social media news

Subway has named Carrie Walsh as chief marketing officer for North America, a role left vacant since Joe Tripodi confirmed his retirement in January.
Walsh joins from arts and crafts retailer Michaels Stores, where she was the senior vice-president of marketing since 2016. Her resume also includes a three-year stint as the chief marketer of Pizza Hut and various senior roles at PepsiCo.
She has been tasked with devising the company’s North American marketing and advertising strategy,

Just about everyone in the tech industry has taken a crack at VR or AR wearables except for Apple. The company has been content building out AR features for its iPhones, but not actually delivering a headset or other wearable to enhance the experience. That may change next year, according to reliable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via 9to5Mac). Kuo expects Apple to team up with third parties to create the first batch of AR headsets. This comes as something of a surprise, considering Apple isn&rsqu

The Los Angeles LGBT Center has created a powerful video highlighting how family acceptance is critical to the mental health and well-being of LGBTQ+ youth.
The video, created by agency RPA and directed by Station Film’s Lena Beug, uses an emotional cover of a Tina Turner’s What’s Love Got to Do With It? performed by Rose Cousins (the use of which was donated by the publishers), as the propelling theme.
The video puts parents at the center of the conversation aro

It used to be that tying someone’s shoes together was a nasty prank, but now it’s a performance-enhancing feat of bio-mechanical engineering. A team of researchers and engineers at Stanford University have developed a radical new method to increase the running efficiency of humans: they put a rubber band between a pair of shoes. This might not sound like a feat of modern technology, but the science behind it is actually quite interesting. According to the team’s research

Killing Eve star Sandra Oh is from Canada, and since Canadians are known globally for their polite ways, Oh is out to teach people how to ‘Travel Like a Canadian’ in a new spot for Air Canada.
The campaign takes a playful look at how Canadians travel and interact with other cultures abroad, while celebrating some of the country’s unique values, to show the world just how Canadians do it right.
Andy Shibata, managing director, brand at Air Canada said: “We&r

Blizzard, perhaps ironically, has ignited a firestorm over the banning of an esports pro for his support of Hong Kong. While the initial response was flammable enough, the aftermath is swiftly growing beyond its original gaming context into a proper international incident. If you want the skinny on how this whole thing got started, you can read the details here. Long story short, a Hearthstone player called Blitzchung spoke out in support of the protesters in Hong Kong, his hometown.

The lighter your skin, the better AI-powered facial recognition systems work for you. The UK Home Office knows this, because the government‘s been briefed several times on the problem. And a recent report shows that it knew it was developing a passport program built on biased, racist AI. It just doesn’t care. The UK’s passport program went live in 2016. It uses an AI-powered facial recognition feature to determine whether user-uploaded photos meet the requirements and standard

Just when we thought there was nothing left to leak about the Pixel 4, more news shows up on our doorstep. The latest comes from Nikkei, in a report that claims Google “has begun test production of a 5G smartphone that it may unveil as soon as next week.” According to the report, the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL are already going into mass production, while the 5G device is in test production. This could indicate the company plans to announce the devices simultaneously, but the 5G might n

Advanced TV consortium OpenAP, made up of Viacom, NBC Universal, Fox and Univision, has officially launched its audience-based buying tool, called the OpenAP Market.
The buy-side marketplace, which launched on 1 October following a one-month closed beta period, lets advertisers plan and buy campaigns across each publisher's owned-and-operated TV footprint, whether that’s traditional linear, connected TV (CTV), set-top box on demand, mobile or desktop.
This means advertisers can trade on gu

Healthcare providers are facing an unprecedented level of social engineering-driven malware threats, according to new research. The findings — disclosed by California-based enterprise security solutions provider Proofpoint US — discovered at least 77 percent of email attacks on the medical sector during the first three months of 2019 involved the use of malicious links. “URL-based attacks are effective because although users have grown more cautious about opening attachments,

