Cocktail Hour: November 2, 2012

Each week, The Agency Post curates the top marketing-related news of the week, musings on the advertising industry and the creative work worth your attention. Here’s the scoop.

HEADLINES

Facebook Testing New Timeline Design: The layout of Timeline has frustrated brands and users who find the back-and-forth columns confusing. The new design showcases a one-column status bar with a small right-side bar for friends and recent activity.

Sandy’s Instagram: The Frankenstorm that seized this East Coast earlier this week brought a new meaning to the use of social media to communicate. One of the best examples has been the use of Instacane, a website that originally launched during Hurricane Irene and aggregates Instagram photos posted to a hashtag on Twitter.

MUSINGS

Facebook Is Making Brands More Like You: Brands have struggled with the evolving format of Facebook, which has made it harder to reach and engage with fans. Creating compelling content that can compete with friends and family’s posts and still seem relevant and non-intrusive has changed the way brands think about “advertising” through social. [AllFacebook]

Advertisers Are Still Missing the Mark With Online Video: Agencies are focused on two types of online videos — branded content and pre-roll ads. What opportunities in search, website videos and native video advertising are we missing? [Advertising Age]

The Key To The Holiday Sales War? Winning The Social-Media Battle: The lines between in-store and online shopping have become blurred, and retailers will feel this even more in the upcoming holiday season. 32 percent of consumers research a product online, visit the store to view the product and then return to online stores to complete the purchase, and 66 percent of Black Friday purchases in 2011 were the result of social media interactions. Learn how retailers can create a social media plan that will make the holiday shopping season full of cheer. [Fast Company]

CREATIVE

Decide Your Side: Barkley encourages creatives to vote with this online poll.

Wieden + Kennedy is in need of a social strategist for Isaiah Mustafa and Old Spice. There’s no need to polish off that resume. Simply use the noun “hammerpants,” Instagram your armpits or create a recipe using cottage cheese.

TED announces its Ads Worth Spreading winners.

http://youtu.be/3393O1uD_w8

Make stunning stop motion movies and GIFs with Step, from Trollback+Company

STATS

33% of B2B marketers state branding is non-collaborative. [eMarketer]

60% of 18-to-24-year-old females use social media for customer service. [Marketing Charts]

Google Product Listings Ads perform 46% better than standard text ads. [eConsultancy]