Known as one of the most innovative companies in the world, Coca-Cola is changing up their marketing strategy yet again with the reinstatement of a global CMO.

With 130 years of business under their belt, Coca-Cola transformed themselves from a globally successful soft drink company to a globally successful media company with the implementation of innovative marketing strategies. This includes their iconic branding campaigns that have cultivated the highest brand loyalty of any product. Wendy Clark was the Senior Vice President of Integrated Marketing Communications and Capabilities from 2008-2016. Now, there is a new sheriff in town.

In May 2017, as part of their innovative marketing strategy, Coca-Cola ditched the position of Chief Marketing Officer and created the title “chief growth officer instead”. This position has been held by company Senior Vice President Francisco Crespo since 2017, who will be stepping down from the position in 2020.

To replace Crespo, Coca-Cola is reinstating the CMO position to, again, replace the new Chief Growth Officer position. Company veteran Manolo Arryo will be assuming the global Chief Marketing Officer position in 2020.

https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/344639/cokes-got-a-global-cmo-again-company-veteran-man.html

After an uproar over Hallmark’s same-sex couple commercial advertising the wedding registry and planning website Zola, Hallmark pulls the ad off the air. Now, they are reversing their position.

This past Sunday, Hallmark’s CEO Mike Perry publicly apologized for the companies’ retraction of a wedding planning and registry website commercial for Zola. The advertisement depicted the happy wedding of a same-sex female couple to advertisement the brand, which sparked outcry of one conservative group in particular: One Million Moms.

One Million Moms reached out to Crown Family Networks (parent company of Hallmark) CEO Bill Abbott claiming in protest that the advertisement was in poor taste, “distracting”, and pressured the company to pull the commercial off-air. Abbott responded to the group claiming the advertisement aired “in error” and would be pulled immediately.

After the decision to pull the ad was made public, this also prompted outrage from many, including Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, Ellen DeGeneres, and streaming company Netflix. It also sparked a skit from Saturday Night Live depicting a Hallmark dating show, poking fun at the channel for its homophobic actions.

As of current, Hallmark is working with Zola to renew their partnership and reinstate the advertisements on the channel.

Image source: https://hackaday.com/2018/10/18/ask-hackaday-why-arent-we-hacking-cellphones/

When someone tells us they were robbed, we usually imagine they got their wallet, phone, or even car stolen. In this case, yes, a car was broken into. Though, this burglar did not cause the loss of just one person’s belongings, but instead, 29,000 Facebook employees.

The robber used their conniving little hands to steal a Facebook payroll employee’s unencrypted hard drive, via car break-in. On this hard drive contains thousands of Facebook employees’ personal information that’ve been hired since 2018, including their “bank account numbers, employee names, the last four digits of their social security numbers, their salaries, bonuses, and equity details” (Lee, 2019).

Image source: https://towardsdatascience.com/detecting-personal-data-within-api-communication-using-deep-learning-9e52a1ff09c6

Despite the hard drive’s absence of Facebook user data (lucky for us), this still raised the question as to how safe is this company keeping our private information? We’re not so hopeful, based on previous privacy scandals (it even took them over a month to alert employees of this incident in particular).

In order to alleviate concern, Facebook is offering its affected employees a 2-year subscription to an identity theft protection service. Though, we are still left in the dark about are few things. 1) What is the robbers’ intention for stealing the hard drives? 2) Why was this hard drive in an employee’s car in the first place? and 3) Why was the hard drive unencrypted?

Facebook claims we have nothing to worry about but considering their history of carelessness with their users’ private information, I believe alarm is warranted. This story reminded me that any of us who use the internet have much more at stake than just what we carry on our person. Maybe we should practice the same diligent protection we have over our private information as we do with our phone and wallet.

Source material: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/13/21020736/facebook-theft-unencrypted-drives-employee-payroll-security

As of October 22nd, 2019, the CASE (Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement) Act officially passed 410-6 in the House of Representatives. If passed by the Senate, this act will ease the financial burden of enforcing ones rights in terms of copyright theft.

Traditionally, when faced with copyright theft and infringement issues, the process involves hiring an attorney and fronting high legal expenses. This process seems unfair, especially if you were the victim of copyright theft in the first place, and often discourages people from fighting for rights they are entitled to. In many cases, the financial burden that comes along with fighting copyright infringement is far too high for the average creative or everyday person. Ideally, the CASE Act would provide a financially practical way to enforce ones rights without having to hire an expensive attorney, especially for independent creators.

According to The Recording Academy, this monumental act is an incredible victory for music creators specifically, following last years passing of the Music Modernization Act. Daryl Friedman, chief industry, government, & member relations officer for the Recording Academy claims that the CASE Act finally gives music makers access to the copyright protection they deserve.

