Mumbrella’s Summer Shorts series – ep. 21 – the finale

And just like that, the Mumbrella Summer Series draws to a close. We hope you’ve found the news, links and info useful over the past few weeks.

Now, be sure to sign up to our newsletter and check back in on this article and our website regularly throughout the day for the latest stories. Our newsletter returns on Monday.

Short shorts

• Snap Inc, Twitter push back against proposed online anti-anonymity laws.
• Today hosts Karl Stefanovic and Allison Langdon return to TV screens for Nine this Monday, 17 January. With the Australian Open beginning, Alex Cullen will be in Melbourne for the next two weeks reporting on all the action as Tim Davies holds the fort presenting Nine’s news, while Brooke Boney also returns from her summer break to deliver all Nine’s entertainment news.
• Influencer.com joins TikTok marketing partners to give brands access to first-party data.
• The Crown Resorts casino empire controlled by James Packer for nearly two decades is moving closer to new ownership with the company’s board, its billionaire major shareholder and other major investors indicating their likely support of an $8.9 billion takeover bid from US private equity giant Blackstone. (SMH)
• Reddit has launched the beta version of a new safety feature that automatically filters messages to moderators that are likely to contain harassment.
• Hyundai Heavy Industries’ proposed takeover of rival Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd to create the world’s biggest shipbuilder was hit with an EU veto on concerns that the deal would hurt competition. (Reuters)
• Dentsu International has appointed Nnenna Ilomechina as global chief operating officer to succeed Neil Gissler on his retirement this quarter. Ilomechina will join the business in May this year. (Campaign)
• Valerie Capers Workman, Tesla’s head of HR, is leaving the company at the end of this month, according to a report from Bloomberg, citing the official’s LinkedIn page.
• Following a summit on open-source security hosted at the White House, Google has called for increasing government involvement in identifying and securing critical open-source software projects. (The Verge)

• Zac McLean has started as deputy chief of staff at The Daily Telegraph. He joins from 2GB, where he had worked in a variety of roles since early 2015. Most recently, Zac was executive producer on Ben Fordham Live at 2GB. At ABC Radio Sydney – Jennifer Fleming is now a producer for the Drive programme. Prior to this, she had managed the station’s Afternoons programme since 2016. Jane Shields is now executive Producer of the Afternoons programme, after working as Executive Producer of Breakfast since 2018. Meanwhile, Justin Stevens, executive producer of the ABC’s 7.30 programme, has now returned to the show. He had been on leave since August 2021. And After 33 years with the ABC, broadcaster Spence Denny has announced his retirement. Spence shared his news while hosting ABC Radio Adelaide’s Summer Breakfast show this month. (Tellum Media)
• This year, Google-parent company Alphabet took the no. 1 spot in a list of the top 100 ESG stocks, according to analysis from Just Capital. The nonprofit ranks large public companies based on a number of variables, including worker treatment, diversity and climate change efforts. (LinkedIn News)
• One of the world’s most recognised fashion brands, Ralph Lauren came knocking on Australian footballer Josh Cavallo’s door after he came out as gay. (The Daily Telegraph)
• Kia hands over 130 cars at new Kia Arena.
• Mediabrands creates new role to help establish digital advertising standards in APAC. Harrison Boys moves from intelligence unit Magna to implement strategy and education on media standards in APAC and provide clients with a transparent look at media partners and platforms. (Campaign)
• Oakley have announced Kylian Mbappé as the newest member of Team Oakley, featuring him in the latest iteration of their ‘Be Who You Are’ film series to celebrate the French soccer player’s partnership.

