• Streaming TV company Fubo took on Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, and it paid off.
• The giants canceled plans for a joint sports streamer that Fubo had raised antitrust concerns about.
• Fubo struck a deal with Disney this week to settle the suit and merge with Hulu's live TV business.

Fubo took on Goliath and cashed out.

The small streaming TV company fought against media giants Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery's plans to join forces for a new streaming service called Venu that would bring together their sports content. Fubo filed an antitrust suit in 2024 that argued the companies were planning a service they had blocked competitors like Fubo from offering.

This week, Fubo struck a deal with Disney to drop the lawsuit and merge with Hulu's live-TV business. Then, on Friday, Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery announced that they abandoned plans for the streamer.

"Had Venu happened, it would have been a threat" to Fubo, Michael Pachter, a stock analyst at Wedbush that covers Fubo, told Business Insider.

Because Venu would have been owned by three large companies with claws in the sports broadcasting industry, Pachter said a company like Fubo would have been scared of Venu's potential to get exclusive access to content and become a major space for live sports. Satellite TV competitor DirecTV also indicated it would continue the antitrust battle against Venu after Fubo's lawsuit was settled.

Now, Fubo is walking away with a sizable payday and the backing of one of the largest players in sports media. The Venu partners agreed to pay Fubo $220 million to settle the case, and Disney is set to give Fubo a $145 million loan. Not a bad outcome for a company that posted a $110 million net loss last quarter.

Fubo now has a bunch of cash to play with as it figures out its identity in this new position.

Since the Disney merger was announced on Monday, Fubo's stock has risen over 250%.

How Fubo stands to benefit from Venu's demise

Fubo, with a market capitalization of $1.7 billion compared to Disney's $197 billion, now has new pathways to grow its sports streaming business.

Fubo CEO David Gandler said during an investor call that Fubo could create "skinnier sports, news, and entertainment bundles."

On Monday, when the deal was announced, Fubo executives suggested Fox would be part of a skinny bundle as well, as BI's Peter Kafka reported.

That could create an offering similar to what sports fans could have gotten with Venu. Venu planned to charge around $43 a month for sports content from the three partners.

Fubo could also have other options to bundle its service with Disney's, on top of the merger with Hulu + Live TV. As part of the new agreement, Disney would own about 70% of Fubo.

"Fubo is going to generate a lot more sales," said Pachter. "Disney, Hulu, and ESPN brands add a lot of value to Fubo, which is not as recognizable as a brand."

CEO Gandler surprised some media observers when he first decided to challenge Disney, but the legal battle seems to have paid off.

"I was … impressed by his gutsiness," said Pachter. He acted promptly and forcefully, he had good legal advice, and it surprises me that he won but he gained a lot more respect."

• Influencers have filed a lawsuit against Capital One.
• They allege its Shopping extension hurt their earnings by unfairly claiming credit for sales.
• Capital One said it disagreed with the premise of the lawsuit.

First, the influencers came for PayPal's Honey. Now, Capital One is under scrutiny.

Capital One is the subject of a lawsuit filed this week by creators who allege the company's Shopping browser extension hurt their affiliate-marketing commissions by stealing credit for driving sales.

"We disagree with the premise of the complaint and look forward to defending ourselves in court," a Capital One spokesperson told Business Insider.

Capital One Shopping is a free browser extension that searches for discount codes and coupons, compares prices across about 30,000 online retailers, and lets users earn rewards that can be exchanged for gift cards. It makes money by earning a commission when its users purchase an item from its merchant partners.

In a class-action lawsuit filed on Monday in a Virginia court, two creators who promote products on social media allege the browser extension is designed to "systematically appropriate commissions that belong to influencers."

The lawsuit alleges Capital One Shopping "stole credit" by swapping out influencers' affiliate-marketing browser cookies with its own. Cookies are small data files stored on a user's device that help companies track users' browsing history.

The war for the last click

Much like recent lawsuits filed by influencers against PayPal over its Honey browser extension, the Capital One Shopping case homes in on the marketing practice of "last-click attribution."

In this model, cookies, unique web links, promo codes, and other analytics tags are used to determine the last piece of content a user engages with before they make a purchase. That entity, be it a YouTube video or an ad, gets credit for the purchase.

The practice has fallen out of favor in some marketing circles because it doesn't consider the full cycle of persuading someone to buy a product. There are also concerns that an intermediary may try to game the system to unfairly claim last-click credit for purchases that they had little to do with.

