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Spotlight on Snapchat

Snapchat released a new feature called Spotlight that will put the app in closer competition with TikTok. Spotlight mimics some of the core appeal of Chinese-owned TikTok by opening a public section for creators to show off their best videos.

Snapchat will even pay $1 million a day to encourage users to post there. That offer runs at least through the end of the year.

“Snapchat finds itself in an unfamiliar position having to redesign the service in order to keep current,” Ad Age reports. “Typically, it’s Snapchat that has been leading the way, pushing concepts like video Stories and augmented reality, and older rivals like Facebook and YouTube have been trying to keep up.”

CNN noted the rare position for Snapchat. “Now, Snapchat is the one doing the copying,” CNN reported.

“Spotlight presents an opportunity for Snap to exponentially expand the amount of entertaining content available to users,” CNBC said.

Dropping centers

The pandemic has forced retailers to rethink their holiday shopping strategies. For instance, Macy’s is preparing for an influx of online shopping while more people stay home. The retailer will use its stores as fulfillment centers, according to The New York Times.

“Jeff Gennette, Macy’s chief executive, said the dark stores are part of an experiment as the company responds to customers buying more online and demanding ever-faster shipping for free,” The Times writes. “But the conversion of a department store into a fulfillment center, even temporarily, reflects how retailers are succumbing to the dominance of e-commerce and scrambling to salvage increasingly irrelevant physical shopping space.”

Meanwhile, the retail industry expects sales to pick up this season despite the bleak times. “The National Retail Federation said Monday it expects holiday sales during November and December to rise between 3.6% and 5.2% year over year, amounting to between $755.3 billion and $766.7 billion,” CNBC reports.

Sales are already starting, with more retailers extending Black Friday promotions. “Several retailers, including Amazon, Best Buy, and Target, are already getting a head start on holiday discounts,” The Verge writes.

Hello, Goodby

Famed ad agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, which left the Big Apple for San Francisco in 2015, is making a return to New York City, reports Ad Age’s Lindsay Rittenhouse. “The agency has been slowly and quietly rebuilding in New York since 2018 and officially moved into its new space at 200 Varick Street during the pandemic,” Rittenhouse writes. “The office now services clients like Pepsi, Liberty Mutual and Amaze.org.”

In other agency news, Droga5 snagged a new client on Monday. Petco sent its creative account to Droga5, which operates under Accenture Interactive, Rittenhouse reports. Petco had been with Anomaly.

Following fakes

The New York Times takes a look at how misinformation, particularly around the election, is cropping up on social media. The fake news has been a nagging concern since Election Day with plenty of bad actors trying to sow doubt about the outcome.

“New research from Avaaz, a global human rights group, the Elections Integrity Partnership and The New York Times shows how a small group of people—mostly right-wing personalities with outsized influence on social media—helped spread the false voter-fraud narrative that led to those rallies,” The Times writes.

The Times also has been tracking fake news. The latest was a Twitter post that claimed to show President-elect Joe Biden celebrating a birthday without a mask. It wasn’t true, The Times found. “A tweet wishing President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. happy birthday last week generated false rumors that Mr. Biden marked his 78th birthday on Friday with a maskless party,” The Times writes.

GM in reverse

General Motors sees the writing on the wall with a new administration coming. The automaker pulled out of a Trump-era lawsuit that tried to block states from enacting their own vehicle emission standards. “The move signals a recognition by GM that its electrification and zero emissions strategy is more closely aligned with the priorities of the incoming presidential administration, and that it is preparing for the likelihood of more unified auto industry regulations under President-elect Joe Biden,” The Detroit News reports. 

Just briefly

Vaccine booster: The Ad Council is getting ready for one of the most aggressive public service pushes of all time with a campaign to promote COVID-19 vaccinations, which is expected to cost $50 million, reports Ad Age’s Ethan Jakob Craft.

Google resistance: Digital ad interests are ramping up pressure on Google in the U.K. over one of its biggest initiatives to change how data is collected online, Bloomberg News reports. The parties want U.K. regulators to stall Google’s “privacy sandbox” initiative, which promises to limit how data is shared among websites and ad companies within Google’s ecosystem.

Highway to sell: It’s a long way back to the top for AC/DC. The classic rock group is back at No. 1 on the billboard charts for the first time since 2008 with its album “Power Up.” The group is known for its fight against the streaming industry in its early days, and its current success was powered by CD sales, The New York Times writes.

That does it for today’s Wake-Up Call, thanks for reading and we hope you are all staying safe and well. For more industry news and insight, follow us on Twitter:@adage. 

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