Mbappe

• Energy drinks maker Monster Beverage is entering the alcoholic drinks market through a $330 million deal for craft beer and hard seltzer producer CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective. (NY Post)
• Australian telehealth and online prescription service, InstantScripts has announced its appointment of Richard Skimin as its new chief operating officer.
• PR Newswire, the leading global provider of news distribution and earned media software and services, saw a significant rebound in its business in 2021, reflecting robust growth in various industries, from food and beverage to logistics. Last year, more than 69,000 press releases were distributed in the APAC region – a 36 percent increase from 2020. (Yahoo! Finance)
• SVoD service BritBox in Australia and public broadcaster TVNZ in New Zealand have acquired recently launched six-part prison drama Screw from Banijay Rights. (C21Media)
• Lockard & Wechsler Direct (LWD) nannounced today the appointment of its first executive vice president, director of advanced and connected TV, Cristina Ferruggiari. (Ad Forum)
• Go to sleep, Jennifer. Aniston reveals her insomnia struggles (below) in spot for biotech company Idorsia via Goodby. (Ad Age)

• Visa is collaborating with blockchain software firm ConsenSys to launch a central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot program to test retail applications like cards and wallets. (Bloomberg)
• UK-based prodco Expectation is merging its comedy and entertainment teams. James Donkin is joining the company as director of development, while Rhe-an Archibald is being promoted to the new in-house show-running exec producer across development and production. Amy Dallmeyer, meanwhile, was named head of development. (Television Business International)
• Microsoft and Sony are struggling to keep up with demand for the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5. While Sony plans to keep manufacturing the PlayStation 4 for the time being to make up for its shortfall of current-gen consoles, the Xbox One is no more. (Yahoo! Finance)
• Ennis Cehic makes his literary debut in Sadvertising.

• NBCUniversal has tapped iSpot.tv Inc., a company that aims to help advertisers verify the reach and impact of their TV and streaming ads, as it seeks to better quantify how consumers are viewing ads across different mediums. (The Wall Street Journal)
• Rosie Pentreath has taken on a new role as digital marketing manager at the Australia Chamber Orchestra. Her role is expected to end in May 2022, when the former digital marketing manager returns from maternity leave. Pentreath will continue as creator and host of the OUTcast podcast, which shares coming out stories from members of the LGBTQIA+ community. (Tellum Media)
• Former Lucky Generals CEO joins Wavemaker – ad agency veteran Katie Lee, who quit the industry at the start of 2021 to run a wellbeing app, is returning. (Campaign)
• The clock has stopped ticking for “60 Minutes Plus”, the streaming spinoff of the venerable CBS News mainstay that was once envisioned as a means of introducing the next generation of viewers to the popular Sunday newsmagazine. (Variety)
• The Great British Bakeoff will be available for broadcast sponsorship in March 2022 when Aldi’s sponsorship is due to run out. (Mediatel News)

• CBS Stations in the US today announced plans to create a local news innovation lab that will be based at KTVT and independent sister station KTXA, the ViacomCBS-owned stations in Dallas-Fort Worth. The lab will serve as the home of a curated team of CBS News and Stations employees including several new hires, who will be empowered to experiment with next-generation storytelling, such as data journalism, and test new products, workflows and production models for the future. The announcement was made by Wendy McMahon, president and co-head, CBS News and Stations. (TV News Check)
• Integral Ad Science has appointed Csaba Szabo as its managing director for EMEA. (Mediatel News)
• Director Paul B. Cummings has joined the roster of Tuff Contender, the production company under the aegis of executive producers DJay Brawner and Max Rose. Cummings has directed commercials for Doritos, Dunkin’ Donuts, Hotels.com, K-Mart, McDonald’s and Taco Bell, and collaborated with agencies including Alma DDB, Dentsu, Deutsch, and Hill Holiday. Cummings was previously represented in the ad arena by Noble (formerly DUCK Studios). (Shoot)
• Alexandra Coulton has commenced a new role as the editor of Travel Weekly. She had been the publication’s deputy editor since 2018. Prior to joining Travel Weekly, Coulton was a newsgathering producer at the ABC in Sydney. (Tellum Media)
• Twitter has agreed to register in Nigeria and pay local taxes to end a seven-month ban. (BBC)