Companies in the affiliate-marketing industry often seek to adhere to "stand down" practices, where they won't override another affiliate's cookies.

In their lawsuit, the content creators Jesika Brodiski and Peter Hayward allege Capital One Shopping took credit for sales and conversions that were originally derived from affiliate-marketing links they shared on social media.

Brodiski shared affiliate-marketing links on social media for products on Walmart.com, and the lawsuit claims that — if a user had the Capital One Shopping extension activated during the checkout process — Capital One would remove her associated cookie and replace it with its own. The lawsuit says Brodiski earned about $20,000 through affiliate marketing in 2024 but that her earnings were hampered by Capital One Shopping.

Hayward is part of the Amazon affiliate-marketing program and similarly alleges Capital One would replace his referral tag with its own.

The lawsuit also says Brodiski and Hayward "face future harm in the form of stolen referral fees and sales commissions because the Capital One Shopping browser extension continues to steal affiliate marketing commissions with each passing day."

A court will need to certify the class action in order for the case to proceed

The plaintiffs are seeking a jury trial. If the case is certified as a class action, other influencers could join the suit.

Christopher Roberts, a partner and class-action attorney at the law firm Butsch Roberts & Associates, told BI the most difficult part of such cases is getting the class certified. The court will need to rigorously analyze various factors, such as whether the class is big enough and whether it would make more sense to litigate complicated cases individually.

Certification aside, Roberts said he felt the case would come down to what discovery showed.

"This case, on its face, is very well pled," Roberts said, "and it's pretty specific as to the code for this app being supplanted on the computer so that they can get the affiliate payment."

• TikTok said it would "go dark" this month if the Supreme Court doesn't extend a divestment deadline.
• TikTok users would likely stop seeing videos after January 19, and the app would leave app stores.
• The company is arguing its case against a divest-or-ban law before the Supreme Court on Friday.

TikTok said it would "go dark" in the US later this month if the Supreme Court fails to extend a January 19 divestment deadline set by a divest-or-ban law.

During oral arguments before the Supreme Court on Friday, the company's attorney Noel Francisco said TikTok's partners, like app store hosts and other service providers, would stop working with it if its Chinese owner ByteDance fails to divest its US operations by the 19th. That would force TikTok to shut down.

"It's essentially going to stop operating," Francisco told the court. "I think that's the consequence of this law, which is why I think a short reprieve here would make all the sense in the world."

This means a TikTok ban would not only prevent the app from being downloaded but also likely block existing users from seeing videos. The app wouldn't continue operating in the US the way "Fortnite" did, for example, when Apple removed the game from its app store amid a dispute between the companies.

"This is not a dispute between two private parties," G.S. Hans, a clinical professor of law at Cornell Law School, told Business Insider. "This is a dispute between a private party and the government, and the government can pretty easily legally prevent a company from operating."

TikTok filed a legal challenge against the divest-or-ban law in May. The bill asked its China-based owner, ByteDance, to separate itself from the US version of TikTok within nine months or be forced to stop operating in the US. The company lost its case in the DC Circuit last month, and it's now asking the Supreme Court for an emergency injunction to pause its divestment deadline.

During oral arguments, the company pushed back on the idea that it could divest the US version of TikTok from the rest of the company. Francisco described that process as "extraordinarily difficult" over any timeline.

• On Friday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the TikTok divest-or-ban law.
• TikTok asked the court to pause its divestment deadline, set for January 19.
• Legal experts expect the Supreme Court to uphold the law despite pressing the government on its case.

TikTok is fighting for its life as it faces a US ban set to arrive in a little over a week. On Friday, it argued its case before the Supreme Court.

The justices peppered attorneys on both sides with questions about a law that compels TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, to divest from the US version of TikTok by January 19 or be forced to shut the app down.

Legal experts told Business Insider that TikTok's prospects remain dim.

Matthew Schettenhelm, a litigation and policy analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said he thinks TikTok's chances of a Supreme Court rescue look slimmer after Friday's hearing.

"I expect the court to deny the stay, probably soon, and also uphold the law," he told BI.

Alan Rozenshtein, a former Justice Department official and current University of Minnesota law professor, said the government "got hard questions in a way that it did not at the DC Circuit," but that doesn't mean TikTok will get a better outcome.

"I don't think that's going to be enough," Rozenshtein told BI. "I still think the most likely outcome is the law will be upheld."

He gave an 80% chance that the Supreme Court would uphold the law.

