Need to Know – The latest US media & marketing news: Snapchat CEO likened to Sir Martin Sorrell, Jurassic World's $30m TV ad spend & Facebook's new data centre
Morning all, here’s a glimpse at all the media and marketing news you should know today.
Need to Know – The latest US media & marketing news
1. Daily Mail North America's chief executive Jon Steinberg has compared Snapchat's Evan Spiegel's leadership style to that of WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell. The 25-year-old is due to speak in front of 6,000 of adland's top executives next week at Cannes. He told Adweek that the experience is set to be "nerve-wracking" – not least because he's "never built an ad business before".
2. Universal Pictures' Jurassic World has spent nearly $30m in TV media since November, says MediaPost. According to iSpot.tv, the bulk of TV spending on the movie started a little over a month ago in May. In the last two weeks, the movie studio has spent some $15.1m on TV ads alone.
3. Disney has an army of 1,300 'social media moms, reports Business Insider. The group of mothers - and a few fathers - are part of a the brand's effort to incorporate the enthusiasm and influence of parents into its marketing efforts. Though the posters aren't paid, they receive perks from the company for their efforts, including discounted, four-day family trips to Walt Disney World.
4. Facebook is reported to be planning a new $224m data centre in Ireland writes Mashable. The new offices will mainly be powered by renewable energy and will be the social network's second data centre in Europe – bringing the company's Irish staff numbers up to over 1,000.
5. IBM is set to invest “hundreds of millions a year” into a free data analytics technology, asserts Bloomberg. Beth Smith, general manager of the company’s analytics division, announced the move today and said that over time she expects the center to grow to 300 people, along with other teams in the firm's labs around the world.
6. Just days after a leaked memo showed Uber is raising $1bn for its business in China, Didi Kuaidi – China’s largest taxi app group – is about to raise $1.5bn. Tech Crunch says this will be the first funding for Didi Kuaidi entity, which was formed as a result of a merger between startups, Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache. The former raised over $800m alone from investors like Tencent and the latter was backed by the likes of Alibaba and SoftBank.
7. And Google is launching a 'YouTube built for gamers' to take on Twitch, notes Yahoo. Titled YouTube Gaming, the app and dedicated website is designed to be a home for all its gaming video both live-streamed and on demand. The platform will launch this summer starting in the US and UK.
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