Good morning. Today, Hilton acts fast to curb the brand risk from one location’s dispute with DHS; video podcast platforms try to smooth out some friction in ad sales; and Semafor says one segment of the news business is strong.

When critics first called for a Bud Light boycott in early 2023, I thought the uproar would pass without significantly affecting the business, like so many fleeting brand crises before it. I was wrong.

Now I’m among those trying to learn from that case and later examples.

Hilton yesterday demonstrated the new playbook, taking the relatively rare step of removing a hotel from its booking system and website less than 24 hours after social-media posts accused the location of refusing ICE agents.

It first tried to quiet the matter with apologies and promises, but escalated its response after a conservative influencer posted a video that appeared to show a hotel worker saying the owner still wouldn’t book the agents.

The speed of Hilton’s response underscored how quickly online outrage can escalate into a reputational crisis for brands, and how decisively companies must act to contain the fallout, The Journal’s Chip Cutter writes.

“It’s like a fire out of control,” said the veteran retail leader Jim Fielding, who tracks corporate-response tactics. “These companies are learning.”

Two other points from the evolving manual:

• Social-media storms are now sometimes amplified by bots whose operators care more about making money than scoring points, as Patrick Coffee has reported for The Wall Street Journal Leadership Institute. And that’s something for marketing executives to keep in mind, partly because any attempt to calm a situation just gives outrage opportunists new material.
  
  But brands still need to address the real humans and issues in the mix.
   
• The fact that the Hampton Inn at the center of the dispute was independently owned and operated, as Hilton immediately pointed out, didn’t ease the pressure.
  
  “Their brand is tarnished by this,” Fielding said. “You can’t explain licensing or franchising to a customer.”
  
  An alternate possibility is that critics and politically minded consumers understand licensing and franchising perfectly well. Maybe they just see the web of relationships between companies and business partners as more leverage for the new era.

The Wall Street Journal Leadership Institute’s Katie Deighton writes for the newsletter:

Spotify today is announcing a few changes designed to lure more podcasters and podcast advertisers to its platform.

One aims to address a gripe of podcasters since the Great Push to Video began: Host-read ads are often baked into an uploaded episode, meaning old ads continue to get exposure long after their advertiser's contract with the podcaster has expired.

A new tool set to roll out in April will let creators update and schedule host-read ads in video episodes more easily. Google last year told me that it plans to offer a similar feature in 2026.

That should allow live campaigns to appear even in old podcast video episodes, which are often resurfaced by algorithms and internet trends, adding more value to the medium for advertisers.

In December I covered research that found host-read podcast ads on YouTube were up to 25% less effective at driving purchases than in audio-only environments, despite the broad reach they offer.

Spotify also reduced how many listeners, hours consumed and episodes a podcast has to hit before qualifying for the company’s partner program, which offers payouts from its advertising and subscriber revenue.

Semafor has raised $30 million in financing that values the company at $330 million after its first profitable year, Isabella Simonetti reports.

It’s the first priced round and valuation for the roughly three-year-old startup, which counts KKR co-founder Henry Kravis, David Rubenstein of Carlyle Group and Penny Pritzker’s PSP Partners among its backers.

Semafor now intends to hire more journalists and expand its live-events business.

Large publishers are grappling with declines in traffic from Google as AI chatbots change how consumers seek information, while other news startups have struggled.

The news industry is broadly under pressure, but journalism targeted at decision makers is “relatively healthy,” CEO Justin Smith said.

The community where marketing leaders drop the corporate speak and share what’s actually happening. The WSJ CMO Council unites leaders from the world’s most influential brands including Adobe, Audi, Google, IBM, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Meta, Taco Bell, P&G and Verizon.

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Warner Bros. Discovery recommended that its shareholders reject Paramount’s amended hostile bid for the company, saying it wasn’t superior “or even comparable” to its $72 billion deal with Netflix.  [WSJ] 

Amazon’s “Buy For Me” AI agent is creating headaches for outside brands that never signed up to participate. [Modern Retail] 

WPP Media named Publicis executive Angela Steele to the newly created role of U.S. chief client officer. [Adweek] 

Stagwell is turning its Sport Beach series at Cannes Lions into its own company and expanding into other big events like the Consumer Electronics Show. [Ad Age] 

LinkedIn has lured people leaving X and Facebook as content moderation and fact-checking there declined. [WSJ]

How Google got its groove back and edged ahead of OpenAI. [WSJ]

The flea treatment Frontline turned shoppers into fleas by putting a giant ad on the floor of a mall. [Creative Bloq]