What TikTok and the government argued in court

Many of the back-and-forths in the Supreme Court hearing centered on whether a TikTok divestment was the only path to solving Congress' national security concerns and if the law violated the free-speech rights of TikTok and its users. TikTok's attorney asked why the company had been singled out in the law and why e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu were granted exemptions.

TikTok is asking the justices to reverse a December DC Circuit decision upholding the divest-or-ban law. TikTok is also asking for a pause on its divestment deadline to give the court more time to consider its case (and give TikTok more time to potentially negotiate a political resolution).

TikTok doesn't appear to think divestment is a feasible option. During oral arguments on Friday, TikTok's lawyer, Noel Francisco, said it would be "extraordinarily difficult" to divest its US platform from the rest of TikTok globally over any timeline.

TikTok may be hoping for a solution that does not involve a sale, possibly brokered by President-elect Donald Trump, who has said he opposes a ban.

What happens next

After January 19, TikTok said it would "go dark" without court intervention as it would be pulled from app stores. Its service providers would also stop working with the company.

"It's essentially going to stop operating. I think that's the consequence of this law, which is why I think a short reprieve here would make all the sense in the world," Francisco, the TikTok lawyer, said.

Why is TikTok facing a ban?

TikTok was included in the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, passed in April. The act sought to limit the influence of social apps with ties to countries the US deemed foreign adversaries to guard national security interests. ByteDance is headquartered in China, which the US government has called a foreign adversary.

While members of both parties in Congress have raised alarm bells about TikTok, support for a ban among the American public has declined. Support for a government ban fell from 50% in March 2023 to 32% in July and August among US adults who responded to Pew Research Center surveys.

Donald Trump may try to save TikTok as president, as he pledged to do during his campaign run. On December 27, Trump filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to pause the deadline for a TikTok divestment so he could try to negotiate a political resolution once in office.

When X CEO Linda Yaccarino took the stage as a keynote speaker at CES 2025, she revealed that "90 percent of the advertisers" who boycotted X over brand safety concerns since Elon Musk's 2022 Twitter acquisition "are back on X."

Yaccarino did not go into any further detail to back up the data point, and X did not immediately respond to Ars' request to comment.

But Yaccarino's statistic seemed to bolster claims that X had made since Donald Trump's re-election that advertisers were flocking back to the platform, with some outlets reporting that brands hoped to win Musk's favor in light of his perceived influence over Trump by increasing spending on X.

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• Vox Media laid off at least 12 staffers at Vox.com, in the company's second round of cuts in about a month.
• The company also announced expanded duties for some top leaders.
• Vox Media faces challenges as advertisers move toward Big Tech platforms over news sites.

Vox Media laid off staff on Thursday for the second time in just over a month, this time at its general news and politics site Vox.com.

Vox Media didn't specify the number of people let go but said several teams were impacted in what was a "difficult but necessary step as the industry evolves." The Writers Guild of America, East, which represents the Vox newsroom, said the layoffs included 12 of its members. The Vox Media Union had 256 members across Vox Media sites before the new cuts.

Vox Media also announced a raft of leadership changes Wednesday, expanding duties for two top leaders as it looks to diversify its business. Pam Wasserstein was named copresident and vice chair of Vox Media and will serve as CEO Jim Bankoff's "strategic partner." She'll continue to oversee New York, Vox, and Vox Media Studios.

Revenue head Ryan Pauley also added responsibilities. He was named copresident, adding oversight of the lifestyle brands and the podcast business and production. He continues to oversee advertising, commerce, consumer revenue, and marketing.

"These changes will create clearer focus, faster decision making, and increased executive capacity for tackling larger strategic questions," Jim Bankoff wrote in a company email viewed by Business Insider. "This is particularly important given our complex, multi-brand environment."

In December, Vox Media laid off staff at its lifestyle titles Thrillist, PS (formerly Pop Sugar), and Eater and said that Thrillist would be operated by Eater going forward.

At the time, Bankoff said the company would focus on areas where it saw the most opportunity, including building direct audiences and its Vox Media Podcast Network. Vox Media also recently put its tech-focused property, The Verge, behind a paywall.

Vox Media grew out of the boom in digital media, raising more than $400 million from investors, including NBCUniversal and General Atlantic. It styled itself as the Condé Nast of digital, with a collection of websites devoted to news and lifestyle topics. Its last funding round was in 2023 when it raised $100 million from Penske Media in a deal that made Penske the biggest shareholder with 20%, The New York Times reported.

