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Barclays Downgrades Three Ad Holding Companies Over AI Impact; ‘Death to the IDF’ Chant at Glastonbury Sparks Backlash; Hollywood Confronts AI
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Good morning. Today, analysts predict slow growth for advertising giants as they adjust to the AI era; the BBC is chastised for televising a band’s cry against Israeli troops; and the entertainment industry struggles to protect its IP from unauthorized AI training.
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Barclays analysts downgraded a handful of ad agency stocks last week following meetings in Cannes that centered on artificial intelligence. Photo: Zuma Press
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Barclays analysts have downgraded several major ad holding companies, saying the industry will continue to see low growth as it becomes fundamentally changed by AI, Megan Graham writes for CMO Today.
AI threatens to undermine agencies in several ways, including by powering tools that businesses can use to generate video advertising themselves.
Industry analysts argue that agencies will adapt and ultimately benefit, but Barclays said dozens of meetings during Cannes Lions suggested that there was still work to do before that can happen.
“We have been longstanding agency bulls…but we came away from all these meetings more bearish than before,” the Barclays analysts wrote. “While we still believe that agencies will adapt, survive and ultimately thrive (the questionable industry joke often told goes ‘we are cockroaches, not dinosaurs’), it will take time, money and good execution. We therefore see the current low growth persisting for longer than we initially thought.”
Related: Mark Zuckerberg announced a new “Superintelligence” division at Meta, officially organizing an effort that has been the subject of an intense recruiting blitz in recent months. [WSJ]
Your turn: What do you think of agencies’ position as AI floods the zone? Hit reply with your take and I’ll quote from the sharpest responses. Direct replies only, please—no notes written by your PR team (or AI).
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Content from our sponsor: Deloitte
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Retail Investor Access to Private Markets Expected to Grow Significantly
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U.S. retail investors’ allocations to private capital could grow to an estimated $2.4 trillion by 2030, up from $80 billion. Read More
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The Medium and the Message
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The punk group Bob Vylan led chants of ‘Death, death to the IDF‘ at the U.K. music festival in Glastonbury. Photo: Yui Mok/Associated Press
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The BBC and the U.K.’s biggest music festival came under criticism after a punk group led cheering fans in a chant calling for the deaths of Israeli troops, Max Colchester and David Luhnow report.
The British duo Bob Vylan was onstage at the Glastonbury music festival this weekend when its lead singer led the crowd in cries of “Death, death to the IDF” and later recalled once working for a “f—ing Zionist.”
The band also displayed a large message that read “Free Palestine. United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a ‘conflict’.”
It was all carried live on the BBC, Britain’s state broadcaster. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “there is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech” and asked the BBC why it didn’t switch away.
The BBC on Monday called the chant antisemitic. “The team were dealing with a live situation but with hindsight we should have pulled the stream during the performance,” it said. “We regret this did not happen.”
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“It’s literally just Hamptons-chic merch, and you love wearing it because it’s kind of a symbol of elitism.”
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— Ally Shapiro, a content creator and co-founder of Jill Zarin Home, on the quarter-zip sweatshirt she bought at the Barn in Bridgehampton, N.Y., where luxury workout studios hold class. Scoring a mat in one of the Hamptons’ trendy fitness classes has become another sign of status for the rich.
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Natasha Lyonne gathered more than 400 signatures from the Hollywood set for a letter to the Trump administration about AI training and intellectual property. Illustration: Emil Lendof/WSJ, iStock
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America’s creators are mounting a campaign to halt any use of their work to train AI models without permission or pay, Amrith Ramkumar and Jessica Toonkel write.
Disney CEO Bob Iger and legal chief Horacio Gutierrez met with White House officials recently, for example, to discuss worries about AI models.
Disney and Comcast’s Universal also recently sued Midjourney for allegedly stealing their copyrighted work to train its AI image generator.
And Natasha Lyonne stayed up all night furiously texting and calling everyone she knows in Hollywood, asking them to sign her letter to the Trump administration seeking protections from AI companies.
“My primary interest is that people get paid for their life’s work,” said Lyonne. She is a partner in a new film and TV studio called Asteria that uses generative AI that trains only on models underpinned by data and images used with permission, practices she wants to be the norm.
More: The Senate early Tuesday voted to remove language from the party’s pending megabill that would have banned state laws regulating AI. [WSJ]
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$6.67
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Price for a pound of ground beef, according to a survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation timed to summer grilling season. It’s the highest price recorded by the survey since it began in 2013.
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Ratings for the WNBA have surged since Caitlin Clark joined the league last year. Photo: Michael Conroy/Associated Press
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The WNBA approved expansion teams in three new cities—Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia—to follow the debut next season of franchises in Toronto and Portland, Ore. [WSJ]
Brands from e.l.f. Beauty to Olive Garden are jumping on the labubu craze. [Modern Retail]
Mountain Dew “Thirst Guards” will deliver soda by Sea-Doo to consumers on the Lake of the Ozarks over Fourth of July weekend. [Beverage Industry]
Lululemon sued Costco for selling alleged dupes of its $128 pants and other athleisure under the big-box chain’s Kirkland brand. [CNN]
Stellantis is trying to restore its Ram brand to glory with a “Symbol of Protest” logo, a return to Nascar truck racing and a marketing campaign themed “Nothing Stops Ram.” [NBC News]
Startups are moving their funding-round announcements to TikTok from LinkedIn. [Fast Company]
Louis Vuitton opened a store and brand museum in Shanghai that’s shaped like a ship. [Fashion United]
The latest “Bucket or Chuck It” review of a promotional popcorn tub gives Alamo Drafthouse’s $45 “Megan 2.0” creation a solid 4 out of 5. [NYMag]
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