Dueling for ad dollars. U.S. companies will spend $52.8 billion on digital advertising this year, 2.5% more than they spent on it in 2014. And, while television advertising is still king—corporate marketers will invest almost $79 billion in TV commercials in 2015—researchers predict that spending on digital ads will outpace spending on TV commercials by 2019. Digital ads, after all, can be an effective way to reach Millennial target audiences. They're also significantly less expensive and easier to track than TV commercials. Now, in an effort to intercept advertisers' exodus to digital platforms, the CBS television network has launched a campaign designed to help maximize the effectiveness of television ad campaigns and prove the ads' return on investment. As part of the initiative, dubbed the Campaign Performance Audit, CBS will help advertisers to create their messages using cutting edge editing equipment. CBS will also help advertisers to determine the most appropriate shows on which to air the commercials, and "then test [the ads] in front of live audiences using tools including biometric feedback and neurotesting." The network's executives have admitted to sinking a lot of money into the campaign, but they won't specify exactly how much.
Platforms against porn. For a while now we've been tracking the legal landscape of revenge porn—the public dissemination of nude photographs without the subject's consent, usually by a jilted paramour seeking retribution. More than a dozen states now have laws criminalizing the posting of revenge porn, the victims of which suffer untold harm to their careers, reputations, personal lives, and psyches. These laws are no doubt helpful in deterring revenge porn postings, especially as they are effectively used to convict perpetrators. Once an image is posted online, however, stopping its dissemination can be extremely difficult. Now, there's a new—potentially more effective—obstacle to the proliferation of revenge porn posts: social media platforms' anti-revenge porn policies. Three of the most popular social media platforms—Facebook, Twitter and Reddit—have recently amended their terms of use to state that they will remove digital images of nudes that have been posted without the subjects' permission. "Twitter executives have said the company will lock the accounts of users who post content that violates their user policy," Mashable reports. These policies are critical weapon in the war against revenge porn because they can be used to remove revenge porn photos before they have been widely disseminated.
Stars of the (really) small screen. Have you caught any of the first four episodes of "Literally Can't Even," the first-ever scripted series created especially for the disappearing messaging app Snapchat? If you haven't, we have some bad news for you: Like everything else on that incredibly hip platform, the episodes vanish. Each four-minute installment of the show, which has been airing on Saturday nights since late January, is viewable for just 24 hours. According to the New York Times, the show's writers and stars, Sasha Spielberg and Emily Goldwyn, say that "they like the social media platform because it is very of-their-generation" and also because it is far removed from the work of their famous fathers, the film director Steven Spielberg and the producer John Goldwyn. Ms. Goldwyn also told the Times, "My dad always says it's great to be at the forefront of change, but to spend so much time working on something and to have it disappear after a day, my parents were very shocked."
Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
© Morrison & Foerster LLP. All rights reserved
