MAM
Zip Television goes ‘crazy sensible’ for Honda campaign
MUMBAI: Zip TV’s has rolled out the latest Honda interactive ad campaign, which combines brand extension and increased data capture with mobile content.
Zip Television unveiled its ‘Honda Crazy Sensible’ interactive ad campaign, which will be aired on Sky, Channel 4, Channel 5 and IDS channels.
The objective of the campaign is to encourage consumers to participate in, and have fun with, Honda’s advertising. Viewers are urged to e-mail in their crazy-sensible stories and see them appear in the advert. Zip TV has improved accountability via requesting important vehicle ownership and reintention information, a ‘smart email’ function and postcode-driven dealer locator; all providing powerful data capture tools.
Honda marketing communications manager Matthew Coombe says, “Working with Zip Television enables potential Honda customers to interact with the brand for a much longer period of time than they would have with a linear ad campaign. As a result, they can have some fun with the interactive content, and importantly, the Honda brand!”
The campaign, uniquely developed by Zip TV, extends the Honda brand experience from 60 seconds to one that lasts for several minutes through interactive creative that engenders a sense of fun and desire.
Zip Television client services head John Dalziel adds, “In the ‘send us your stories’ section consumers can see the crazy sensible stories that have been e-mailed in or send in their own tales. A great example is running 26 miles wearing a chicken suit, which sounds like a crazy idea, but when it’s running a marathon for a cancer charity then this becomes a sensible one.”
Dalziel further added, “In the past, capturing extended automotive data in iTV has been slow and difficult, but Zip TV’s simple ownership and reintention questions, smart e-mail function and dealer locator changes that dramatically.”
The additional ownership and reintention questions enable Honda to find out whether a company purchase is public or private, when they are thinking of changing their car and what type of car they will replace it with. The smart e-mail function, which is unique to Zip TV, is a first for Honda and unique to automotive advertising, provides an increasingly user-focused way of collecting e-mail addresses by using a predictive fill function.
This has proven highly successful in previous Zip campaigns with upwards of 40 per cent of those who pressed the red button using the ‘smart email’ function to complete their details. Finally, the dealer locator function uses the postcode data, which has just been captured, to pinpoint the address of the nearest Honda dealership and passes this information on to the viewer in the connection screen.
As a way of increasing brand interaction Zip TV has, for the first time, incorporated mobile content into its campaign making ring tones and wallpaper available to consumers. This is further evidence of how the company is looking to push the boundaries and explore more converged markets. It is believed that Zip TV’s latest interactive content and innovative data capture tools will have a positive long-term affect on advertisers and agencies, as they look for greater efficiency and measurability from their campaigns.
Zip Television specialises in the creation and measurement of new TV advertising models in a changing digital and interactive TV landscape. It’s client base represents 40 per cent of the TV advertising spend of the top 50 UK advertisers and includes: Honda, Orange, Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, BT, Gillette, Masterfoods, Daimler, Chrysler and UIP.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
