1. AT&T — 1, Trump — 0
It’s official. AT&T won the mega-merger deal with Time Warner; a deal that comes with no conditions. A federal judge cleared the $85.4B bid for the merger yesterday, rejecting the government’s lawsuit to block it. AT&T says their goal is to become a media powerhouse by bundling mobile services with entertainment, giving them an upper hand on companies like Amazon and Netflix. “We look forward to closing the merger on or before June 20 so we can begin to give consumers video entertainment that is more affordable, mobile, and innovative,” said AT&T General Counsel David McAtee. This outcome could pave the way for other future vertical mergers, where a company buys its supplier. Want to know more? Here are 7 things to know about the case cheat sheet.
2. IHOP Becomes IHOb
When you think of IHOP, it’s typically not your first choice for lunch or dinner. A company so synonymous with breakfast, experienced stagnating sales and was forced to close 30+ chain stores. Last week, IHOP announced they’ll be flipping their name to IHOb and announced what it would b on June 11th. After racking up 6M video views, thousands of shares, and an endless number of guesses for what the b stands for, IHob announced b stands for burgers. Don’t b worried though, it’s just a publicity stunt for the time being. A few companies decided to poke fun at the temporary name change, including Burger King, changing their name to Pancake King. We need some more b’s for all this buzz. Turns out old-school marketing still works after all.
(Source: The Hustle)
3. US Podcasts Hit Record Numbers
US podcast ad revenue hit record sales last year, a full 86% increase from 2016. However, these numbers are still relatively low ($314M) compared to traditional media, such as TV ($68.5B) and even newspapers ($16.6B). What’s the deal? Podcasts are not an advertiser’s favorite medium since it’s difficult to generate ad revenue dollars. Unlike a TV commercial, ads are typically read by the host once and the audience isn’t visually engaging with the ad. For this reason, podcasts are quite popular as they’re not consistently interrupted by a stream of ads.
We interrupt this story to shamelessly plug in our own Super U Podcast. Hosted by Erik Qualman, each week we find the world’s top thought leaders and hand select their top 7 Super Tips to unleash your inner superpower.
(Source: The Hustle)
