April 4 2023 - It's Tuesday Time

👋 Good Morning and Happy Tuesday! No fuss, let's get into it👇

Apple is set to reduce a limited number of roles within its corporate retail teams, according to anonymous sources. The affected groups, responsible for the construction and maintenance of Apple stores and other facilities worldwide, will see some job cuts, which the company is positioning as a streamlining effort to improve store upkeep. This marks the first known internal job cuts since Apple's belt-tightening effort last year. The company has previously avoided corporate layoffs, even during the pandemic, although it has reduced budgets and cut back its contractor workforce. Employees affected by the job cuts may reapply for similar positions or receive up to four months of pay.

L'Oreal has agreed to purchase Aesop for $2.53 billion. This deal will enable Brazilian beauty giant Natura & Co.,  to reduce its debt and concentrate on other businesses. The Financial Times reported that “a deal of that size marks a departure for L’Oréal because it is acquiring a relatively mature brand. Its usual strategy is to buy smaller brands and then roll them out internationally to boost sales”. In a statement, Nicolas Hieronimus, Chief Executive Officer of L’Oréal Groupe said “Aēsop taps into all of today’s ascending currents and ‘LOréal will contribute to unleash its massive growth potential, notably in China and Travel retail.”

Disney CEO Bob Iger has criticized Governor Ron DeSantis for being "anti-business and anti-Florida" after DeSantis tried to strip Disney of long-held jurisdictional rights in the Orlando area. Iger spoke out against DeSantis' retaliation against Disney and highlighted the company's investment and contributions to the state, including generating millions of visitors, jobs, and tax revenue. He also defended Disney's right to freedom of speech and expressed his desire to create content that promotes "greater understanding, greater acceptance".

Mr. Iger on Monday said Disney plans to invest about $17 billion in Walt Disney World over the next decade, and that those investments will create 13,000 new direct jobs and thousands of new indirect jobs. The CEO said the investments will attract more visitors to central Florida and increase the state’s annual tax revenue.

“Any action that thwarts those efforts, simply to retaliate for a position the company took, sounds not just antibusiness, but it sounds anti-Florida,” Mr. Iger said.

Apple's CEO Tim Cook recently spoke to GQ magazine (in a long, fascinating interview), about the company's focus on using AR/VR to create human connection and communication IRL. He  shared  insights into the development of their highly anticipated mixed reality headset, including why it's taking longer to release than expected. Cook expressed a keen interest in collaboration, and the potential for AR to revolutionize education. However, emphasized that the primary purpose of AR should be to bring people together in the real world, rather than separating them or transporting them to a different universe.

Meta, has temporarily stopped allowing remote work for new job listings. This signals a change in the company's pro-remote work culture since the beginning of the pandemic. Despite being in a broad hiring freeze, Meta still has about 300 open jobs globally, with some parts of the company preparing to fill critical positions after the upcoming layoffs. CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a note to employees that while Meta is committed to distributed work, some internal analysis shows that people hired to work remotely are less productive, and it is still easier to build trust in person.

Spotify is shutting down its live-audio app Spotify Live, which was integrated into the main Spotify app last year, but failed to gain traction. The company says it will continue to explore live features on its main platform, and has seen promising results with artist-focused "listening parties," which it will continue to develop. Spotify's move away from live audio follows a similar trend from other companies, such as Facebook, which has discontinued its Clubhouse clone and other short-form audio features.

HBO Max is preparing to reboot Harry Potter as a TV series, with each season covering one book. Talks are still in a preliminary state, but the reveal of a new Harry Potter adaptation could be a big deal for the company's upcoming event on April 12. J.K. Rowling will maintain some creative involvement, but will not be the primary creator or showrunner. The potential series would provide years of content without having to promote or develop a new show.

Pentagram has designed a new identity for Cohere, an AI language platform aimed at making AI accessible to business owners. The identity avoids typical sci-fi tropes associated with AI and instead uses the visual language of cells, dividing into shapes and plains. The adaptable and future-facing brand positions AI as something to embrace and is aimed at businesses rather than just people joking around on the internet. More here on Pentagram's website.

Nike has released a book titled "After all, there is No Finish Line," which provides a fun and thought-provoking look into the company's future. Among the book's predictions for Nike in 2073 are athletic competitions taking place in space, clothing made from spider silk, and footballs made from stardust. The company also envisions research facilities across the globe, a greater focus on the psychology of behavior modification and the democratization of access to its products through digital technologies.

