Reverberate: Media and marketing news you need to know today
Morning all, here’s a glimpse at all the media and marketing news you should know this morning.
1. McDonald’s has landed in hot water for asking bands to play at its SXSW Showcase for free - Adage reports that the brand is paying bands in fastfood.
2. BuzzFeed has frozen community brand publisher accounts, instead encouraging brands to fork out for advertising on the site claims a Mediapost report.
3. Apple Pay has been abused by fraudsters who are using stolen credit card details at retailers including Home Depot Inc and Target, according to the Wall Street Journal.
4. Music discovery app Shazam will soon be able to identify on-the-shelf products in-store, expanding beyond soundtrack discovery to the scanning of real-life goods, reports Business Insider.
5. Freemium dating service Tinder Plus has launched its first advert according to Adweek, dictating to viewers how the new 'Passport' feature can enable international dating.
6. Beacons are moving out of their pilot phase in the US with the the smartphone comms units set to become all the more common in malls across the country, reports Business Insider.
7. Major League Soccer is entering the mainstream as money floods into the association, reports AdWeek, following the signing of four major sponsors Heineken, Chipotle, Etihad Airways and Advocare.
8. MySpace's former vice president of online marketing Sean Percival has revealed the once giant social network attempted to aqcuire Spotify, with the Guardian quoting him as saying "we tried to buy Spotify and they sure as hell were not selling to us, they didn’t need to".
9. Johnnie Walker has unveiled a smart-bottle capable of sending NFC messages to consumers' mobiles as a result of specialised sensor tags in the product's labelling, reports MediaPost.
10. Apple has invited developers from Facebook, BMW and United Airlines to test its up-and-coming smartwatch - the Apple Watch, as the company prepares WatchKit apps ahead of Monday’s launch, according to Bloomberg.
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