LVMH bids for Tiffany and Disney media review causes controversy: Monday Wake-Up Call

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. If you're reading this online or in a forwarded email, here's the link to sign up for our Wake-Up Call newsletters. You can get an audio version of this briefing on your Alexa device; sign up here. LVMH bids for Tiffany LVMH is looking to acquire Tiffany in what could be one of the biggest shakeups in the luxury market for some time. Bloomberg News reported this weekend of a possible bid of about $120 a share. That would value Tiffany at about $14.4 billion. Tiffany is a New York icon, of course, immortalized, as the New York Times points out, by both Truman Capote and by Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and known for its iconic blue packaging. But, it has recently struggled with stagnant sales and a slowdown in tourism. For LVMH, the move would provide its first major non-fashion American brand as it looks to raise its profile in the U.S., and add to a jewelry portfolio that already includes Bulgari, Chaumet, Fred, Hublot and Tag Heuer. Allegations over Disney’s media review Disney recently concluded its $2.2 billion media review, with Omnicom and Publicis emerging the big winners, but allegations about the process are making waves in the industry. As Ad Age’s Jack Neff reports, “three people familiar with the review say there was discussion about winners Publicis Media and Omnicom Media Group 'share shifting,' essentially increasing buys from their other clients across Disney’s vast array of properties. Two say the mechanism for this was a 'volume guarantee' that shops would buy Disney media at levels higher than what those agencies had previously purchased.” People involved directly with the deal deny that there were any guarantees made, and Disney hasn’t yet responded to requests for comment. But, as Neff writes, it could have wider industry reverberations as the “review has opened eyes to a new potential conflict of interest in the U.S. ad industry’s four-year-old transparency debate.” Samsung ‘space selfie’ balloon crashes Last week, Creativity reported on Samsung's “Space Selfie” campaign, in which it promised to send people’s selfies into space by way of a high-altitude balloon. Devised by BBH to promote the Galaxy S10 phone, it launched in high fanfare with a glamorous party in London featuring model Cara Delevingne. This weekend, however, the balloon came crashing back to earth in a rather less glamorous location—a farm in Michigan. As per The Verge: “Nancy Mumby-Welke of Gratiot County, Michigan, heard a loud crash outside her farmland home this weekend and discovered a large object in her backyard. 'Unbelievable look what just fell out of the sky and 911 is baffled and it’s caught up in our tree,' she posted to Facebook along with a photo.” Samsung claimed the landing was planned, but told NBC News: “We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.” Whether this is good or bad publicity for the brand isn’t yet clear…. 25 years of the banner ad Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the humble banner ad. Ad Age’s Garett Sloane takes a fascinating look back at the history of the banner, from the first brands to use it (AT&T was one, with the enticing copy: "Have you ever clicked your mouse right here? You will." ) to the continuing debate over its effectiveness and how it’s been “rejected, reviled and parodied by everyone from 'South Park' to 'College Humor,'” as Sloane writes. Nevertheless, it’s still here and evolving—and it still has fans. Just brieflyRemoved: Facebook has removed an ad which falsely claimed that U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham supported the Green New Deal, reports Reuters. The ad, which ran on Friday, was put up as a stunt by a PAC called The Really Online Lefty League, to test Facebook’s political ad policies. More Facebook news: Following the launch of Facebook News on Friday, the brand ran a full-page ad in the New York Times over the weekend promoting the service under the caption: “Good News for Everyone.” Happy Holidays, already: Retailers are starting earlier than ever with their holiday marketing this year, reports Ad Age’s Adrianne Pasquarelli thanks to “a compressed holiday season that includes six fewer days and one less weekend between Thanksgiving and Christmas than last year.” Ad Age Next: Publishing: It’s not too late to get your tickets for Ad Age Next: Publishing, a half-day event on Nov. 14 where leaders from the publishing world will discuss the changing industry. Panel topics include “The pivot to subscriptions,” “The e-commerce play,” “Adapting to a privacy-first world,” “Events as a revenue stream” and “What does the media company of the future look like?” Register here. Campaign of the Day: With Halloween coming, Spotify is taking the opportunity to showcase “scary” artists, writes Ad Age’s I-Hsien Sherwood, in a New York pop-up shop. That’s not ghouls and ghosts, but artists who pushed the boundaries and were brave or daring. On show will be items including a Madonna “BOY TOY” belt from her 1984 MTV VMA performance of “Like a Virgin” and a replica yellow python, as worn by Britney Spears circa 2001. Plus don’t forget to check out Creativity’s top 5 creative campaigns from last week, including a Cadbury pop-up store that lets you pay, not with money but with a kind deed to an older person.

LVMH bids for Tiffany and Disney media review causes controversy: Monday Wake-Up Call

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