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few weeks, you’ll know that Apple has just released the latest array of its mobiles. Just like last year, the tech giant has put out three devices. These are the: iPhone 11 iPhone 11 Pro iPhone 11 Pro Max But… what does that actually mean? What are the differences between the phones? What’s new with them? Well, we have all the answers in the video above. This will give you an overview of the new line-up, spl

Is programmatic working for you? And how do you measure success? These questions were unravelled by industry experts at this year’s DMEXCO in Cologne. “Publishers should be rethinking their relationship with dominant tech vendors when it comes to programmatic advertising,” according to Romain Job, chief strategy officer at Smart AdServer.
Speaking to The Drum at Cologne’s annual digital exhibition, Job dived into the importance of strong independent adtech vendors for med

It appears that GitHub has no intentions of cutting its working relationship with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency despite moral and political disagreements with the Trump administration, a leaked memo has revealed. The memo, which leaked yesterday, touches on the moral and ethical dilemmas that went into the decision to renew a $200,000 contract with the agency. Following the leak, CEO Nat Friedman shared the full email in a blog post for everyone to see. “At Git

Electric cars are often seen as one of the great hopes for tackling climate change. With new models arriving in showrooms, major carmakers retooling for an electric future, and a small but growing number of consumers eager to convert from gas guzzlers, EVs appear to offer a way for us to decarbonize with little change to our way of life. Yet there is a danger that fixating on electric cars leaves a large blind spot. Electrification would be very expensive for the lumbering lorries that haul goo

DC Thomson Media has moved two of its top editors into ‘brand transformation’ roles as part of an initiative backed by Google News.
The division will manage the transformation of the business to extend subscription and reader revenues across multiple platforms.
Alan McCabe, editor-in-chief of The Press and Journal, and Richard Prest, editor of The Sunday Post, will step down from their roles to work full-time on the project under the steerage of Richard Neville, head of newspapers at

The More Labs campaign ‘So You Don’t Feel Like Sh*t After Drinking’ imagines a life without hangovers, thanks to its product, Morning Recovery, designed to ease the effects of alcohol the following day.
Morning Recovery is a beverage to drink before, during or after drinking alcohol, and is intended to reduce the impact of having one too many. The beverage contains DHM, a natural ingredient derived from the Japanese raisin tree which is said to accelerate the rem

Kellogg's, Dell, 20th Century Fox, Toyota, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Old Navy, and Hulu are just some of the brands who have made the shortlist for The Drum Digital Advertising Awards 2019.
In the modern world, every business needs to be able to navigate their way through the digital minefield and produce work that cuts through and gets results. That's why these awards were created: To unearth the talented individuals, teams, products and services that are making the biggest differenc

Save creative souls is the line Stein IAS devised to help promote the Chip Shop Awards, an event that provides a showcase for unbridled creativity. It celebrates the sort of work most award schemes outlaw - such as parodies that have sometimes been created without the knowledge of the actual brand involved. But the idea is to give the creative community an outlet that focuses on one thing and one thing alone; the quality of the idea.
It means the event is a great leveler with professionals

Yext’s latest food for thought evening was all about questions – not just asking them, but analysing how the way we ask them, and the platforms we ask them on, is changing the way we live, the world we live in and even who we think we are.
The Food for Thought event, organised by Yext, at Tramshed in Shoreditch explored how search has moved from blue links to to answers, from keywords to questions; and whether brands are ready for this new consumer journey.
However, the first questio

Google Docs is one of the few online applications that I’m deeply dependent on for my everyday work. Like millions of other people, I use it to write, edit, collaborate, and to archive my documents. There’s no arguing on the convenience that Google Docs provides, whether you’re a professional writer, an account manager, an academic researcher, or just a random person taking inventory of your thoughts. But like every other piece of useful technology, Google Docs can cause unwan

