MG OMD FWD – 7th August 2019

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of FWD.

Following healthy revenue growth figures, Facebook have found themselves the subject of regulatory scrutiny over their data privacy policies whilst also being criticised for not doing enough to take down groups on the platform canvassing or rewarding fake reviews. In a positioning and image shift, they have also announced to mixed reviews that they will be adding their name to Instagram and WhatsApp.

• Tik Tok adds Giphy Stickers integration and allows users to export memes from the platform
• Snapchat has launched an ‘instant’ creative tool for creating vertical video assets in the same week as it celebrated authenticity on the platform in their ‘Real friends’ advertising campaign
• Apple joins Google, Facebook, and Twitter in the Data Transfer Project whose goal is to make data-sharing easier

• A week in the life of the most popular YouTube channels
• Your smart speakers are listening, the clips are occasionally reviewed by humans and the practice could be deemed illegal in the USA and Europe
• Pinterest sees a big revenue bump and a growing base of advertisers
• You can now schedule your Instagram posts in a move that will delight social media managers globally

• Apple has launched a series of [AR]T tours in major cities around the globe, featuring artworks from the likes of Nick Cave
• A designer toy brand has raised $10 Million to turn their characters into influencers
• Poolside.FM channels the summers of 80s in music and visuals

• Fame and Fortnite – inside the global gaming phenomenon
• How AI is changing everything and researchers at MIT have even turned their hand to building a knitting AI  
• What WhatsApp pay could mean for global commerce