Monday Marketing News: Matte PR, Facebook, and more!

Today we feature a round-up of some big events and recent industry happenings.

• Matte PR announces new client win
• Facebook’s forward-looking product strategy
• Cresta Awards sees upturn as Ad spend returns

Read more below!

Matte PR announces new client win

Canadian PR firm, Matte PR, is now representing Unknown Articles — the boutique men’s footwear brand based in Toronto, creating leather boots influenced by music subculture, rebellion and youth.

The agency will be working with the label executing media relations and stylist engagement campaigns both locally and globally.

Leading the brand are founders and self-taught designers, Cameron Wright and David Zahedi. All of their luxury essential boots are designed in the Unknown Articles’ Toronto studio and individually handcrafted in small batches in the region of Marche, Italy.

Among the circle of early wearers is TikTok star Chase Hudson, an influencer popularizing the e-boy trend among youth.

Facebook’s forward-looking product strategy

The shift to e-commerce over the past year resulted in a permanent shift in people’s behaviour and is an opportunity for our industry to innovate once again. To do this, Facebook is focusing on product innovations in four areas:

• Privacy-enhancing technologies: Developing privacy-enhancing technologies to help minimize the amount of personal information processed, while still allowing them to show relevant ads and measure ad effectiveness.
• Product and business discovery: Helping people discover products and services that are meaningful to them will continue to be at the core of how they build their products.
• Commerce: New intention to bring ads and commerce products closer together by helping businesses personalize the shopping experience with ads, expanding opportunities to sell through Shops on WhatsApp and Marketplace (in the US), and investing in immersive technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) ads that encourage people to “try-on” products of interest.
• Business tools beyond marketing: Facebook will keep pushing to develop products and tools giving businesses what they need while requiring fewer clicks and choices, and less day-to-day management. Their goal is to help businesses run their business across apps easily with Facebook Business Suite, and expanding Messenger API for Instagram as customers increasingly rely on messaging instead of phone calls.

Although our products are changing to meet fast-evolving needs, the mission is the same: build meaningful connections between people and businesses.

Cresta Awards Sees Upturn as Ad Spend Returns

With a few weeks to go before final closing, this year's Cresta Awards has surpassed its entries for the whole 2019 season. The 'global creative benchmark' sees this as evidence, not just of evolution in its own awards but of a wider measure of industry confidence and resilience in many markets.

Lewis Blackwell, Cresta CEO, said: “Last year the global situation meant we had to respond dramatically. The best way to continue with our awards, for the industry's benefit, was to offer free entry. It was the only way of ensuring a level playing field to judge all the work that was still out there. It turned out to be a great competition, despite the terrible pressures brought by the pandemic.”

Cresta has returned to paid entry but has greatly reduced fees for the 2021 competition to ensure the widest possible access to participants around the world.

Compiled by Emma Whiten, Editor of Marketing News Canada