Whether you know it or not, you are competing against Amazon. And Netflix. As well as every other company in the world that engages customers digitally – which is just about all of them. I say that as someone who’s been hired by dozens of Fortune 500 companies and many other household brands to help them find, engage and keep online customers. It’s work we’ve been doing for more than a decade now, work that has put us in a position to know as much about contemporary cust

Ad industry executives have hit out at Twitter after it admitted it "may have... inadvertently” used sensitive information given by users for security purposes to also help target advertising. 
Email addresses and phone numbers, submitted for two-factor authentication to secure accounts from hackers, "may have been" used to power Twitter's Tailored Audiences and Partner Audiences advertising products. 
On Wednesday 8 October, Twitter, in the name of "transpare

Phone cameras are getting scarily sharp. So much so that a disturbed stalked was able to track down the address of a popular Japanese artist from selfies she posted on social media — by literally zooming in on the reflection of her eyes. The obsessed fan, Hibiki Sato, later used the information he gathered to attack 21-year-old member of J-pop collective Tenshitsukinukeniyomi, Ena Matsuoka, in front of her home in Tokyo, according to local outlets. The assault took place on September 1. T

Welcome to CHEAP, our series about things that are good, but most of all, cheap. CHEAP! Have a pool party coming up? And you haven’t found a way to lug your expensive speaker system out in the back yard so you can play some sick tunes? We’ve got your back. You can just purchase a Sony XB10 Portable Wireless Speaker. Let me tell you why. First, it’s compact, water-resistant, and ultra-portable. Plus, it has great sound with extra bass. And last but not least, it’s on sale

The Bank of England‘s (BoE) Financial Policy Committee (FPC) has laid down a set of rules that Facebook‘s Libra and other cryptocurrencies must follow if they are to be launched in Britain. While some question if Facebook’s ‘cryptocurrency’ Libra will ever launch, the BoE‘s FPC did recognize its potential to becoming an “important payment system,” City AM reports. These kinds of payment systems would need to demonstrate the system’s security

Sextortion phishers are pivoting away from Bitcoin to alternative cryptocurrencies to avoid being caught by email filters, ZDNet reports. In particular, some sextortionists now rely on Litecoin, as major email providers automatically flag suspicious emails that feature Bitcoin wallet addresses. “As this latest twist shows, threat actors can switch to the next crypto currency [sic] and attempt to iterate through all the scam’s previous versions,” said phishing analysts Cofense.

Welcome to The Drum's Creative Works, in partnership with Adobe Stock, dedicated to showing the best creative work from around the globe. We give our readers the chance to decide which work features as our Creative Work of the Week.
Scroll through the latest work from brands like Sprite, Thinx, Dropbox and others below, then click through to the global Creative Works site and see what stands out. For project information, creative credits and more, click on the project to expand to

When you break down classic Disney movies, they usually have very problematic undertones. I mean just look at Ariel, the red-headed mermaid, from The Little Mermaid who was more than willing to give up her voice for a man. Not to mention how Kiss The Girl, a song about Prince Eric and Ariel’s sexual tension, argues that consent isn’t necessary in the lyrics — “There is one way to ask her / It don’t take a word / Not a single word / Go on and kiss the girl.” B

The Huawei P30 Pro made waves with its camera setup. It boasted AI assistance that helped get brightness, contrast, and color right, a night mode that captured more details than the human eye could see, and a wild 50x optical zoom feature. The Chinese manufacturer went all out to dazzle us, the consumers, with its camera. And to a large degree, it succeeded. Yep, my colleague Ivan Mehta even wrote that you should leave your DSLR at home as long as you bring the P30 Pro along on your t

Recently Instagram and Facebook (Australia only) have been experimenting with hiding the like count from everyone but the creator of the post, and this potential change has brands and creators questioning their social strategy.
Social media began as a means to connect people and, with this move, Instagram hopes to provide users with a genuine connection once again. After all, likes have diminished in importance because our behaviours have changed, so it’s time for social channels to change

