Tag: advertising

The Story: A team of scientists affiliated with Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has been testing a method of noninvasive brain stimulation that might be...

The social media giant said it will require political advertisers to confirm they are located in an EU country. That’s on top of a previously announced requirement that ad buyers must confirm their identities. Ads that don’t comply will be blocked starting in mid-April. Silicon Valley tech companies are facing rising pressure from EU authorities to do more to prevent their platforms being used by outside groups to meddle in elections. EU officials in January singled out Russia as a prime source of disinformation in Europe. Hundreds of millions of people are set to vote for more than 700 EU parliamentary lawmakers on May 23-26. “We recognize that some people can try and work around any system but we are confident this will be a real barrier for anyone thinking of using our ads to interfere in an election from outside of a country,” Richard Allen, Facebook’s vice president of global policy solutions, said in a blog post. Facebook said earlier this year that EU political ads will carry “paid for by” disclaimers. Clicking the label will reveal more detailed information such as how much money was spent on the ad, how many people saw it, and their age, gender and location. The ad transparency rules have already been rolled out in the U.S., Britain, Brazil, India, Ukraine and Israel.

Whether it was a spot from Budweiser reminding viewers about the company’s own immigrant roots or an emotional 90-second ad from 84 Lumber depicting an immigrant family’s journey to a border wall, brands rushed to the national stage with political purpose in the wake of President Donald Trump’s election in 2017. Two years later, corporations have largely backed away from political messages that might be interpreted as divisive, instead opting for the tried-and-true tactics of humor or uplifting messages with a broad appeal. “Historically, Super Bowl ads have been mostly focused on the sophomoric guy appeal—fast cars, pretty girls, drinking beers with your buds,” Lehmann said. When you look at this year, it mostly feels like they are coalescing back somewhere in the middle.” That’s not to say all of the brands in this year’s Super Bowl broadcast shied away from politics entirely. Hulu, for instance, made reference to the iconic Ronald Reagan re-election ad “Morning in America” to promote the third season of its dystopian thriller The Handmaid’s Tale. Another ad from the Washington Post paid tribute to slain reporters and promoted the importance of a free press. Steve McMahon, the co-founder of the political consultancy Purple Strategies, said brands are already taking a risk by advertising in the Super Bowl, which has become more political itself as players have taken a knee during the national anthem to protest racial injustice and as conservative lawmakers and even President Trump himself have objected to the protests. Other brands, though, have kept a wide berth. “For that reason alone, you have brands that are much more thoughtful and deliberate about whether that venue is as safe as it was some time ago.” That may be one reason why some of the most memorable ads from the Super Bowl this year were focused on trying to make viewers laugh, said John Gatti, Purple Strategies’ managing partners. “People like to come together on a platform that might already have a moderately shaky foundation to it, and use the platform to laugh and smile,” Gatti said.

In fact, the 2018 election in Minnesota saw an unprecedented amount of political advertising: $120 million was spent on 671,000 political ads on television, cable and radio to influence voting. The data — which detailed political ad purchases at every TV, cable and radio station in Minnesota — was collected on a week-by-week basis, providing an opportunity to study election advertising by campaigns and outside groups in close-to-real time. About $23 million in ads ran on those stations two years ago, compared with almost $43 million this year. While Minnesota may not get the same attention in 2020 as it did in 2018, big spending is here to stay, said Steven Schier, professor emeritus of political science at Carleton College. Republican candidates spent $14 million. Paulsen lost despite spending the most on TV and radio ads of any congressional candidate in the state. But outside interest groups spent more money on ads than candidates – about $75 million across the state. Of the 11 major races in Minnesota, seven of the candidates who won spent more on TV and radio advertising than their opponents. She also spent almost double the amount of money advertising that Lewis did: more than $4.4 million vs. his $2.3 million. The endowment was created to put students and professors together to produce and publish professional-quality work as part of a class at the journalism school.

A contingent of Senate Democratic Conference members want Facebook to voluntarily disclose more about the sources of advertising dollars on the social media platform. The group led by New Jersey’s Robert Menendez, highlights in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg efforts by Russia to use Facebook to spread political messaging to undermine the U.S. electoral process. “More than a year ago, after news reports revealed that Russian agents used Facebook to spread inflammatory posts to over 126 million Facebook users, Facebook promised Congress that it would provide additional disclosures on political ads,” the letter read. “Yet, you continue to take in ad revenue from companies cloaked in secrecy. Although no legal requirement exists mandating that political advertisers on social media platforms file disclosures with the Federal Election Commission, you could take it upon yourself to mirror the laws that exist for radio and television ads.” The senators cited reporting about a group that pushed a concealed carry permit certification program for gun owners, to the tune of $2.5 million. Joining Menendez were Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, Tom Udall of New Mexico, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Such transparency will help ensure open and fair elections, free of dark money or foreign interference,” the senators wrote, stressing a loss in confidence of customers. Also Watch: Google CEO Rejects Claims of Search Bias Against GOP spaceplay / pause qunload | stop ffullscreen ??volume mmute ??seek . seek to previous 12… 6 seek to 10%, 20% … 60% Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call on your iPhone or your Android.

