INDUSTRY UPDATES

Ad Vendors / Platforms / Data

  • iPhones have overtaken Android devices, claiming 50% of the US smartphone user market share. (Financial Times)

  • Apple will double the size of its digital advertising team, adding 216 new hires to its existing 250 employees. (Financial Times)

  • Fox has sold almost all of its 2023 Super Bowl commercial spots, with just 5% of ad inventory remaining. (Variety)

  • Amazon replaced TikTok as global consumers’ favorite ad environment. Marketers, however, prefer to advertise on Instagram the most. (Media Leader)

  • PayPal is used by 57% of US adults, while 38% use Venmo, 36% use Zelle, and 25% use CashApp. 61% of those who have ever used a payment platform do so because it makes paying for things easier. (PewResearch)

Awards / Festivals

  • At the 2022 Creative Arts Emmy Awards, “Stranger Things”, “Euphoria”, and “The White Lotus” were among the top winners. They brought home five wins apiece in categories such as guest acting, music, and stunts. (Variety)

  • Barack Obama became the first former US president to win an Emmy award, taking home Outstanding Narrator for his work on the Netflix documentary “Our Great National Parks". (The Wrap)

  • The Ibero-American Festival of Creativity, FIAP, became the first advertising festival to deliver its awards in NFT format. (BeLatina)

  • The Toronto International Film Festival returned for its 47th year. The festival attendance is expected to return to its pre-pandemic level at over 300K. (Deadline)

Cinemas / Theatrical

  • Cineworld, the owner of Regal Cinemas filed for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy includes $1.94B of debt and is not expected to impact day to day global operations. (WSJ)

  • Top Gun: Maverick outperformed Spider-Man: No Way Home in box office revenue over Labor Day weekend. Top Gun brought in $7.9M versus Spider-Man at $6.55M. (Variety)

  • Paramount Pictures will increase its output to 12-15 theatrical releases a year, up from 8 this year. (Deadline)

Gambling / Casinos

  • About 70% of sports bettors are on Twitter, and they spend 15% more on bets annually than sports bettors who are not on Twitter. (Casino.org)

  • New York passed the $10B mark on its total sports betting handle since the launch of its sports betting market in January. (Gambling News)

  • ESPN will release more original sports betting content. A new show called Bet with Erin Dolan will air weekly on Snapchat, and existing shows Daily Wager and Bet will be aired more often. (Gambling News)

  • BetMGM and the Arizona Cardinals debuted the first NFL in-stadium sportsbook at State Farm Stadium. (YogoNet)

Live Events / Attractions

  • Vox Media will host 100+ events in 2023, an 18% increase from 2021. It also offered ticketed, virtual access to Code for the first time. (AdWeek)

  • Princess Diana: A Tribute Exhibition opened at The Shops at Crystals in Vegas and features over 700 original royal artifacts. (Reuters)

  • About 66% of UK consumers have cut back spending on non-essential purchases while over 40% have cut back on spending on essential household items due to the increased cost of living. (Marcomm News)

Music / Audio / Podcasts

  • The David Bowie estate launched a new NFT series, “Bowie on the Blockchain” featuring works from nine artists paying homage to Bowie. (Rolling Stone)

  • Music Publishers and The Songwriters Association reached a legal settlement with streaming services for mechanical streaming rates in the US, agreeing to a 15.35% rate for 2023-2027. (Variety)

  • Spotify will test two new ways to boost monetization efforts: selling tickets to listeners with the launch of a ticketing website and the introduction of audiobooks. (Hollywood Reporter)

  • K-pop group BLACKPINK became the first artist to surpass 80M subscribers on YouTube. They earned the title of most subscribed artist in 2021, when they outpaced Justin Bieber at 65.5M on the platform. (Billboard)

Crypto / NFT / Metaverse

  • The Braves built a virtual ball park with future plans of offering fans the ability to purchase digital goods and services. (Digiday)

  • Binance will no longer support USDC, the second largest stablecoin. They plan to convert customers USDC into its own stablecoin in September to enhance liquidity and capital-efficiency for users. (Tech Crunch)

  • LG Electronics released its NFT platform LG Art Lab. The platform allows users to discover, buy, sell, and trade NFTs on LG’s smart TVs. (Tech Crunch)

