This month the management consulting company McKinsey has revealed the results of a study on the impact of co-creation—a phenomenon of  modern marketing, when a company engages external parties—most often, customers—into its creative processes online. Interestingly, the research has showed that co-creation increases the chances of success of a new product innovation by as little as 4% on average. However, it may have some positive side-effects, such as reduction of costs on market research and increase in customer loyalty.

The WPP-owned media measurement and management arm GroupM has recently published a UK-specific report on the dynamics of advertising spending across all media in 2014-2015 years. The company predicts that this year the ad spending will show a 6.3% increase in the face of a slightly lower global figure of 4.5%. This is the fastest growth of ad market among all the researched developed economies. In terms of financial value, the ad spending will account for a total of £14.9 billion ($23.3 billion) in 2014, and £15.7 billion ($24.5 billion) in 2015.