Your Monday Wake-Up Call: Timberlake Returns to Super Bowl. Plus, World Series Ad Spending

Welcome to Ad Age's Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital-related news. What people are talking about today: Justin Timberlake announced he'll perform at next year's Super Bowl LII halftime show sponsored by Pepsi. (Timberlake's Facebook page has been redecorated with Pepsi branding to celebrate.) It will be his third performance, making him the star with the most-ever appearances, the NFL says. The show will mark 14 years (14!) since "Nipplegate," when Timberlake tugged at Janet Jackson's costume during the halftime show, revealing her breast in an infamous "wardrobe malfunction." There has been some commentary about how Jackson and Timberlake were treated differently after the incident. Vanity Fair writes: "If Jackson will effectively never be invited back to the Super Bowl stage, why should Timberlake? That, it seems, will be a question that the N.F.L. will eventually have to answer." Timberlake announced the performance in a completely kooky skit with Jimmy Fallon. I DO have the time. Half the time...#PepsiHalftime #SBLII @Pepsi @NFL @JimmyFallon @FallonTonight pic.twitter.com/4Z4Dz29l3X Meanwhile, here's Pepsi's very official-looking, very branded announcement: O'No The New York Times reported this weekend that former Fox News host Bill O'Reilly is said to have settled a harassment case for $32 million. To put that number in perspective, it's more than enough to buy Jackie Kennedy Onassis's former estate in the Hamptons. Or a swanky 5-bedroom yacht. For O'Reilly, it was at least the sixth harrassment settlement he was involved in. (O'Reilly says the newspaper "maliciously smeared him.") The Times says 21st Century Fox knew about the complaints from the woman, a legal analyst who was a regular on his show, but renewed his contract nonetheless. Will Fox face any consequences? There could be issues across the Atlantic. 21st Century Fox is awaiting UK approval for its takeover bid of Sky, a satellite giant. And the harassment allegations at Fox News have become an issue. The UK Labour Party's deputy leader said he would write to the competition watchdog asking it to turn down the takeover bid; he says the new details show Fox "allowed a culture of bullying to flourish," The Guardian reports. All bases covered The World Series starts tomorrow, with the Houston Astros facing the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Bradley Johnson and Kevin Brown of Ad Age's Datacenter crunched the advertising numbers on the big spenders. The advertiser that spent the most on Major League Baseball's World Series over the last five years was General Motors, with a total of $76 million, according to Datacenter's analysis of measured media figures from Kantar Media. AT&T is next, with $64 million over five years, and then comes Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (owner of Geico), at $59 million. There are a lot more details from Datacenter here. ICYM A story that broke late Friday: Zainali "Zain" Jaffer, CEO of ad tech company Vungle, was charged with felonies involving his 3-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter last week, as Ad Age's George Slefo writes. Jaffer is alleged to have sexually assaulted and attacked his son, the district attorney of San Matteo, California says. Vungle's board says it has removed Jaffer as CEO of the 200-person company, which got a mention in Mary Meeker's 2017 Internet Trends report. Ad Age's Slefo profiled the company in June; you can read that story here. Just briefly: U-turn: Unilever's in-house agency U-Studio is in more than 20 countries, a year after its launch, The Drum reports. The agency has cut the number of outside agencies it works with. Buzz: BuzzFeed has big ambitions, as The New York Times reports: "Eighteen months after BuzzFeed blew up a watermelon on Facebook Live before 800,000 viewers, the company has leased buildings on a quiet block west of Highland Avenue as it prepares to focus on creating full-length movies and television series." A wider target: Target focused last year on Hispanics and families with children during the holidays, but it's branching out this year, as Ad Age's Adrianne Pasquarelli reports. "We feel like we left a lot of sales on the table last year" by neglecting empty nesters, teens and families without kids, an exec says. Animojis animosity: Apple's iPhone X has a feature called "animojis," but a Japanese company says it holds the trademark for the term in the U.S. and is suing Apple, The Verge reports. Hollywood harassment: "38 women have come forward to accuse director James Toback of sexual harassment," according to an investigation by The Los Angeles Times. The reporter has this update since the story was published: UPDATE: 38 women contacted me for this story. That number has now doubled since it was published. https://t.co/beVGHWGOKM Listen: For the Ad Age Ad Lib podcast, editor Brian Braiker talks to Neil Vogel, who has led the transformation of dusty About.com into separate verticals with 60 million unique monthly views. Creativity pick of the day: An amusing spot for KFC in South Africa strings together a bunch of advertising clichés (hot young things at the beach, cool kids with skateboards, families celebrating Christmas) and randomly adds fried chicken to every scene. Ad Age's Alexandra Jardine asks if it's "the most cynical advertising parody yet." Watch it here.

Your Monday Wake-Up Call: Timberlake Returns to Super Bowl. Plus, World Series Ad Spending

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