Labour has questioned why ministers are spending more than £2.5m with a single advertising agency to promote apprenticeships, when the number of people entering such schemes is dropping and the government seems to have abandoned its targets in the area. A written parliamentary question to the Department for Education (DfE) from the shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, found the department was paying £2.55m in the 2018-19 financial year to promote apprenticeships. The money going to M&C Saatchi, which is a favourite advertising agency of the Conservative party, was being spent on “a new integrated communications campaign to change perceptions of apprenticeships and to encourage more people to see the positive value that apprenticeships can have on their business or their career”, the junior education minister Anne Milton said in the reply. The contract was awarded after a competitive tender, she added, and also covered areas such as research and digital services. You're hired! Whitehall wants school leavers as apprentice economists Read more But Labour queried the spend when the latest official figures for apprenticeship take-ups show that at, 290,500 in the first three quarters of the 2017-18 academic year, they were 34% lower than in the same period in 2016-17 and 24.5% lower than the year before that. The pledge was initially made by David Cameron in 2015, and continued under Theresa May. But after the manufacturers’ representative group EEF, which is heavily involved in apprenticeships, said it seemed unlikely the target would be reached, Downing Street declined to confirm it was still in place. Rayner said: “Austerity is not over for our colleges, but this government is more than happy to hand out millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to the Tories’ favourite advertising agency after abjectly failing to meet their own apprenticeships targets. “Our reforms have driven up investment in the quality of apprenticeships to build skills and give people more opportunities to succeed … In the last 12 months more than 100,000 more people have started these new apprenticeships, putting them on the path to success in a range of cutting-edge and exciting industries such as aerospace engineering, nuclear science and architecture.”

Donald Trump and Planned Parenthood are the top recent advertisers and young men were targeted most often, according to a new analysis of Facebook and Instagram political advertising. Initial findings reveal the top recent political advertisers and their minimum impressions and spending: The Trump Make America Great Again Committee: 4,127 ads, 26.4 million impressions, $190,400 Planned Parenthood Federation of America: 3,389 ads, 24.5 million impressions, $188,800 AAF Nation, LLC (manufacturer of political-themed clothing): 862 ads, 18.4 million impressions, $78,900 National Rifle Association: 213 ads, 18.3 million impressions, $58,000 Beto for Texas (Democrat running for Senate): 377 ads, 13.0 million impressions, $194,400 Priorities USA Action and Senate Majority PAC: 2,794 ads, 12.9 million impressions, $120,600 NowThis (liberal-leaning media company): 35 ads, 11.6 million impressions, $7,400 Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.: 5,396 ads, 11.3 million impressions, $83,700 4Ocean, LLC (focused on reducing ocean pollution): 78 ads, 10.6 million impressions, $68,200 Care2 (creates social networking around causes): 557 ads, 10.1 million impressions, $99,900 The data also reveal substantial online advertising by candidates in congressional and state races. The most ads per capita appeared in Washington, DC, followed by Nevada, Colorado, and Maine. Political spending equaled at least $13.9 million and could have been five times that—the uncertainty is due to the ranges provided in the original data. The team reported the top five unvetted sponsors as identified by Facebook and their minimum impressions and spending: American AF: 253 ads, 8.2 million impressions, $103,800 National Rifle Association of America/NRA: 56 ads, 7.9 million impressions, $78,500 I’ll Go Ahead and Keep My Guns, Thanks (listed as a media company): 26 ads, 7.6 million impressions, $120,300 China Xinhua News: 44 ads, 6.8 million impressions, $6,000 Walmart: 18 ads, 5.8 million impressions, $51,900 Next, the team plans to use its complex data scraping methods to reveal similar information for Twitter. Damon McCoy, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering at New York University conceived the Online Political Ads Transparency Project to build easy-to-use tools to collect, archive, and analyze political advertising data. Although Facebook became the first major social media company to launch a searchable archive of political advertising, for both Facebook and Instagram, in May 2018, McCoy found the archive required time-consuming manual searches. McCoy and his team praised Facebook for its pioneering transparency in establishing a public archive and its plan to launch an API—an app interface—that will enable large-scale analysis; however, Facebook has not specified when in 2018 it will launch this API. “We wanted to quickly give voters easy tools to understand who is advertising and what they are advertising, as well as how much is being spent to influence votes and the targets of the ads,” McCoy says. Collaborators on the Online Political Ads Transparency Project are from NYU.