• Apteco is working with Syniverse to offer the WhatsApp Business platform to businesses in Europe and beyond. (BusinessWire)
• Yahoo Japan is doubling down on remote work, telling its 8,000 employees they can do their jobs from anywhere in the East Asian country, and that it’ll pay for their flights to the office if they ever need to come in. (euronews.next)
• Northwest Arkansas hopes to lure remote tech workers and entrepreneurs to the region by offering them $10,000 worth of Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and a bicycle. (Yahoo! Finance)
• Twitter and Snapchat are defending anonymity online as lawmakers and bureaucrats work on a series of proposed laws that would force Australians to verify their age before using many of the most popular sites on the internet. (SMH)
• Baby Shark becomes the first YouTube video to cross 10 billion views, after becoming the most-viewed YouTube video back in November 2020. (The Verge)
• Jan. 12 was National Roast Day, and Wendy’s served up some choice tweets to insult fans and other brands. (MediaPost)

Here’s the best tweets from #NationalRoastDay https://t.co/pljPieiyev

— Wendy’s (@Wendys) January 13, 2022

• ESPN is set to hire Pete Thamel from Yahoo in a college football insider role. (Awful Announcing)
• Audi US president Daniel Weissland: ‘By 2033, we will be fully electric’. (Yahoo! Finance)
• Influencer.com, an influencer marketing and branded content solution, has announced an integration with TikTok which will allow its clients access to its first-party data, campaign data and content creators. TikTok Ads Manager will be linked to Influencer.com’s own technology platform, Waves so brands can create and measure TikTok’s own ad format “Spark Ads”. Influencer.com’s clients include Hilton, Polaroid and Deliveroo, Takis and National Rail. (Mediatel News)
• The Townsville Bulletin has appointed Craig Herbert as editor. Craig has been in the journalism industry for over 35 years and was most recently night editor for the Herald Sun. Prior to that, he was editor-in-chief of mX. Herbert will soon relocate to Townsville to begin his new role on Monday, 31st January. (Tellum Media)
• OpenWeb, the premium audience relationship platform, today announced that Peyton Marcus has joined the company as its new chief operating officer (COO) to help the company navigate what it expects to be a phase of hyper-growth. (PR Newswire)

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• Snap has added a senior director of business marketing, North America, and a global head of brand partnerships from Twitter and Instagram. (Ad Week)
• David Gallagher, the former president of international growth and development at Omnicom, has launched his first solo venture (DG Advisory), an advisory firm to help agencies with business planning, development and growth. (Provoke Media)
• Meta will shut down its video speed dating service Sparked on January 20, after launching it last April and testing it in select markets. (Techcrunch)
• Page Six reports Saturday Night Live comic Pete Davidson, 28, is in talks to host this year’s Oscars. (news.com.au)

Returning in February:

Got a tip?

Andrew Banks

Andrew is an editor and journalist with over 27 years' experience, working across publications including news.com.au, The Sunday Telegraph and The Australian newspaper.

topics 60 Minutes Plus ABC Advertising Standards ALDI Alexandra Coulton Allison Langdon Alphabet Amy Dallmeyer APAC Apteco Audi Australia Chamber Orchestra Australian Open Banijay Rights Blackstone BritBox CANarchy Craft Brewery Collective CBS ConsenSys Craig herbert Crown Resorts Csaba Szabo Daewoo Daniel Weissland David Gallagher Dentsu International DG Advisory DUCK Studios EMEA Episode 21 ESPN Expectation Google Harrison Boys Hyundai Influencer.com Instagram InstantScripts integral ad science iSpot.tv Inc James Donkin James Packer Karl Stefanovic Katie Lee Kia local lucky generals Magna Mediabrands Meta Microsoft Monster Beverage Mumbrella Mumbrella Summer Series Mumbrella Summer Shorts Mumbrellacast NBCUniversal Neil Gissler News Nnenna Ilomechina Noble Omnicom OpenWeb Oscars Paul B. Cummings Pete Thamel Peyton Marcus PlayStation PR Newswire ralph lauren Reddit Rhe-an Archibald Rosie Pentreath snapchat Sony Spark Ads Sparked Syniverse Tesla The Great British Bakeoff TikTok Today Townsville Bulletin Travel Weekly Tuff Contender TVNZ Twitter Valerie Capers Workman ViacomCBS Visa Wavemaker Waves Wendy McMahon WhatsApp Business Xbox Yahoo Yahoo Japan YouTube

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