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Samsung Cancels Fold Events; AT&T Quits OpenAP; Leica, Labour and Ancestry Make Missteps
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PHOTO: KELVIN CHAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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Good morning. Samsung just canceled a pair of media events to promote its $2,000 Galaxy Fold smartphone following reports from some tech reviewers that their test devices malfunctioned.
The company didn’t say why it called off the events, but it is trying to figure out why screens broke for several reviewers. “We are conducting a thorough inspection into the issues reported by some of the reviewers of early Galaxy Fold samples,” a spokeswoman said Monday. “We will share the findings as soon as we have them.” The Fold is still scheduled to hit shelves Friday in the U.S. (Journal personal technology columnist Joanna Stern couldn’t write a straightforward review of the $2,000 Samsung Galaxy Fold after #peelgate, but she has a “non-review.”)
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WarnerMedia CEO John Stankey speaks during the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit last October. The AT&T unit is leaving a team of rival programmers founded to encourage data-driven marketing on TV. PHOTO: MATT WINKELMEYER/GETTY IMAGES.
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WarnerMedia is withdrawing from OpenAP, the coalition of rival TV networks that it helped form to foster more precise commercial targeting.
A lot has changed since called OpenAP was founded in 2017 by Turner, Viacom and Fox. NBCUniversal joined a year later, bolstering the networks’ hopes, but AT&T also closed on its long-planned purchase of Turner parent Time Warner, which it dubbed WarnerMedia. AT&T, of course, is working on its own advanced TV products at its Xandr advertising group.
OpenAP says Fox, NBCU and Viacom are staying put, and that it will be expanding its platform in the next few months. But the question looming over all advanced-TV efforts remains how much appetite marketers have for it, and at what price.
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Creative fashion labels such as The Row, Bottega Veneta and Aisling Camps fill their feeds with esoteric images. PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
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Most fashion labels stuff their Instagram feeds with photos of models wielding handbags or wearing the next look. But The Row, a luxury label from Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, more often posts images that don’t show clothes at all, like a child’s drawing or a still life of a watermelon and half-eaten baguette.
Shunning clothes is part of a trend in which brands use Instagram accounts as digital mood boards instead of just hawking product, Rony Zeidan, the founder of branding agency Ro New York, tells The Journal. “People don’t necessarily follow the Row to see the latest collection…[but] because they like to get a glimpse of what the designer is doing or thinking,” he said.
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Ad-tech company Sizmek, which recently filed for chapter 11, sought court approval to sell its digital-ad marketplace to Zeta Global, the marketing tech firm co-founded by former Apple CEO John Scully, for up to $36 million. [WSJ Pro]
The U.K. Labour Party deleted a “Happy Passover” tweet that included a picture of a loaf of bread. [The Independent]
Camera company Leica claimed it never authorized an ad that featured the anonymous man who blocked a line of Chinese tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests. [BBC]
Ancestry apologized for its depiction of interracial romance during slavery. [CNN]
Nonprofit lender Kiva is seeking a CMO. [Greenhouse]
Toothpaste is getting a high-design makeover from brands like Hello and Lenny Kravitz’s Twice. [NYT]
Publicis is launching an international campaign to raise money to rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral. [The Drum]
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We bring you the most important (and intriguing) marketing news every day. Write me at nat.ives@wsj.com any time with feedback on the newsletter or comments on specific items. We want to hear from you.
And follow the CMO Today team on Twitter: @wsjCMO, @natives, @alexbruell.
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