As investor interest in digital media soured generally, Vox Media rolled up other properties, including New York Magazine, Group Nine Media, and NowThis (which it later spun off).

Vox Media, along with many of its digital-media contemporaries, has faced challenges as digital advertisers flock to Big Tech platforms.

Here's Wednesday's full memo from Bankoff:

Team,

I hope that you all had restful time off over the holidays and were able to recharge. First, my thoughts are with everyone affected by the ongoing wildfires in Los Angeles - please stay safe and vigilant as conditions develop. If you need support, please reach out to your People BP.

I'm writing to share an update on new responsibilities for Pam Wasserstein and Ryan Pauley. These changes are focused only at the leadership level, and do not impact any day-to-day operations.

Pam Wasserstein will expand her scope and grow our leadership capacity by serving as my strategic partner, as co-president and vice chair of Vox Media, working directly with me on strategic initiatives and areas of opportunity to best position our company in the changing and tumultuous media environment. In this role she will also work closely with Shyra Smart, our chief development and strategy officer, Sean Macnew, our CFO, and our general counsel Brian Leung, all of whom will continue reporting to me.

Already our company president and a member of our board since we merged with New York Media in 2019, Pam is also being elevated to vice chair. New York Magazine, Vox, and Vox Media Studios will continue to report up to Pam.

Ryan Pauley will also grow his responsibilities in the new position of co-president of Vox Media. Ryan is adding oversight of our lifestyle brands (Eater, Thrillist, PS), The Verge, Polygon, SB Nation, and The Dodo to his remit. Their group publishers will report to him. He will work closely with these leaders to continue to build industry-leading editorial brands.

The podcast business team led by Ray Chao, and the podcast production team led by Nishat Kurwa, will also report to Ryan. The advertising, commerce, and consumer revenue business lines, as well as marketing, will continue to separately report to Ryan.

Pam and Ryan have been invaluable partners to me as we've built this business in a rapidly shifting climate, and they both have a deep understanding and immense appreciation of our work. These changes will create clearer focus, faster decision making, and increased executive capacity for tackling larger strategic questions. This is particularly important given our complex, multi-brand environment. I believe that these expanded roles will best leverage Pam and Ryan's unique strengths and areas of expertise.

I look forward to working together this year to produce more outstanding work and achieve our ambitious goals. I am grateful, as always, for your contributions.

Jim

• Cover Corp, a top virtual influencer company, is expanding its business in the US.
• Its creators, known as VTubers, use digital avatars and are gaining popularity on YouTube.
• The company is using sold-out live events and collaborations with traditional media to grow abroad.

Japan-based Cover Corporation is betting on the US as the next big market for growing its virtual anime-style influencer fan base.

The company manages creators who use technology to appear in videos and other online posts as digital avatars, often resembling anime characters. These influencers are most popular on YouTube. The VTubers, as they're known, typically livestream. Many make music or play games.

Their popularity is small but on the rise. From January 2023 to June 2023, VTubers comprised 1.4% of the active YouTube live gaming community but captured 9.6% of all viewer hours, according to data from the game-marketing platform GameSight. VTuber viewership increased by 28% during the period, while that of other gaming creators on YouTube Live fell by 6%.

Cover is one of several companies that exclusively work with VTubers to expand their businesses. Its agency division, Hololive Production, manages VTubers in Japan, Indonesia, and English-speaking countries, which have been a major area of expansion for the company since 2023.

Last year, Cover opened an office in Los Angeles through its first overseas subsidiary.

Hololive's popular VTubers in the US include Mori Calliope (2.49 million YouTube subscribers) and Nerissa Ravencroft (805,000 YouTube subscribers). Globally, its talent includes some of the most-watched and subscribed VTuber channels on YouTube.

The company's international expansion has helped boost revenue and earnings. Cover's revenue rose 50% year over year to 10,688 million yen, about $67.6 million, during its last reported quarter, which ended in October. It posted a profit of 1,500 million yen during the period.

Cover has a market capitalization of about $160 billion yen, or around $1 billion.

Motoaki Tanigo, CEO of Cover, spoke to Business Insider in an interview conducted through translators. In 2025, he said the company plans to focus on gaming collaborations, pop-up shops, and live events like concerts to grow its business in the US.

