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Tag: Colloquial

  • JWT & Group SJR launch content marketing unit – Colloquial

    JWT & Group SJR launch content marketing unit – Colloquial

    MUMBAI: J. Walter Thompson and Group SJR, a unit of Hill+Knowlton Strategies have joined hands to launch a content marketing unit called Colloquial.

     

    The joint venture brings together the creative talent and strategic rigor of J. Walter Thompson with the publishing and audience development experience of Group SJR.

     

    Colloquial will build publishing environments for brands, specializing in content that builds loyalty and audience over time – short articles, infographics and visual stories for brands that are quickly conceived, made and shared. It is a content marketing unit that shows brands how to act like publishers and benefit from an always-on digital narrative, helping them build passionate and monetizable communities.

     

    Colloquial will embody the intersection of advertising, publishing and public relations, with storytelling and creativity at its core. The new unit will share locations and draw on talent from J. Walter Thompson in key global markets including Australia, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.

     

    “The launch of Colloquial is another piece of our strategy to continue building on J. Walter Thompson Company’s many assets to create solutions that build enduring and winning brands, while driving business growth for our clients. Content is the new currency. Colloquial will deliver both authentic narratives and the creative visual storytelling that brands are demanding and consumers want,” said J. Walter Thompson Company global chairman and CEO Gustavo Martinez.

     

    Group SJR managing partner Alexander Jutkowitz will serve as Colloquial’s CEO.

    “Successful brands innovate. Not only is that what J. Walter Thompson and Group SJR are doing with the creation of Colloquial, but it’s what we’re going to do for our clients — ensuring they have the ability to continuously reach targeted, ‘always on’ audiences with an array of engaging, high quality content that moves them,” said Jutkowitz.

     

    In addition to Jutkowitz as CEO, Colloquial will be led by William (Billy) Sind as editorial lead; Jinal Shah as strategy lead; and Gillian Melrose as marketing lead.

     

    “With the creative and strategic rigor of J. Walter Thompson, the creation of our digital agency network Mirum and now the launch of Colloquial, the J. Walter Thompson Company offers the full spectrum of content marketing to clients. We’re fortunate to have such great talent from across the advertising, public relations and publishing spaces, and know they’ll make a formidable team,” said J. Walter Thompson Company head of digital worldwide Stefano Zunino.    

  • China to lift ban on Facebook, but only within Shanghai free-trade zone

    China to lift ban on Facebook, but only within Shanghai free-trade zone

    MUMBAI: Beijing has made the landmark decision to lift a ban on internet access within the Shanghai Free-trade Zone to foreign websites considered politically sensitive by the Chinese government, including Facebook, Twitter and newspaper website The New York Times.

    There are rumors afloat that they would also welcome bids from foreign telecommunications companies for licences to provide internet services within the new special economic zone.

    Now the mainland’s three biggest telecommunications companies China Mobile, China Unicom and China Telecom – which are all state-owned enterprises – will need to be wary of the competition from foreign companies to compete with them for business in the free-trade zone in Shanghai.

    However Beijing’s decision to open up internet access only applies to the free-trade zone and not anywhere else in the country. In late August the State Council, China’s cabinet, approved the launch of the free-trade zone in Shanghai, which will span 28.78 square kilometres in the city’s Pudong New Area, including the Waigaoqiao duty-free zone, Yangshan deepwater port, and the international airport area.

    Facebook and Twitter – banned on the mainland since 2009 – have played important roles in political movements in the Middle East in recent years, and Beijing is concerned about the impact of new media on social stability.

    Although China’s economy is now already the world’s second largest, just behind the United States, Beijing keeps tight control over the media. It blocks access to several internet websites through the Great Firewall of China, the colloquial name for the Golden Shield project which is operated by the Ministry of Public Security.

    Foreign visitors and many foreigners who reside on the mainland for work and study have complained about difficulties in accessing those news sites. Occasionally even the world’s No 1 search engine Google and its email service Gmail are unavailable.

    Bosses at social media networks and major media companies whose websites are banned on the mainland have lobbied Beijing for years to lift these bans. More recently, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg met Cai Mingzhao, the head of the State Council Information Office in Beijing, and an official photograph of the meeting was published on the Chinese government’s website, though Facebook said Sandberg’s visit to China was mainly to promote her new book.