Now, Noah Phillips' attorney says the attack ad Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert aired ahead of Tuesday’s election accusing her rival of misconduct is enough to have her office thrown off of the controversial 2016 murder case Phillips took to trial. The TV ads run by the DA about this case have moved this into the realm of egregious conflict of interest,” attorney Steven A. Lewis argued at a Friday hearing before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Curtis Fiorini, adding later, “If the head of a public agency is accused of a conflict, the whole office must be recused.” The unique Friday motion asked Fiorini to remove the DA’s lawyers from the case, though Phillips is no longer involved in the matter. Schubert’s campaign seized on the defense attorneys’ charges in a heavily-aired television ad that cited the misconduct claim, suggested that Phillips could face felony charges connected to the allegations and branded Phillips as “Unethical. Attorneys for the DA and the state attorney general’s office argued Phillips has no standing to demand the DA's removal, but Phillips’ attorney pushed ahead, calling the case “an unprecedented situation.” “Every court in every matter has the power to disqualify,” Lewis told Fiorini, adding later, “This just doesn’t happen every day. “I don’t believe there’s a basis to take the case out of the hands of the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office,” saying the campaign for the June election had no bearing on the case she took over from Phillips. Fiorini said Phillips may be called to testify at the July 27 hearing. Related stories from Sacramento Bee Ad Watch: Schubert’s ad claims against challenger are ‘iffy’ Sacramento DA Schubert declares victory, calls it 'a good day for the people' Sacramento DA Anne Marie Schubert promised to be more transparent. Schubert, he said, was “using this case not just to call Phillips unethical, but to release an embarrassing email that predated the (Kumar) murder by six months.” Bladet said she played no role in the email’s discovery: “This wasn’t a dirt-finding mission on behalf of the campaign,” Bladet said. She defended the office’s investigation into Phillips’ alleged conduct at trial and added Phillips was not forthcoming with DA officials who wanted to talk with him about the misconduct allegations. Phillips failed to come to us with his version of the truth.” An embarrassed Phillips in May said he took “full responsibility” for the email which trafficked in ugly racist and sexist stereotypes of women of a variety of races and nationalities and his response that the email was “work appropriate anywhere.” He also attacked the email’s leak as late-campaign subterfuge by Schubert operatives, calling it “as low as politics goes.” District Attorney’s officials said the offending email was retrieved by a tech staffer during an internal investigation into the defense attorneys’ claims of prosecutorial misconduct, later clarifying that the scouring of Phillips’ workplace email server recovered messages dating back to 2013.

WIRED / Internet Research Agency Your WIRED daily briefing. Today, the United States House Intelligence Committee has released thousands of Russian ads intended to influence US politics, a new study links Hurricane Harvey to climate change, malicious Chrome extensions infected over 100,000 users and more. Democrat members of the United States House Intelligence Committee have released over 3,500 Facebook ads published by Russian political advertising firm Internet Research Agency in an attempt to disrupt US politics and the country's 2016 presidential election (TechCrunch). Democrat Adam Schiff tweeted that: "They sought to harness Americans’ very real frustrations and anger over sensitive political matters to influence our thinking, voting and behavior." New research surrounding last year's Hurricane Harvey, which caused catastrophic flooding and damage in the United States and across the Caribbean, has for the first time shown a link between the volume of rain over land at the amount of water evaporated from a warming ocean (Phys.org). Lead author Kevin Trenbert says that: "The implication is that the warmer oceans increased the risk of greater hurricane intensity and duration. While we often think of hurricanes as atmospheric phenomena, it's clear that the oceans play a critical role and will shape future storms as the climate changes." Malicious Chrome extensions designed to impersonate genuinely useful tools have again made their way onto Google's Chrome Web Store, infecting over 100,000 users with software that made their computers part of a botnet and installed cryptocurrency miners (Ars Technica). "Violence fits the definition of a contagious disease," argues Gary Slutkin, founder of research and education NGO Cure Violence (WIRED). WIRED 05.18 is out now.

Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, arguably the leading GOP candidate for Florida governor in 2018, will have ads on the air for the first time, according to Medium Buying. “I’m Adam Putnam. For me, it’s always been Florida first,” the 60-second version of the ad begins. In the ad, Putnam talks of growing up in Bartow, raising cattle and growing citrus. The ad features him praying with his family, working on his ranch and at a rally of thousands of grassroots supporters where he announced his run for Governor. Various versions of the ads will be up until the 30th of this month. Smart Media Group reported a $627,000 buy from Putnam for “broadcast, cable and satellite,” including Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Mobile (covering far N.W. Florida), Orlando, Panama City, Tallahassee, Tampa and West Palm Beach markets. As Matt Dixon of POLITICO Florida notes, conspicuously absent for now: Miami. A spokesman for The Florida Democratic Party says the early buy is a sign that Putnam thinks his campaign is in trouble.