Hololive collaborated last year with the Los Angeles Dodgers on exclusive merchandise, for instance. VTuber Gawr Gura (4.5 million YouTube subscribers) also sang "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" on screens throughout the stadium.

Inside the business model of a top VTuber company

While Hololive primarily manages livestreamers, several of the company's creators sing and make their own music. That has opened up avenues for revenue and growth.

Mori Calliope, for instance, is scheduled to headline a solo concert in February in Los Angeles. Hololive's VTuber talent uses 3D technology to bring its digital avatars to the stage.

Tanigo said music is one of the top ways its talent reaches new audiences.

In 2023, Cover held a concert at the 6,000-seat YouTube Theater in LA, which sold out in 30 minutes, the company said. Its August concert at the Kings Theater in New York, another 6,000-seat venue, sold out in 10 minutes.

"The popularity of these events proves that North American audiences have a tremendous appetite for VTuber content," Tanigo said. "Our goal is to elevate VTubers alongside popular Japanese exports like manga, anime, and games."

Cover's top revenue drivers are merchandise, such as made-to-order items and a collectible card game; streaming revenue from super chats and channel memberships; concerts and live events; and licensing and collaborations, per its earnings report. Licensing and collaborations was the fastest-growing segment.

Hololive's international expansion

In 2025, the company is making a behind-the-scenes shift that it hopes will make its VTubers more engaging.

Until now, Hololive's VTuber models had been created through the gaming software Unity. Tanigo said the company is switching to another platform, Unreal Engine, which it believes will create "better quality" models.

The company is also working on finding better ways to sell tickets to and improve its in-person events. Tanigo said he'd love to see a function on YouTube or Twitch for ticket sales and better real-time translation for live videos, for example.

Hololive's international expansion has faced roadblocks.

Tanigo said the company has struggled with music copyright outside Japan, including getting the rights for talent to cover a song.

One of his priorities for the year ahead is to make inroads into traditional US media.

In Japan, the company has placed its talent on TV shows and other traditional media spots, and the team is working on animation projects based on its talent.

"We'd like to have that opportunity in the US as well and try to have more exposure in a TV show and different types of mediums," Tanigo said.

TV providers and streamers’ real competition isn’t each other, it’s social video. Or at least that’s what the president of Comcast Advertising, James Rooke, said during an interview on Wednesday at CES 2025 in Las Vegas. The ad exec was speaking about the company’s Monday launch of “universal ads,” a solution that lets marketers buy […]

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• Disney and pay-TV provider Fubo just reached a deal that will shake up sports TV.
• There will be new ways to watch sports in 2025, including new services from ESPN.
• Media analysts shared what the new deal means for sports fans, including cord-cutters.

Disney's fear of not getting sports streaming right is making the whole marketplace confusing for viewers.

A newly announced deal between Disney and Fubo will give sports fans more streaming choices in 2025.

The Mouse House is combining its Hulu + Live TV service with pay-TV streamer Fubo's business. The deal paves the way for a new sports streamer, Venu, to debut in the coming months, featuring sports content from ESPN, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox. (Venu's launch had been blocked by a ruling in a lawsuit started by Fubo.)

Disney's ESPN is also set to launch a flagship streaming platform this fall with content from all its networks. The sports broadcaster has a smaller service as well, ESPN+, with niche sports, some of which are now available for no extra charge on Disney+.

Sports fans are now inundated with ways to watch their favorite teams. Most games are on cable or internet-based substitutes like Hulu + Live TV, Fubo, and YouTube TV, which has had a slew of price hikes but is often still cheaper than most pay-TV packages.

But some matches are exclusively streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, or Netflix, or are simulcast on apps like Paramount+ and Max. Then there are regional sports networks, which have their own streaming apps in some markets.

And that's all before Venu and stand-alone ESPN enter the market.

In theory, fans should be thrilled. Each customer will be able to almost endlessly customize and control what they pay for, instead of being stuck with the one-size-fits-all approach of the past.

But all these options could confuse casual fans.

Is paralysis by analysis a problem?

Disney is throwing everything at the wall to make sure sports broadcaster ESPN survives the shift to streaming. Sports still drive massive ratings and subscriber growth.

"Why does Disney want to add another streaming platform to its already long and growing list of consumer streaming offerings?" wrote MoffettNathanson's Robert Fishman and Michael Nathanson in a recent note. They said this deal, which keeps Fubo and Hulu + Live as separate services, "only further confuses the long-term streaming strategy for Disney investors."