If the CASE Act passes the Senate for final vote, a copyright claims board will be created within the U.S Copyright Office to rule on small claims infringement where damages will be capped at $15,000 per claim and $30,000 total.

https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/legal-and-management/8539998/case-act-passes-us-house-representatives

https://adage.com/article/digital/youtube-outlaws-insults-based-race-gender-expression-and-sexual-orientation-caveats/2221831

In recent news, Youtube has established new regulations on anti-discriminatory policies, removing videos that imply insulting speech towards sexual orientation and race, the company said on Wednesday.

The Google unit has made efforts to clean its site since executives in the past have been accused of making homophobic remarks in their own videos. Matt Halprin, YouTube’s head of trust and safety, commented on the new changes stating that, “We will no longer allow content that maliciously insults someone based on protected attributes such as their race, gender expression, or sexual orientation,” “This applies to everyone, from private individuals, to YouTube creators, to public officials.” Youtube has since responded by removing ads from videos exhibiting derogatory remarks.

However, there are exceptions to the actions YouTube will abide by going forward. The company stated that videos that include harassment language in specific contexts, such as a documentary or a scripted satire, will not be exempted from the new policies. Additionally, clips featuring or discussing powerful people such as “high-profile government officials or CEOs of major multinational corporations” will not be removed.

The new policies and regulations that YouTube will follow reaffirms the company’s workplace culture and strict enforcement towards such delicate cases. I think the decision furthermore enforces how other media companies should similarly follow YouTube’s new direction. Given the lawsuit they faced only a few months ago, YouTube certainly seems motivated in clearing its name and avoiding any further indictments at all cost.

Warner Bros Sets Release Dates For ‘The Matrix’ Sequel, ‘The Flash’ & More; ‘Akira’ Off Schedule

Recently, Warner Bros. has set a variety of new releases to come out within the next couple of years. Highlighting the announcement is led by popular DC Universe films such as The Flash (2022) and Aquaman , but the article most notably highlights a good ole fashion box office weekend duel between a pair of surefire Keanu Reeves blockbusters.

On May 21st, 2021, Warner Bros. will be releasing both The Matrix 4 and John Wick with pure Keanu vision. The decision is interesting considering the height of each film’s release. The last Matrix film to hit theaters dates back all the way to 2003 and that comes along with bad baggage and a poor reception from both audiences and critics. Over the years, not many moviegoers have been saying, “when’s the next Matrix film going to come out?” While some die hard fans may be excited, it isn’t necessarily the most popular IP to attract viewers to the theater today given the hype around the MCU and Disney as of late.

However, Keanu Reeves has surprisingly grown an odd fascination to him from fans as the John Wick films have seemed to gradually amused audiences. The third installment nearly made more in one weekend than the second film did in its entire run in theaters and also more than 50% in the world wide box office.

There is one thing that is for sure, Warner Bros. won’t have to worry about filling in people in the theaters on May 21st. However, the financial success of the film’s individually is certainly in jeopardy. The way I see it, John Wick will win the weekend as Matrix 4 will not make as much as they’d hope. The best thing for Warner Bros. to do is simply push back Matrix 4 to a late summer release. This makes audiences excited for another Keanu film later in the season, having another weekend for himself and riding high on the hype of John Wick 4. 

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) conducted an investigation on Verizon, T-Mobile, and US Cellular. The FCC staff ran speed and coverage tests in rural areas around the country to assess whether consumers in these areas were receiving sufficient download speeds. The FCC concluded that Verizon and T-Mobile over-exaggerated their 4G coverage maps to trick current customers as well as potential customers into believing 4G and fast downloading speeds were available in their area. Staff were unable to receive any 4G signal in 21.3% of T-Mobile’s tests and 16.2% of Verizon’s tests.

In the report the FCC said “Overstating mobile broadband coverage misleads the public and can misallocate our limited universal service funds, and thus it must be met with meaningful consequences.” They also recommended that they assemble a team to ensure the accuracy of mobile broadband maps. T-Mobile stood by its maps but said that they agree with the fact that there is room to improve their procedures and coverage maps.

The FCC will not be punishing the mobile carriers at all because they could not find a “sufficiently clear violation”. Instead, they will send out an advisory reminder to the entire industry that they could be punished for exaggerating their coverage maps. The commission also decided to drop it’s $4.5 billion Mobility Fund due to the overstated coverage maps discovered.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/5/20997700/verizon-tmobile-us-4g-cellular-coverage-map-fcc-ajit-pai-jessica-rosenworcel