Reddit took a victory lap on its Q3 earnings call on Thursday. For the first time, the social platform achieved its pre-IPO profitability goal of 40% adjusted EBITDA, said CEO Steve Huffman. Reddit is also the No. 3 most-visited site on the internet for US-based users, according to Semrush - trailing behind only YouTube and Amazon.com. And Reddit touted some impressive numbers for its advertising business, including $549 million in Q3 ad revenue and a 74% YOY growth rate.
Snapchat's parent company revealed it was set to change the focus of its London office, saying that the UK's strong creative industries make for a "great place to build a global business'. In a marked departure from a well-worn path employed by rivals like Facebook and Twitter, which have set up shop in other EU countries, Snap Inc announced that all UK ad revenue and sales from countries which had no local salesforce would be billed through a newly-created British entity.
Apple Maps users could start seeing ads in the app as soon as next year, according to a new report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Similar to Google Maps and other mapping apps, Apple's plan is to allow restaurants and other businesses with brick-and-mortar locations to pay to promote themselves in search results, Gurman says. While Apple already runs ads in the App Store, this could be part of a larger strategy to introduce more advertising in iOS.
Trump announced on his Truth Social network on Thursday that he had terminated all negotiations with Canada over what he called the fake advertising campaign that he said misrepresented fellow Republican President Reagan. list of 4 itemsend of list Less than 24 hours later, Ontario's Premier Doug Ford said he was suspending the advertisement after talking to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney about the spiralling row with Washington.
We've come a long way in building our advertising business in less than three years. In that time, we've gone from zero members on our ads plan to achieving sufficient scale in all 12 of our ads markets (and we'll continue to grow from here), building out our ad sales and operations teams, and enhancing our capabilities for advertisers including launching our own first party ad tech stack (Netflix Ads Suite).
So many thoughts ... For obvious reasons, I've been reflecting a lot lately on my old constitutional law coursework. As long as the Supreme Court holds that money is speech-and the Supreme Court retains enough legitimacy to be taken seriously-I foresee major free speech issues around restricting advertising. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the court's legitimacy will have a shorter shelf life than its view on the "marketplace of ideas," given how aggressively it's shedding any pretense of respect for precedent.
Tim Higgins: Today on Bold Names, Liz Reid. She oversees Google Search and is something of a Google lifer. Having been there more than 20 years, she has seen some of the biggest moments for this company.
McDonald's just showed how brands can use retro gaming to make pretty much anything look cool. The fastfood giant has cooked up a trio of TV ads that turn its new Street Fighter 'Street Burgers' into signature special attack moves in a pixel-perfect homage to Capcom's classic arcade game. Made for McDonald's Japan, the campaign boasts authentic-looking animation, including custom sprites in the style of Street Fighter II.
Schwartz plays a character with the title "Head of Sequels." In the video, he offers up some strange ideas to help people understand and appreciate The Outer Worlds 2. One of his ideas is to bribe people to like the game. Another is firing t-shirts at them. This is all done under the idea that The Outer Worlds 2 has "big sequel energy."
ALISON BEARD: I'm Alison Beard. ADI IGNATIUS: I'm Adi Ignatius. This is HBR IdeaCast. ALISON BEARD: Adi, you are very familiar with both of the guests on today's show. One is a comedian and talk show host, Jimmy Fallon. The other is a marketing executive turned reality TV star, Bozoma Saint John. But what they have in common beyond TV is an expertise on how to create breakthrough moments for themselves, their offerings, and all of the brands that they're associated with.
Mosseri said Instagram needs to adapt to changing user habits, noting that more people now watch videos on their TVs. He acknowledged that not developing a TV app earlier was a missed opportunity, adding that Instagram now aims to deliver a strong presence across all major devices. He added that if people are watching more on TV, then the company needs to be there too.
On how she became a part of the show: Jimmy had the idea and sold it probably a year before we had a conversation. The challenge that he was facing was that, of course, he's a genius at what he does, commenting about pop culture and making creative partnerships. But what he would say he doesn't have is the résumé, the professional corporate chops to back it up. So he needed a partner to add legitimacy to the show.
He said the "whole concept of brand safety" is a "problem." "That's just subjective," he said onstage in conversation with measurement giant Nielsen. "You look at somebody and you look at their audience and you say they're not necessarily safe. What does that mean? There was a time a couple of years ago they were saying Judy Blume books weren't safe - Judy Blume!