1. Samsung Beats P&G at Advertising
Samsung Electronics has taken the title of World’s Largest Advertiser by spending $11.2B on advertising and promotions this past year. The former titleholder was Procter & Gamble, who is still in second place with $10.5B. P&G admitted to cutting $200M out of their advertising budget as their ads weren’t effective. Where does everyone else land? Out of the 100 biggest ad spenders, there was a 4.9% increase in ad spending with increases by 68 companies. Alibaba Group Holding had the fastest growth, they more than doubled their spending compared to the previous year ($2.7B). Moreover, no surprise that 10 internet-age companies collectively increased spending by 29.6%. If you want to know why? Feel free to read our book Socialnomics #shamelessplug.
(Source: AdAge)
2. Oakland University Prepares for Active Shooters
Oakland University has a no-weapons policy, which begs the questions, how do students and staff protect themselves against active shooters? After a self-defense training session, the University decided to buy 2.5K hockey pucks, which serve for two purposes: 1) self-defense and 2) a campaign for new locks. The idea is that the size and weight of the hockey pucks are a cheap (94-cents each) and effective way to protect oneself in a shooter incident; think 30 hockey pucks being thrown at once at a potential shooter. The latter purpose is to help raise money for new interior locks in classrooms, an additional preventative measure. To date, there have been 23 school shootings this year alone, which averages out to more than 1 per week. Experts have agreed that schools should start focusing on social and emotional health tips as well. Check out What Happens on Campus Stays on YouTube for a few tips.
(Source: Detroit Free Press)
3. Printers Hacked to Support YouTuber
YouTuber PewDiePie is battling against Indian channel T-Series in a war to become the YouTuber with the most subscribers label. In an effort to support PewDiePie, a hacker identified 800K printers with open security settings and selected 50K to hack, printing out a sheet of paper asking for support.
“People underestimate how easy a malicious hacker could have used a vulnerability like this to cause major havoc,” the hacker admitted to The Verge. “…The most horrifying part is: I never considered hacking printers before, the whole learning, downloading and scripting process took no more than 30 minutes.” With influencer marketing increasing nearly five-fold over this past year, the video market is becoming a big deal. 70% of teenage YouTubers relate to their favorite YouTube stars compared to traditional celebs, and 4 in 10 think influencers understand them better than their own friends. Let’s all hope we don’t have a Silicon Valley refrigerator hack moment next.
(Source: BBC)
