieron Wogan said.

A new industry code has been launched aimed at reducing misinformation on digital platforms. It comes in the wake of the Digital Platforms inquiry, conducted by the Australian Communications and Consumer Commission (ACCC), into the dominance of the platforms and the News Media Bargaining Code currently in parliament.

Clubhouse is the latest social hit, an invite-only audio chat app that just seems to be the right thing at the right time. And having Tesla’s Elon Musk tweeting about it to his 40 million followers doesn’t hurt. Marketers need to know they’ll probably learn more about Clubhouse by reading about it than by using it, at least to begin with. But nonetheless it pays to be ahead of the curve.

If last year was the wake-up call for Millennials, buffeted by the economic and social storm of the pandemic, this year represents a resetting of priorities.

With the swiftness of response by social media giants to remove President Trump’s from their platforms following the violent attack on Washington DC last week, it was easy to lose sight of other news around brands choosing to use – or not use – these platforms. Yet just before Christmas, Unilever confirmed it will cease its boycott of social media platforms and recommence its presence from January 2021.

Tapping into Snapchat’s full-body augmented reality (AR) lens is allowing Sweat a fresh take on social media engagement as its debuts the latest new year Sweat Challenge, its CEO says.

Google’s plans to retire third-party cookies from its Chrome browser may have hit a snag with news the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is investigating the proposal to assess whether it will distort competition. It comes after complaints of anticompetitive behaviour by Google and that the changes concentrate ad spend in the Google ecosystem and further entrench its market power.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is once again instigating proceedings against Facebook, this time for allegedly misusing consumer data relating to a VPN app for marketing purposes.

Three leading brands have taken to TikTok with fresh user content-driven marketing campaigns aimed at elevating engagement with younger audiences.

2020 has challenged – and changed - how brands and marketers use social media. Some have scrambled to make a rapid move to the digital environment, while others have followed users as they’ve embraced and altered the ways they use social media.

The average time spent on social media has grown by 30 per cent during the COVID-19 crisis, according to an L&A Social census.This increase in social media usage, coupled with the shift towards ecommerce, has created a commercial imperative for brands and businesses to understand consumer behaviour across social platforms, according to the agency.​

Utilising new social channels such as Tiktok and partnering with surprising ambassadors is key to bringing WW wider brand story around health and wellness to life to new audiences, its local marketing chief says.