The book was edited by several Nike employees and includes contributions from some of Nike's heaviest hitters, like Innovation President Thomas Clarke, Chief Design Officer John Hoke III, and Ron Faris, who previously ran the SNKRS app and who now oversees the company's new Virtual Studio. Sam Grawe, who wrote the 2021 book Nike: Better is Temporary, is an editor and contributed essays

• Italy's ruling party, is proposing a new law that could impose fines of up to €100,000 on people who use non-Italian words in official communications. Pronouncing the word Bruschetta as "bru-shetta" and not "bru-sketta," for example, could cost Italians financially under the proposed law, according to CNN. Saying "Grazie," thank you in Italian, without the right accentuation at the end of the word may as well be an insult, and could also be a fineable offense for Italian bureaucrats.
• Twitch is attracting audiences who don’t engage with traditional TV, with 54% of its APAC audience not watching more than one hour of linear TV a day. Twitch’s APAC Content Director, Lewis Mitchell, reiterates authenticity is the key to engaging with the platform's users. He believes that advertising on Twitch is similar to advertising to sports fans and brands need to match the community at that level to be successful. “Something that you need to understand is that because people spend so much time with their streamers, they know when they’re being inauthentic or authentic, right? So if you spend an hour a day with somebody, you know, when something’s not quite right, like you can just pick up on those social cues. Because it’s not edited, it’s all live you cannot hide behind edits to make things look authentic when they’re actually not. So on that side of things, it really is about getting to know the personality.”
• YouTube will double its live streams of Coachella this year, allowing viewers to choose from six feeds at once instead of the three they could access last year. The live streams start at 7 PM ET / 4 PM PT each day of the festival and YouTube says highlights of many of the weekend’s performances will be available on demand later.
• Google has introduced a limit of five million files that can be created and saved in Google Drive, which applies even if users pay for additional storage. In a Reddit post spotted by Ars Technica and CNET, a user with 7 million files in Drive says that Google suddenly barred them from creating new files in February despite not hitting the 2TB storage limit that they pay for.Google has cited the need to maintain system performance and reliability as the reason for the move, although users who have reached the limit have said they were given no warning of the new restriction.
• GPT-4 possesses advanced reasoning abilities, but is still constrained by its lack of knowledge. Vector databases will play a crucial role in storing and making large amounts of information available to AI applications, while personal knowledge-bases, like the ones offered by apps such as Readwise and Pocket, will be valuable resources to connect with AI tools.
• The New York Times’ account (which currently has about 55 million followers) lost its official blue checkmark on Sunday, following the news publication’s announcement last week that they wouldn’t pay the $1000 per month business fee for the new verification process. Things seemed to get expedited though when Musk was informed by a Twitter user of the company’s plans.
• Sid Lee's co-founder and global chief creative officer, Philippe Meunier, is stepping down from his creative leadership duties after 30 years and transitioning into the global CEO role. Kristian Manchester, who has worked at Sid Lee since 2001 as executive creative director, will take on the role of global CCO and support growth in Europe while working across the agency's offices around the world.
• Campaign has released its annual billings tables. Publicis Groupe held its position as the largest holding group by advertising billings, while WPP’s agencies delivered combined billings of £521m, placing it fourth in the advertising group rankings. The media billings table was topped by WPP, which reported £3.2bn in billings, with Omnicom coming in second at £1.7bn. However, Interpublic's billings declined by 2%, while the combined billings for its ad agencies, which include MullenLowe Group and McCann, decreased by 31%
• Territory Studio has appointed Nancy Lan as Co-President of Creative Advertising for its Los Angeles office, where she will work alongside Gerry Batson. Lan, who has experience at companies such as Disney, Sony, Searchlight, and Netflix, will contribute to the growth of the studio's advertising offering and will help unify it with Territory Group's global creative mission. Batson praised Lan's expertise and passion and welcomed her to the team.
• Jellyfish Pictures has launched a new production outpost in Mumbai, India and hired Jasjit Singh as General Manager to lead its operations. Singh, who has more than 15 years of experience in the VFX industry, joined Jellyfish Pictures in late 2022 and most recently worked at the DNEG Group-owned production company, ReDefine. Jellyfish's expansion into India will allow the company to work closely with India's VFX and animation talent, with over 100 artists expected to work in Mumbai by the end of 2023, according to CEO David Patton.
• The Kansas City Royals have teamed up with ARound, a fan-engagement platform, to offer an augmented reality experience during home games at Kauffman Stadium in the upcoming 2023 baseball season. Attendees can expect real-time updates, virtual games, and even a fire-breathing dragon that can be controlled via their smartphones. The app is designed to keep fans engaged and focused on the game, rather than distracting them. ARound has previously launched similar AR stadium experiences with the Minnesota Twins and Los Angeles Rams in 2022.
• Disney has announced that they are making a live-action film of Moana and revealed the project with a video featuring Dwayne Johnson.
• FIFA’s post-EA future starts with an AI-powered mobile game. EA is set to release the simulation game EA Sports FC, while FIFA has launched a mobile game called AI League, which is currently available in open beta.
• Activision Blizzard has reached a settlement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) over a complaint that the company financially penalized successful Overwatch and Call of Duty esports teams. The DOJ alleged that Activision's “Competitive Balance Tax” operated as a salary tax and limited competition.

Have we all seen these Pedro Pascal Merge Mansion Ads? Wild.

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