  • Ticketmaster will let event organizers issue NFTs tied to tickets on the Flow blockchain. They can make NFTs available surrounding the event and enable special experiences like loyalty rewards or celebrity meet-and-greets. (Tech Crunch)

  • Meta will be revealing a new VR headset in October. The headset will include eye and facial tracking and color passthrough with a high-res screen. (The Verge)

  • Quentin Tarantino and Miramax settled their legal dispute over the release of Pulp Fiction NFTs. Miramax, who owned the copyright to the movie, sued Tarantino after he released the NFTs. (Hollywood Reporter)

  • Ripio launched a new prepaid Visa card in Brazil that lets users pay in crypto and receive bitcoin cashback rewards. (CryptoNews)

  • British rocker Muse was the first artist to release an entire album under Serenade's Web3 music marketplace. The collection now lives on OpenSea. (The Chainsaw)

OTT / Streaming

  • Roku TV launched in Germany, with Metz blue and TCL being the first partners to sell Roku TV models. (Advanced TV)

  • The first two episodes of Amazon's The Rings of Power were watched by 25M people in the first 24 hours. (Variety)

  • HBO’s House of the Dragon saw a 22% increase in demand following its second episode, helping it maintain its status as the most in-demand breakout show. (Parrot Analytics)

  • Netflix is hoping to increase its global subscriber count to 500M in the next three years. (WSJ)

  • Disney+ added a slate of new subscriber perks spanning its theme parks, merchandise, cruise lines, and theatrical movies. (THR)

  • Disney+ released its first AR-enabled short film called Remembering. The eight-minute movie features an AR app that lets users scan their TV to watch an extension of the movie on their phone. (Tech Crunch)

  • Disney+ is offering new subscribers one month of the service for $1.99 through September 19th. (The Verge)

  • Australian SVOD Stan has grown its subscriber base by 6% YoY and has secured the rights to the women’s Rugby World Cup this year and the men’s Rugby World Cup in 2023. (Mumbrella)

  • THE AFL landed the biggest sports broadcast rights deal in Australian history after extending its partnership with the Seven Network, Foxtel and Telstra for another seven seasons. (AFL)

Retail / Lifestyle / Travel

  • For 85% percent of US adults, rising inflation has impacted the way they shop, prompting them to look for deals, discounts and coupons. (Morning Consult)

  • Even though two-thirds feel squeezed financially, 80% of consumers globally intend to maintain or increase their spend on health and fitness. (Accenture)

  • The share of US adults that would take a trip involving work dropped several points between February and August. (Morning Consult)

Social Media

  • Twitter Circle is now available to everyone on the platform. The new feature allows users to limit tweets to a smaller audience. (The Verge)

  • Meta was fined $400M for violating European Union data privacy laws for the treatment of children’s data on Instagram. This is the latest move by authorities in Europe and the US to crack down on child protection online. (The New York Times)

  • Instagram is testing a new “Add Topics” option when uploading Reels. This update will help categorize clips and showcase content to an engaged and interested audience looking for certain topics. (Social Media Today)

  • YouTube is considering adding short-form videos to its YouTube Kids app to compete with TikTok. (Insider)

  • Twitter is expanding its experimental community moderation system Birdwatch, which currently has 15K+ contributors. (The Verge)

Video Games

  • Stacked is making a video streaming platform for gaming content — basically Twitch for Web3 users. It plans to turn creators into shareholders of the platform by giving them governance tokens. (Tech Crunch)

  • The Chainsmokers will soon unveil an immersive music experience in Roblox that lets players create and perform in their own music festival. (Hype Beast)

Live Sports

  • Ahead of the 2022 season, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the NFL’s most popular player among US adults. (Morning Consult)

  • Serena Williams became the most tweeted about female athlete ever after the US Open. Three quarters of those who tweeted about her from August 1st - September 2nd didn't tweet about her all year. (Variety)

  • Just behind soccer, Boxing is the second most favored sport among UK sports fans with almost 30% following matches. (Statista)

  • ESPN and DraftKings are the most popular fantasy sports platforms among US adults, with 65% and 55% of fantasy sports players who participate in football using the platforms respectively. (Morning Consult)
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