1. TikTok’s potential U.S. ban stirs marketers, spurs contingency planning

Meta could capture between 22.5% and 27.5% of TikTok’s U.S. ad revenues in the event of a ban.

YouTube stands to gain an additional $1.24 billion to $1.53 billion, with $410 million to $500 million of TikTok’s ad revenues redirected to Google’s display and search businesses

One of the early thought exercises I was given at Blue Ion was: what happens if Meta was shut down tomorrow?

It’s a good question to occasionally ask about any important distribution channels.

2. Apple Buys Canadian AI Startup as It Races to Add Features

DarwinAI has developed AI technology for visually inspecting components during the manufacturing process and serves customers in a range of industries. But one of its core technologies is making artificial intelligence systems smaller and faster. That work that could be helpful to Apple, which is focused on running AI on devices rather than entirely in the cloud.

Apple was launching Vision Pro while the rest of the Valley Giants were pivoting to AI. But the benefit of a massive bank account is the ability to buy whatever you want.

Apple has also been really secretive about their AI plans, claiming “disclosure of strategic plans and initiatives harmful to our competitive position and would be premature in this developing area.”

Apple is at the forefront of ambient computing, and on-device AI will be a key component. Plus, Apple is the only one of the giants that isn’t really a cloud company and is most definitely a hardware company.

3. Report Finds No Correlation Between Social Media Engagement and Content Readership

Social media apps are gradually becoming more valued as entertainment sources, while actual interaction shifts to smaller, enclosed chats and communities.

Notice how all the platforms focus on “discovery.”

Across all the articles and topics we analyzed, we found no clear connection between social engagement and actual readers of the news.

Understand vanity metrics vs. brand metrics vs. performance metrics.

4. Podcast Frenzy Report

podcasting is taking over traditional media consumption time, with respondents reporting 28% of them watch less TV and 24% browse social media less often. Gen Z podcast discovery is a mix of methods. 46% of Gen Z respondents rely on social media recommendations, and 33% of younger Gen Z browse top charts and “best of” podcast lists.

Audio! Audio! Audio!

5. What We Learned About Creative From Analyzing $3M in Podcast Media by Caroline Culbertson

Findings include midrolls outperforming both pre-rolls and post-rolls for placement. A quiet value-add for host-read contracts is hosts tend to go over their contracted ad length. Right Side Up found the sweet spot for “60 second” host-read ad performance was host-read creatives that landed between one to three minutes.

Podcasts foster parasocial relationships which gives host-read ads some extra oomph in the persuasion department.

6. The bad ad ecosystem: Here’s what the research says

five types of bad ads, each varying in harm for the marketer: malicious ads, spoofed ads, scam ads, heavy ads and miscategorized ads.
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The easiest thing is [ad buys] are cheap. [Bad ad creators] don’t wanna spend a ton of money on it. So they proliferate in places with really low CPMs
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marketers should work on making good ads. Ensuring the proper ads for the right environments is key, along with keeping on top of creative

7. Layoffs could be coming as debt-laden firms navigate the pain of higher rates, economists say

Higher rates spell trouble for US companies with near-term debt maturities.

Rate changes and inflation measures are the important indicators this year.