Pinterest recently introduced a localized version of its website for France, the first non-English edition of its site so far, geared towards enhancing the community experience en français with content from French domains and pins with French-language descriptions more prominent in search and on category pages.

With the new addition, Pinterest "is now catering to the discerning palates of this culturally influential country," which has its own social media culture, notes the Social Times. "In other words, the food, fashion, art, and cinema that have made France a cultural hub for centuries will now do the same for the image bookmarking site."

In a means of promoting the new site, Pinterest has partnered with about 300 bloggers to write guest posts through a "Pin It Forward" (Epingler c’est partager) campaign.Continue reading...

Sometimes serendipity brings marketers together in a partnership that makes great sense for both. That appears to be what has happened in a California-only linkup between Fiat and Jones Soda.

Fancying themselves on the cutting edge of American culture, the two brands were already talking, but when they discovered that Fiat was planning to roll out its new California-only 500e this spring at the same time that Jones was planning to launch distribution of its new Natural Jones Soda in California, a fated promotion took shape.

Thus, the newly announced "Jonesin' for a Fiat 500e" summer-photo contest promotion featuring the new all-electric version of the Fiat 500 and the lighter-calorie, reduced-sugar line of new sodas introduced by one of the original boutique-soft-drink brands. They'll be seeking submissions of photos of any Fiat 500 model via social media, partnering in sampling Natural Jones Soda and providing peeks at the 500e at California surfing events and other showcases, and even giving away Natural Jones to visitors to Fiat "studios" in the state.Continue reading...

Since sunglasses and sportswear powerhouse Oakley started to really go after a female audience back in 2005, the company has learned that you can’t just make your products pink and expect the women to start showing up. 

“Companies don't think about the special needs females have,” Josée Perreault, Oakley's senior VP-global business and the brand's highest-ranking female executive, told AdAge. “It's a trap that male-dominant companies fall into. We're totally [past that]—though there's still some pink in our collection.”

Since those ill-fated efforts, Oakley “has improved its designs, placed more women in leadership roles, launched women-specific ad campaigns and started an education program dubbed ‘Female Speak’ in stores,” AdAge reports. It’s first female-focused campaign, “Perform Beautifully,” came out in 2010, but didn’t differentiate itself enough from other brands.Continue reading...

Velcro may be more than 50 years old, but it isn’t interested in an early retirement. Instead, it is looking for a little rejuvenation. To make it happen, the company is pushing its product in a new worldwide brand campaign that showcases how Velcro can be used in daily life, AdAge reports.

The campaign, which is using video, digital banners and social media, was cooked up by Boston agency Breakaway Innovation Group, which signed on with Velcro back in 2011. “We wanted to showcase all the amazing ways in which the product can be included into the daily lives of our consumers,” said Jurjen Jacobs, Velcro's VP-global marketing, according to AdAge.Continue reading...

When you're heading up a network of millions, its hard to please everyone. That's exactly what some of the web's biggest social networks are finding out this week as clashes between users, moderators and advertisers plague the system. 

In a highly-publicized protest over violent, offensive content on Facebook, activists have convinced a handful of advertisers including Nissan UK and Nationwide UK to drop their ads from the social site until Facebook admins remove the problematic content. The concern for advertisers is that their content may show up alongside posts and pages containing such content, much of which consists of "rape culture" memes depicting violence against women. 

The conflict highlights loopholes within Facebook's API, as the platform allows advertisers to target users based on "likes" and demographic, but there is no way to control where ads are placed—or not placed—on the site. “Marketers don’t want to be associated with anything negative or controversial,” Carl Fremont, chief digital officer at MEC told the Financial Times. “We need a filter on Facebook that can weed out the type of user-generated content that’s brand inappropriate.”Continue reading...

Walmart is moving ahead with its future in e-commerce, but at the same time the chain is now having problems with one of the stalwart advantages of its glorious past: the stocking of its stores.

The chain has acquired two San Francisco Bay Area tech companies and plans to hire more than 150 engineers, technicians and developers for its growing @WalmartLabs tech lab. Walmart bought One Ops and Tasty Labs to help expand its cloud-computing technology and digital-shopping platforms to compete with e-commerce rival Amazon, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

The effort is part of the same overall push by Walmart that also includes expanded integration with social networks such as Pinterest, mobile check-outs and its test of adding the option for shoppers to have purchases delivered same-day to their homes or to a nearby storage locker.Continue reading...

Twitter’s aggressive move into social advertising is causing ripples in the eco-system as online platforms increasingly takes lessons from traditional media to heart. 

Facebook recently met with marketing heads from Unilever, EE, Barclay’s and Tesco to pitch the benefits of their ad products and measurement tools that will lead to increased sales, regardless of user clicks. “In the branding world, the direct connection between a page impression or a click and the actual purchase doesn’t exist,” said Brad Smallwood, Facebook’s VP analytics. “When people look at things online and then purchase things in store, it’s hard to attribute that. That’s the challenge that TV had for a while and they solved it.”

The challenge is to establish long-term brand relationships beyond click-based advertising and to that end, Facebook is working with third-party measurement firms GfK and Datalogix. Facebook’s recently redesigned News Feed aims to recreate the impact of TV campaigns and reach the growing smartphone and tablet market that now accounts for one-third of Facebook’s $1.46 billion third-quarter revenues.Continue reading...

In what was quite an eventful day for the aging internet company, Yahoo announced significant changes to Flickr at a media event in New York City on Monday—a perfectly timed distraction from concerns buzzing over its same-day Tumblr acquisition.

As announced at the press conference and on its blog, Flickr is back after a rough ride with a new design, photo-centric layout and one full terabyte of storage—way more than most users could ever use. “Given the odd nature of most photo sharing services, you are either limited to a few dozen gigabytes or, in the case of Instagram and other mobile services, an unstated upper limit that is not part of the marketing collateral. While I don’t doubt that Google or Facebook could make the terabyte claim in the near future, being first to market with this particular feature is an important milestone," TechCrunch notes.

Acquired by Yahoo in 2005, the service has since spoiled under Yahoo's rule, however CEO Marissa Mayer said she received an abundance of requests to improve the serice when she took the helm last year. “Flickr was once awesome, and it languished... now we want it to be awesome again," Mayer said in a press announcement. The service reaches 89 million people who have contributed over 8 billion photos, and with the new improvements, the service is bound to attract many more.Continue reading...