Monday briefing #6: TikTok drama, LinkedIn earned media, antitrust, deepfake copy, debunking AI, creativity and reputation, a creative challenge, and more

Media, social media, must read and listen, research, tools, creativity and diary dates

Good morning. My name is Stephen Waddington. This is a mix of articles from my own blog and content discussed in the marketing, media and PR community. My thanks to all the contributors.

Media

🗞️ OZ FIX FOR NEWS MEDIA: Draft legislation in Australia would force Google and Facebook to share revenue with news publishers. The platforms would pay news media for use of their content and media companies would be able to negotiate as a group. Spotted by: Sarah Waddington.

Social media

📱 TIKTOK DRAMA: US President Donald Trump has repeated his threat to ban TikTok in the US. Meanwhile Microsoft has said that it’s in talks to buy the platform in the US. If you’ve any idea what is going on, please let me know. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.

🕵 LINKEDIN SPY: A Chinese agent allegedly used LinkedIn to hunt for targets. Dickson Yeo pleaded guilty in a US court to being an "illegal agent of a foreign power". Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.

👎 AD BOYCOTT FAIL: Facebook reported Q2 revenue growth of 11% despite the pandemic slowdown and ad boycott by large advertisers. Facebook’s income is unaffected as it has a long tail of small and medium sized business advertisers. Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.

📃 LINKEDIN EARNED MEDIA: Are you pitching LinkedIn? It has a team of 75+ global journalists writing news content for its 43 million readers in 96 countries and nine languages. The best way to get their attention is by writing engaging content on the platform. Spotted by: Andrew Smith.

Must read and listen

🚢 VALUES LED: The RNLI was right to robustly defend itself in the face of criticism from the Daily Mail. The charity organisation stood down two volunteers for having hardcore pornographic images on its property. Spotted by: Mike Carhart-Harris.

📢 SOFT POWER: Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’ statement to the US Antitrust House Committee is an example of storytelling excellence. He spoke about his upbringing, family, the origins of Amazon, customer obsession and his commitment to community and societal causes. Spotted by: Nigel Sarbutts.

👨‍⚖️ ANTITRUST: Pivot calls out three smoking guns from the antitrust hearing: Amazon sells Alexa devices below cost price; Amazon may have used seller data as insight for own brand categories; and Facebook buys competitors to eliminate competition.

Research

🔎 SOCIAL MEDIA BACKLASH: A third of us have limited the time spent online or looking at our smartphones. 43% have taken steps to reduce the amount of data we share online, such as clearing their search history or opting out of geo-location services. Spotted by: Andrew Smith.

✍️ AI IN PR, OR NOT: A project by Andrew Smith and I for the CIPR reported this week that artificial intelligence (AI) tool vendors are not addressing the PR market. Tool adoption is almost entirely limited to automation tools. It revisits a project from 2018 and finds limited progress. Source: Stephen Waddington.

📍 CUSTOMER JOURNEY: The customer journey as a linear path to purchase is nonsense. That’s the view of Lumen Research. It’s a simplified metaphor created by marketing practitioners. The reality is much more complex. Journeys are rarely easy. Spotted by: Andrew Smith.

Tools

📋 DEEPFAKE COPY: Copywriting is the most ubiquitous skill in PR according to the CIPR State of the Profession Survey. But it is being replaced by artificial intelligence and it is undetectable. Spot the issue? Spotted by: Stephen Waddington.

😂 DEBUNKING AI: AI Myths is a counterpoint to AI hype. These misunderstandings contribute to the opacity of AI systems, rendering them magical, inscrutable, and inaccessible in the eyes of the public. Source: Andrew Smith.

🖼️ POWERPOINT INSTRUCTIONS: Here are the 48 rules of Powerpoint by the brilliant marketing strategist Russell Davies. #32 is spot on. Spotted by: Will McInnes.

Creativity

🎨 CREATIVE WON’T FIX REPUTATION: W+K has combined 72 sports sequences into 36 split-screen moments for Nike. The action on both sides appears as a single frame. It's brilliant creative but the YouTube comments are a reputational car crash. Spotted by: Andrew Smith and Stephen Waddington.

📁 CREATIVITY CHALLENGE: It’s day three of the Comms Creatives’ 31 Days of Creativity Challenge. Sign up for a daily task that will land in your inbox and then share your work with the #31DaysOfCreativity community. Source: Helen Reynolds.

Diary dates

📆 10:30 BST, 5 August – In the final session of a #PRFest series on diversity and inclusion, Laura Sutherland and Rax Lakhani are bringing together the CIPR, PRCA and Taylor Bennett Foundation for a conversation about how the profession should hold itself accountable. Tickets are free.

📅 15 September - The PR Cavalry Freelancer Conference - The Business of PR Freelancing with masterclasses led by Helen Reynolds, Emma Ewing and Advita Patel. Tickets from £40.

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