Edition #498
Instagram opening up to Google, David Droga on 37 years & is Apple’s branded integration going too far?
Apple has really stepped up their brand integrations this year, promoting Severance on Apple.com and the F1 Movie through Maps, Haptic Trailers & Tim Cook joining in with a few tweets. Showing enthusiasm from the top.
Apple even created a custom camera using iPhone parts to film parts of the movie! But maybe they went too far this week in their enthusiasm by pushing a notification out via the Wallet app.
What do you think? Did you get it? I did.
In other big news, Instagram will soon be indexed by Google. i.e. will start showing up in search results. I believe it’s limited to ‘creators’. But I’d suspect is part of an effort to better compete with YouTube and bring more views & audiences to Creators on Instagram.
A small but potentially profound change for the internet if Meta continues to open up more of its content.
Finally, it’s worth spending some time on Droga’s top picks. Next week I’ll be out for Fourth of July, but regular note the week after. Happy Friday everyone.
Notable stories this week
- David Droga on 37 game-changing campaigns from his 37 years in advertising.
- Google will be indexing Instagram content soon.
- Uber is getting advertisers to pay for your next ride.
- Apple users not happy with F1 movie promotion appearing in native apps.
- What the F1 movie teaches us about authentic branded entertainment.
- The ad world is obsessed with industry news videos from two 27 year old guys.
- How Olipop leverage social to grow from a $100k investment to a $1.85b brand.
- Social media now main source of news in US, research suggests.
- Sam Altman open to ads on ChatGPT, calls Instagram ads ‘kinda cool’.
- UK CMA has set out plans to give publishers more control in Google, may mean publishers can opt out of AI overviews.
- Websites With More Organic Search Traffic Get Mentioned More in AI Search.
- The Washington Post Will Ask Some Sources to Annotate Its Stories.
- The CMA tosses Google’s Privacy Sandbox a lifeline.
- Google continues to experiment with AI overviews.
- Publishers facing existential threat from AI, Cloudflare CEO says.
- Meta wins AI copyright case in blow to authors, and so does Anthropic.
- Substack has changed in the last 30 days.
- Reddit launches Community Intelligence.
- LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman says Gen Z graduates are ‘enormously attractive’ to employers for one reason.
- BeReal is mounting a comeback.
- At Cannes Lions, everyone is trying to sell your attention.
- Apple has yanked yet another ad campaign. Why?
- Cannes Lions’ biggest ad tech announcements show how TV is now programmatic.
- Early data, but could AI Overviews growth have plateaued?
- Adlib Media Group integrates Audiobook to unlock performance based Audio Advertising.
- AI optimism in the Riviera.
- [Long read] Dissonant advertising.
Deals/M&A
- Meta held talks to buy Thinking Machines, Perplexity and Safe Superintelligence.
- Apple also debated buying Perplexity.
- DoorDash acquires Symbiosys.
- Crisp acquires Cantactix, their sixth acquisition this year.
Campaign of the week
- Playroom on Popsugar for StateFarm. A parenting content hub.
View all best campaigns on Marca.
Smartest commentary
- “Ad creatives used to be the fedora-wearing stars of Cannes; now it’s the creators who command large and loyal audiences. This is not just a tech story. Creatives are incentivized to go direct rather than work for an ad agency, especially if you’re not going to Capetown to shoot a car going down winding roads.” –Brian Morrissey.
- “Brand is the 30 day moving average of how someone internally/externally describes your company (unassisted) to someone else.“ –Alex Lieberman.
Datapoints of note
- More than half (54%) of people get news from networks like Facebook, X and YouTube – overtaking TV (50%) and news sites and apps (48%), according to the Reuters Institute.
Events
- On hiatus through July.
That’s it for this week.
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