The marketing, advertising and media industries are starting to gather some pace as 2022 begins.
With a bit of news around, Mumbrella is always here to bring it to you. We’ll be winding down this Summer Shorts series this week, so be sure to sign up to our newsletter and check back in on our website regularly throughout the day for the latest stories.
Short shorts
- BMW appoints new marketing lead as Tony Sesto departs the auto brand.
- Edelman’s sustainability review ends in no client changes … for now.
- Reddit has announced two changes to its board of directors: the appointment of Patricia (Pat) Fili-Krushel and the departure of Sam Altman. The news comes after the social media company announced its plans to go public, back in early December 2021.
- Whispir appoints Annie Wissner as chief marketing officer based in the US.
- Australian Open launches into metaverse with NFT art collection.
- The figure of around £50m over three years being paid to Piers Morgan, as quoted by former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, is correct. In exchange Morgan will write columns for The Sun and New York Post and front a nightly TV show. Press Gazette understands the Morgan programme will air in the UK on News Corp’s soon-to-be-launched TalkTV and in the US and Australia. (Press Gazette)
- Stada pharmaceuticals has consolidated EMEA media duties into OMD. OMD won the media planning and buying brief after a four-month review. (Campaign)
- Rupert Murdoch has launched iPad-only publication The Daily in the US this week. Murdoch’s News Corp has sunk $30 million into The Daily which will be available to users for a weekly subscription of $0.99. (TNT)
- Claire Butterworth from GroupM says the current supply chain issues could see some changes made in a media/advertising plan, but that most brands are likely to spend the same way in 2022 as they did in 2021. Chris Walton from media agency Nunn Media notes a company that promotes itself as the ‘fresh food people’ might think it better not to use that tagline if it does not have any fresh food to sell because of supply problems. (The Australian Financial Review)
- SBS, Blink TV and TikTok have today announced a national TikTok Wildcard contest to find the eleventh artist to take part in “Eurovision – Australia Decides on the Gold Coast” in February. From today, Australians are encouraged to post a live vocal performance clip, up to one minute long, with the hashtag #EurovisionAustralia to be in the running to become the Eurovision – Australia Decides TikTok Wildcard Artist. (SBS)
- ABC Radio Adelaide announces new Breakfast hosts.
- Ogilvy has appointed Adam Hessel chief creative officer of Ogilvy Health, a key growth business for the agency. (Media Post)
- Marcoms group Dentsu International has appointed Keith Camoosa as chief addressability officer, tasked with bringing together and developing its addressable media practice. Camoosa was global chief data and analytics officer at media agency Initiative, and before this he was SVP, data insights and operations at WarnerMedia, leading the development of data infrastructure for the launch of HBO Max. He will report to Doug Rozen, CEO of Dentsu Media, Americas. (MrWeb)
- According to Twitter data, it was one of the biggest years for gaming ever, with over 2 billion tweets. Genshin Impact takes the top honours as Twitter’s most talked-about title. Twitter’s gaming coverage grew by 14% over the last year, according to the company’s report. (Venture Beat)
- Grand Theft Automaker Take-Two will pay a 64% premium to buy Words With Friends developer Zynga, using a mix of cash and stock. Zynga will continue to be led by CEO Frank Gibeau, get two seats on Take-Two’s board and operate as a standalone label inside the company. The combined company is expected to boast 8,000 game developers. (Yahoo! Finance)
- BBH hires Alex Grieve as global chief creative officer from Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, who worked at Bartle Bogle Hegarty for 14 years at the start of his career, between 1996 and 2010. Joakim Borgström, the former Singapore-based chief creative officer, will “explore new possibilities”. (Campaign Live)
- Andrew Gaze returns to 1116 SEN for new drive show.
- Discovery Inc. will become a minority owner of advanced advertising company OpenAP, according to a press release. Fox, NBCUniversal and ViacomCBS are also minority owners in the joint venture. (Marketing Dive)
- Microsoft has seen its augmented realty team shrink by more than 100 members since last year, many of them moving to Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) as Big Tech seeks employees with the expertise needed to craft the metaverse. (The Wall Street Journal)
- Publicis Groupe CRM specialist Hawkeye has named Tina Posey as CEO. She succeeds W. Joe Demiero, who had been in the role for about two and a half years. (Media Post)
- WarnerMedia-owned streamer HBO Max in South-East Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan has hired former Shahid executive Jason Monteiro as general manager. Monteiro replaces Amit Malhotra, who left HBO in December just six months after taking on the role. (C21Media)
- TikTok is testing a new feature similar to Twitter’s retweet. The function allows users to share content with followers without having to send videos one by one. (Business Insider)
- Forward chooses Lewis Shields as head of strategy and growth.
- Alibaba has announced the appointment of Roland Palmer as the group’s new general manager for the UK, Netherlands and the Nordics. (Charged)
- Amazon.com Inc. fell 3.4% to trade at its lowest intraday since May. The stock has dropped about 15% from a November peak and is down for a fifth straight session. (mint)
- “I was blindsided by the termination and unequivocally reject the assertions made by Mr Hammes and the company,” ousted James Hardie chief executive Jack Truong said, referring to executive chairman Mike Hammes. (The Australian Financial Review) New appointments: Ryan Kilcullen appointed as senior vice president, global operations, John Arneil appointed as general manager of Asia Pacific, and Dr. Moe Nozari resigned as a non-executive director. (Yahoo! Finance)
- Singtel is currently holding talks with advisers regarding a potential stake sale of its Optus fibre assets in Australia, according to Bloomberg, who cite “people familiar with the matter.” (Channel News)
- Bondi Sands announces four new activation spaces for 2022 Australian Open.
- WarnerMedia and Comcast have come to terms on a new carriage deal, keeping WarnerMedia’s channels on Comcast US cable systems for years to come. The deal covers TBS, TNT, CNN, Cartoon Network, TruTV, TCM and the other WarnerMedia channels, but it also includes CNN+, the upcoming streaming service. (THR)
- Saudi Arabia’s Tihama Advertising and Public Relations Co. and UK-based WPP plc have delayed their agreement to create a Bahrain-based holding group via a merger until mid-2022. (Arab News)
- Search engine DuckDuckGo claims that it has seen a 10 per cent fall in how many new users it has been able to retain on its services on Google Chrome since Google implemented changes to its browser extensions in 2020. It contends that the changes have cost it millions in potential revenue, while CEO Gabriel Weinberg is hoping that legislation currently before the US congress that would see major platforms barred from prioritising their own products will be endorsed. (The Australian Financial Review)
- Former Rolls-Royce regional director of Asia-Pacific, Paul Harris, has been appointed managing director of Asia-Pacific (APAC) and China for McLaren Automotive. (GoAutoNews Premium)
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- Dentsu World Services has been awarded the PeopleFirst Excellence Award 2021 for “leading practices in employee engagement”.’ (Business Standard)
- Nicole Kidman was one of three Australians to win an award at the 79th Golden Globes, with Kidman winning for her performance as Lucille Ball in ‘Being the Ricardos’. Kodi Smit-McPhee won an award for her performance in the film ‘The Power of the Dog’, while Sarah Snook won for her performance in the series ‘Succession’. (SMH) Foxtel secured 10 Golden Globe wins, more than any other standalone subscription TV platform in Australia, thanks to the integration of Netflix on Foxtel IQ set top boxes.
- NFT apparel. It’s a thing.
- Australia’s media agency market has defied ongoing COVID concerns to deliver a record level of ad spend for any month in November 2021 after reporting a 1.5% increase in media investment to $852.0 million to also ensure a record level of ad spend for any financial year period. (Standard Media Index)