Mike's Industry View - Issue #120
AI / Creativity
AI Mistakes Bus-Side Ad for Famous CEO, Charges Her With Jaywalking — www.caixinglobal.com
A facial recognition system in the city of Ningbo caught Dong Mingzhu, the chair of appliance-making giant Gree Electric, running a red light. Only it turned out not to be Dong, but rather an advertisement featuring her face on the side of a bus, local police said.
Meet the Guy Who Draws Every Great British Baking Show Recipe Illustration — www.vulture.com
Tom Hovey has created every illustration throughout The Great British Bake Off show’s tenure. “My job is to illustrate what the bakers planned to create, not what they actually baked in the tent,”
Business/Marketing/Adv
Ad agencies fade from view as Mark Read's blueprint for WPP takes shape — www.thedrum.com Mark Read promised “decisive action” to revive WPP and his latest intervention – merging 154-year-old ad agency JWT with digital goliath Wunderman – does not disappoint. Not only does it call time on the world’s oldest-standing agency brand, but it signals how advertising agencies, no matter how renowned, will not be the driving force behind Read’s new-era WPP.
Glamour's Editor-in-Chief Kills Print Edition, Says She's Toying With Limited Paywall — cheddar.com
Condé Nast's shift to digital continued this week with an announcement that Glamour, the 80-year-old women's fashion magazine, would cease monthly print publication after its January 2019 issue. The vaunted magazine publisher lost $120 million last year amid a consolidation of its print properties.
Interestingness
Italic lets you buy from luxury factories without brand markups — www.fastcompany.com Italic, which launches this week with $13 million in funding, is trying to upend fashion by selling directly from the same factories as high-end brands.
Corona Launches Plastic-Free Six Pack Rings — www.businesswire.com
Corona announced that it will pilot plastic-free six pack rings in select markets.
Huel enters new market with ready-to-drink meal alternative — www.foodbev.com UK-based powdered food brand Huel has expanded its offering with a new ready-to-drink meal alternative product range.
Platform News
So many people are downloading their Facebook data that it’s causing delays — www.recode.net
“Over the past two weeks we’ve experienced a higher volume of Download Your Information requests than usual,”
Swiss hotels are hiring Instagram "sitters” to post photos for you — qz.com This is the nightmare we are all living in.