Hostelworld has appointed Asos’ marketing boss Yale Varty as its chief marketing officer.
It’s a long-awaited replacement for Kristof Fahy, who left one year ago after just 10 months in the role to take on an interim marketing job at checkatrade.com before joining Moonpig earlier this year.
Varty has joined from online fashion giant Asos where he led marketing. 
He began his career in consulting with Accenture in Seattle, working with companies in tech, e-commerce, retail and co

Last week, Activision released the much-awaited Call of Duty Mobile on Android and iOS in partnership with the Chinese tech giant Tencent. The new battle royale game seems to be an instant hit as it has already crossed 100 million downloads, according to a report by app research firm SensorTower. The report notes the game beat first-week download numbers achieved by other popular games such as PlayersUnknown BattleGround (PUBG) and Fortnite. While PUBG picked up 28 million downloads w

Further to its previous blockchain exploits, the United Nations Children’s Fund, more commonly known as UNICEF, is now taking donations in cryptocurrency. According to an announcement earlier today, UNICEF is setting up a “cryptocurrency fund” so that it can “receive, hold, and disburse donations of cryptocurrencies,” specifically Bitcoin and Ethereum. Thankfully it looks like UNICEF won’t be doing any trading with contributions made to the fund. Donations wi

Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day. Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Baudriallard used to say: Bob’s your uncle! Bitcoin Price We closed the day, October 08 2019, at a price of $8,228. That’s a minor 0.21 percent decline in 24 hours, or -$18.06. It was the lowest closing price in one day. We’re still 59 percent below Bitcoin&

Breast Cancer Foundation (BCF) has unveiled a breast self-examination 'Nursery reminder' campaign as part of the Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
The campaign created by DDB Group Singapore features the tune of 'Wheels on a bus', the nursery rhyme 'Molly Monkey sings and saves' contains phrases like 'up and down' and 'round and round' to illustrate the movements of a breast self-exam. 
The campaign comes in response to a recent BCF survey indicating that while 90% of Singaporeans un

Instagram is increasingly becoming the go-to platform for many brands, as it's a guaranteed way to lock in users' attention.
Meltwater is holding the How to Master Instagram Marketing for 2020 webinar this Friday to help marketers navigate the platform and learn how to craft a relevant marketing strategy.
Aimed at both B2B and B2C marketers, the webinar will teach them about brand engagement and how to lead gens to show how Instagram can deliver.
Featuring a host of young UK-based social me

Retaining control over your brand in the digital era can be tricky. What with consumers reusing content and posting it as their own, it can be difficult for marketers to check that their brand materials are being used correctly. In a collaborative whitepaper between The Drum and Brandworkz, ‘When it comes to brand strategy, control is king,’ the question of delivering targeted, real-communications is explored, looking at ways that marketers can maintain a consistent message and cultu

In 2017/18, there were 2.34 million students studying at universities across the country, yet 44% of these undergraduates were unsure of which career to pursue after graduation.
This is nothing new. For every student applying for university with a career in mind, there are several who are hoping they’ll work it out during university, but are still left feeling unsure after graduation.
Whilst some jobs - for example, doctors and dentists - require specific degrees and qualifications, many o

David James, the ex-England goalkeeper and safer gambling ambassador, has teamed up with GambleAware to help football fans overcome boredom, so they don't resort to making impulsive bets.
According to YouGov, over 25 million people in the UK support a Premier League or Championship club. However the international break this October can leave supporters bored, leading them to make impetuous gambles that end in 'Bet Regret'. 
Earlier this season, a survey conducted by the Football Suppor

It is widely recognised that charities are seen as ‘brands’ - as with any other brand they need to stand out and have a unique identity in order to stand apart in a crowded marketplace. The charity market is one which is saturated, and are all vying for share of wallet to ultimately drive funding and support to those most in need. 
Challenges of trust and justifying spend – but what about care of its own staff and building trustThe sector faces many other challenges it has