Redefining the path to purchase

Karmarama's dramatic sale, Reindeers to deliver Pizza (in Japan), the North Korean view of President Trump, the problem with media agencies, Wes Anderson and H&M, and a ton more

Dramatic news on Tuesday morning, as Gideon Spanier revealed that one of the largest and most successful independent indy agencies, Karmarama, was to sell to Accenture for an undisclosed sum.

Not half an hour passed before the official confirmation came through - Karmarama is now part of Accenture Interactive.

"The acquisition bolsters the full suite of customer transformation services Accenture Interactive provides to brands, from customer insights to creative conception and omnichannel delivery of meaningful human experiences. It also contributes to the growth of Accenture Interactive’s UK team of marketing professionals and creatives," reads the release.

How the lauded creative shop will sit with the management consultants remains to be seen, but could this be the beginning of a trend to challenge the large networks? Time to watch Mother, the last big indy on the block.

New research from Quantcast examines the path to purchase, following the purchasing habits of 2257 consumers in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, UK and USA. Each consumer kept a digital diary of their buying habits. You can see the research summary here.

They show that the path to purchase is far from linear, and consumer behaviour is not entirely predictable.

Consumers will usually build a shortlist of the products they want, suggesting that broadcast-style advertising would be to help with consideration.

But, and this is important, those on the shortlist can easily be dumped by outsiders with an attractive offer.

There is a lot of talk about the heath of the agency model, but this is usually limited to creative agencies. What about the media agencies that need to devise ways for consumers to see those ads? Veteran Scott Moorhead, until recently the trading chief at Havas, says the media agency model is broken. Essentially, he supports the ANA report into backhanders and undisclosed agency fees from earlier in the year, and says brands have lost trust.

They are, "Bullies, becoming monopolies and are losing their way," he says. He also says the ANA report, "did not go far enough and only hints at how the market has evolved. It is much more complex and there is lots more going on."

Meanwhile, Group M is dubious about pooled newspaper ad sales.

This week came the long awaited H&M ad directed by Wes Anderson through Adam&EveDDB. It's more Anderson than H&M, featuring the clothes of course, but the sell is very understated. If you like Wes Anderson, this will be four minutes of pleasure:

How do you like your trifle? Topped with bacon you say? Waitrose can help with that.

Now UX copy - that microcopy that makes your website, your supermarket display or whatever it might be easy to navigate - is that the most important copy? It is according to Russell Norris, copy director at R/GA London.

Has copy suffered thanks to the twin overlords of 'content' and SEO? They certainly have according to this article at Little Atoms.

According to 101 ECD Paul Elwood, the secret to creativity is to do something completely different on the side. It certainly works in his agency.

In the US, NPR tracked down the source for one of the 'fake news' stories that some say were important in swinging the US election towards Trum. The story of a fake news story.

What would George Orwell make of it all I hear you ask. This may help:

It’s often instructive to see the reaction of North Korea to world events.

What did this most reculsive country have to say about ‘The’ Donald Trump? Well plenty, but mostly it gloated over the ongoing political crisis in South Korea:

“The [South Korean president] Park Geun-hye group behaves in a crafty way by sending a congratulatory message to Trump side, talking on the phone, dispatching a delegation and talking about celebration and strong cooperation on the development of alliance relations,” North Korean news service Uriminzokkiri reported.

Now to Christmas.

If you are a big fan of the festive season, consider a trip to the Japanese island of Hokkaido, where it will be incredibly cold during the winter, and Domino Pizza plans to make deliveries using Reindeer.

Our biggest retailer, Tesco, seems to be clear of its difficulties after a tough year. It's worth taking a look at the approach of their agency, BBH, and how it has decided to tackle Tesco's Christmas this year.

For all you parents, watch this, which might make you review your job, your life and everything:

And a chat to the creatives behind it and those featured in the ad.

Here, parents of adtech folk describe what their children actually do. Or try to.

In America last week was the mother of all broadcasting mix-ups. Not clear what viewers will see on catch-up, but someone will surely lose their job here.

Finally, band OK Go might not break any new ground for their music, but they certainly do for their videos. Much like the former 10cc pairing of Godley and Creme did in the 1980s, OK Go have gone onto ad work on the strength of their highly creative videos. Their new one was all in the preparation, recorded in hyper slo-mo to drag 4.2 seconds of action to fit the song. It's very much worth a look, and reading the story behind it.