Month: April 2024

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When it comes to social media marketing, YouTube doesn’t always get as much attention as its Meta, TikTok and X (or Twitter, or whatever) counterparts. But according to Digiday+ Research surveys conducted among brand, retailer and agency professionals every six months (including in the first quarter of this year), brands are actually increasing their marketing spend on the platform.

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The rumor mill is up and running about the fate of TikTok’s ownership in the U.S. after President Joe Biden signed the “divest or ban” TikTok bill last week.

The legislation requires ByteDance to sell its shares in the app to a U.S. business within 270 days (with the potential for a 90-day extension if significant progress is deemed to be made toward a sale), otherwise it will be banned outright across the U.S.

Still, since this “sell or be banned” threat has been looming over the past four years, and within that timeframe TikTok has been able to embed itself further into U.S. society, the latest moves by the U.S. government aren’t really a surprise.

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As of today, Walmart is able to sell physical goods directly to users inside Roblox.

The introduction of real-life e-commerce could be a watershed moment for the company’s ambitions to become an all-encompassing destination for virtual life.

Walmart’s Roblox e-commerce experience launches later today, with users inside the pre-existing Walmart Discovered able to have real-life items shipped directly to their doorsteps. Users entering the experience will be greeted with a new storefront showcasing virtual twins of select physical items sold at real-life Walmart stores. 

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Monks are generally known as quiet, contemplative types. 

Media.Monks, the media agency network formed by Sir Martin Sorrell — founder of WPP and the agency holding company model — under corporate parent S4 Capital, has been noisy as of late, but for some of the wrong reasons. The latest addition to this presently grumbling assemblage of digital agency players — in the form of a new COO — could help get the company back into making a more harmonious noise. 

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Starting a new search business has always been a nearly impossible hill to climb, since one is invariably up against Mt. Everest — aka Google. However, Perplexity aims to bring its new momentum from generative search into the enterprise world of AI even while exploring ads further down its timeline.

Last week, Perplexity announced its entrance into the worlds of enterprise tech. Flush with new funding, the AI-driven search startup hopes to build a broader business case with a new offering called Enterprise Pro. Adding to both the free and subscription versions of its generative AI search platform, Perplexity already has a handful of noteworthy names using Pro including media agency the IPG-owned media agency Universal McCann. Other early clients across numerous industries including Zoom, HP, Stripe and the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers.

By improving how companies search documents — and everything else on the internet — companies are using generative AI to conduct market research, find sales prospects, analyze sales, and draft product road maps. Advertising agencies and media companies already use search to research campaigns, companies and people. 

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In case it slipped under your radar — the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) dropped its latest opinions Friday afternoon on the merits and pitfalls of Google’s efforts to replace third-party cookies with its own alternatives in its Privacy Sandbox. Anytime this happens it’s a big deal. After all, the CMA is essentially the referee tasked with determining whether these efforts cross into anti-competitive territory. And from its latest take, it seems it’s not too impressed with Google’s moves.

In fact, the CMA has more concerns than ever. The latest report outlines over 79 of them — quite a leap from the 39 listed in its January update.

What’s got it riled up? Most of these concerns are just expansions of the ones the watchdog had all along. From suspicions that the sandbox will just keep Google on top of the ad game to questions about who’s going to be in charge once these alternatives are up and running — it’s the clearest signal yet from the watchdog that it believes there are some serious structural issues with the sandbox that aren’t even close to being fixed.

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The “Enquirer” publisher used Walmart as the morality police, determining that having the words “porn star” on a cover would be massively offensive to shoppers.

Siding against the broadband industry, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reinstated a New York law requiring carriers to offer $15-a-month service to some low-income households.