Weaponising teddy bears

Why advertising isn't funny (any more), how to get ahead in business through alcohol, golf and nepotism, and weaponising household goods by an 11-year-old tech ninja (who really is a ninja) and using bereavement to sell burgers

Apparently there are three guaranteed was to get ahead in work: drinking, golfing and nepotism.

And what about work/life balance? Well if you work at TBWA/Chiat/Day then maybe forget about it.

Can bereavement be used to sell burgers? McDonald’s (or their agency Leo Burnett) thinks so:

But some have sprung to the ad's defence. Perhaps this explains why advertising isn’t funny any more.

Unruly, the company that tracks viral videos, has launched a new study in connected homes and the Internet of Things based on the responses of 1,000 UK people, asked about how brands talk to them in the home.

It found that:

• 55% would rather buy washing powder using an Amazon Dash-style button than go to the shops
• 61% would be interested in a connected home if it saved them money
• 52% would engage with brands in the living room, the top choice, with the kitchen second on 45%​

An 11 year-old tech ninja (he's also a black belt in Kung Fu) demonstrates how to hack the most benign household objects exceptionally easily and warns of people 'weaponising' products. There are clearly dangers inherent in the Internet of Things.

Adcontrarian Bob Hoffman warns against wild changes as a result of new technology. He says when you look at these changes over longer time frames, only then is the real impact apparent.

Snapchat's financials, the first since the company went public earlier this year, disappointed Wall St. Yes, revenue grew by 282% to almost $150m and the number of users grew to 166m, but it wasn't enough. The company is yet to make a profit.

Skittles ads have consistently followed a series of unsettling or bizarre ideas. This one, created for Mothers' Day in the US (they choose a different day to us) has not gone down well anywhere, but certainly has the ‘OMG have you seen this’ factor:

Telefonica pre-empts the GDPR by giving its customers control of some of its data but only in Germany so far

Charting China’s ecommerce revolution.

Oculus founder Palmer Luckley, who left the company two months ago, takes virtual reality exceptionally seriously, and is a massive fan of cosplay.

WPP buys Amazon marketing specialist Marketplace Ignition as a fight over search begins.

Facebook’s diabolical print ads and the Vivendi/Havas deal examined.

Should the Vivendi/Havas deal be viewed through the prism of nepotism?

Can you escape the Frightful Five: Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft?

P&G’s US Mothers' Day effort doesn’t focus on a specific brand so may be confusing and some suggest it reinforces gender stereotypes, but has social abuzz with the emotive messaging:

The creative sector has something government wants: growth.

You may remember the Green Party’s great schoolyard ad from the last election just a little while ago. Well, they have done another one, this time based on a 1990s boardgame:

Buzzfeed wonders whether the most proficient troller on the internet is the Russian government.

Jann Wenner set up a magazine aged 21. 50 years later he’s still on that magazine, Rolling Stone, as publisher. In that time he has fought elections, published Tom Woolf’s Bonfire of the Vanaties, commissioned Hunter S Thompson and interviewed Barack Obama.

This is how Donald Trump allegedly gets his fake news.

Could monogamy be bad for creativity, asks David Schneider?

If you buy ad space programmatically, how much of that spend should translate into media? We have an answer - 62% of it.

Facebook's fifth ad measurement glitch since September.

Despite the massive WannaCry ransomware attack, few have paid the ransom, says Bloomberg.

On the eve of the new series of Twin Peaks, David Lynch on turning down George Lucas, who wanted Lynch to direct Return of the Jedi: