A Retail As Old As Time
A month ago, AdExchanger posited in a headline: “Will Retail Media Ruin Retail?”
Betteridge’s Law says the answer is “No.” But the strikes are adding up.
The latest example comes from Walgreens (and we’re not even talking about the shelf barricades). Three years ago, Walgreens signed a 10-year deal with Cooler Screens to install digital signage as refrigerator doors. The screens ostensibly show what’s inside, but the whole point is to generate incremental ad impressions, since video ads spontaneously play when someone’s nearby. Consumers (and Walgreens) rebelled against the idea.
Walgreens and Cooler Screens ended in a nasty ongoing legal situation, because Walgreens wanted to ditch the signage but had a 10-year commitment. A judge forced them to resume using the screens where they’d been installed.
One strong-arm tactic taken by Cooler Screens this past December, Bloomberg reports, was bricking its own tech. Hundreds of screens and data feeds from Walgreens stores went black, actually obscuring the products inside, during the busiest part of the holiday season.
As always, ad revenue seems like can’t-miss, low-hanging fruit. Until someone actually tries the fruit.
You Are Not Immune To Propaganda
First X, then Meta – and now TikTok is throwing its full-throated support behind the Trump administration, CNN reports.
Even as the internet said its goodbyes to TikTok all last week, there was an unspoken assumption that President Trump would overturn the government-imposed ban after taking office, despite instigating it himself five years ago.
But even so, not many onlookers expected the platform itself to praise him for it.
After just a few hours offline, the TikTok app and site began showing this message to users: “Thanks for your patience and support. As a result of President Trump’s efforts, TikTok is back in the U.S.!” (Note that at the time the message was first posted, he had not actually been sworn in yet.)
“TikTok’s decision to name Trump in the notification is a choice,” Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez remarked in an Instagram story, saying TikTok has effectively signaled its intent to become a right-wing propaganda tool.
If that happens, there will no doubt be a user exodus, not unlike recent defections from Facebook, Instagram, Threads and X. Marketers are gonna run out of social media platforms to reach people on.
We Regret The Errors
The Apple Intelligence feature that uses AI to generate summaries of news headlines has been rendered “temporarily unavailable,” The Guardian reports.
Why? Because it kept making stuff up.
Recent examples included claims that Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth had been fired (he hasn’t); that Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu had been arrested (he hadn’t); and that alleged UnitedHealthcare assassin Luigi Mangione shot himself (he didn’t).
Even worse, the iPhone notification UI implied that these false headlines came straight from legitimate news sources: The Washington Post, The New York Times and BBC news, respectively, in the above instances.
Last week, Apple promised it was developing a software update, responding to formal complaints from the BBC, the National Union of Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.
But aside from halting news-related AI summaries, all Apple’s update did was add a disclaimer that the notification may be incorrect and started using italicized text, which doesn’t solve the other problems inherent to the feature.
Call us old fashioned, but wouldn’t it have been simpler and more accurate to just … let reporters and companies construct their own mobile notification messages?
But Wait! There’s More
The FTC reached a settlement with General Motors that bans the automaker from selling drivers’ behavioral and geolocation data for five years. [NYT]
DOOH ads in Times Square and on NYC taxis are soliciting donations for California wildfire relief. But is the charity behind the ads legit? [The City]
Texas Right To Life will launch an ad campaign on Facebook and X next month to recruit the partners of women who had abortions in the state to file lawsuits against those who assisted in ending the pregnancies. [WaPo]
Paramount Global is considering settling a lawsuit filed by President Trump against CBS News because doing so might increase the odds of the Trump administration approving Paramount’s proposed merger with Skydance Media. [WSJ]
Meta’s content moderation changes may be laying the groundwork for mass deportations under Trump’s administration. [404 Media]
You’re Hired
VML hires Eric Campbell to the new position of North America CEO. [Adweek]