It's not just investors who have to sift through Disney's streaming menu. Sports fans may struggle to discern what content is available on which service.

One simple reason Disney is giving sports fans a bevy of options across price points is that it doesn't know exactly what they'll want.

It's unclear if this fast-changing media market can support ESPN's flagship streamer and Venu, in addition to other pay-TV services — as Business Insider's Peter Kafka wrote. Consolidation may be inevitable.

But while ESPN hopes its stand-alone flagship service breaks through, it doesn't necessarily matter how the company reaches customers in the late 2020s and 2030s, provided it still gets paid.

Macquarie's Tim Nollen told BI that Disney's multi-pronged approach is the right one.

"Disney is giving itself a much better chance to succeed," Nollen said. "It's smart to provide yourself with the most options you can."

Consumers can win, despite confusion

Analysts generally said Disney and Fubo's deal is a win-win for the companies and for consumers.

Venu is entering the market at a price tag of $43 a month, far cheaper than competing pay-TV offerings.

The Disney-Fubo tie-up could eventually lead to higher prices, as consolidation often does, said Adam Rhodes, a distressed debt analyst at credit-intelligence firm Octus, echoing a concern in the ruling against Venu.

However, others said Fubo was already weak and could have folded if it stayed on its own.

"Technically, having one fewer player probably makes it less competitive," Brian Wieser, who writes the Madison and Wall newsletter, told BI of the Disney-Fubo deal. "On the other hand, you could argue that maybe Fubo isn't in the best position as a smaller player, given the cost of content."

Now, Fubo could unveil its own skinny sports bundle, similar to Venu's, which would be a win for consumers.

"They were kind of an also-ran in the marketplace," Corey Martin, the chair of law firm Granderson Des Rochers' Entertainment Finance Practice, said of Fubo. "They're actually better capitalized, and better positioned to execute on its strategy."

No matter how the sports streaming market shakes out, consumers can't say they lack choices.

• TikTok published its global "What's Next" trends report for marketing creatives on Wednesday.
• It advised marketers to try out AI tech and hire a wider set of creators to reach niche communities.
• TikTok also dove into how marketers should change how they talk about life stages with consumers.

TikTok thinks marketers should lean into artificial intelligence as a creative tool in 2025.

It's one of several trends TikTok laid out on Wednesday in its 2025 "What's Next" report, which breaks down the culture and technology trends the company thinks will shape marketing in the coming year.

It's also recommending brands hire a wider set of influencers to reach niche communities and adjust how they speak to a new crop of consumers who view life stages differently than their predecessors.

Business Insider spoke to Cassie Taylor, TikTok's global creative solutions and trends lead, and several marketing partners who had early access to the report about where TikTok marketing is heading next.

TikTok's deep dive into global trends did not address the elephant in the room: its app could be pulled from US app stores as early as January 19, as mandated by a divest-or-ban law. If that does happen, TikTok would still operate in other markets. Brands would likely shift their US attention to other short-video products, such as Instagram reels or YouTube shorts. Taylor declined to comment on a potential ban.

Here are BI's key takeaways from the 36-page report:

1. AI is a marketer's friend, not a foe (hopefully)

Last year, TikTok announced a bunch of new generative-AI tools for marketers inside a creative suite called Symphony. The product allows creatives to generate ad scripts and trend summaries and translate and dub videos into new languages, among other offerings. One of Symphony's more striking features helps brands use AI-generated avatars built from the likenesses of influencers or paid actors. That tool remains in limited use, Taylor said.

Some influencers and marketers have expressed nervousness about the potential for generative AI to take away jobs. TikTok acknowledged that uncertainty in its report. Still, the company wrote that marketers can gain a "creative edge" if they embrace AI.

"Even a few years ago when we started to see different apps come out with AI, it was a little bit of, 'Do we like this? Do we not like this?' Should we be worried about it?'" Taylor said. "It's now been around just enough time from a trend perspective for people to really see its value."

Bridget Jewell, an executive creative director at Dentsu Creative who sits on a creative partner council for TikTok, said the agency uses TikTok's Symphony suite to come up with video ideas and identify trending sounds.

"It's the tool that allows us to think about things differently," Jewell said.

2. Work with influencers to connect with niche communities

Marketers go back and forth on whether to hire celebrities and mega influencers for reach or to work with creators who have more targeted audiences. TikTok is betting the latter will take off in 2025.

"As communities seek trusted voices, more people are becoming creators, from quiet reviewers to quirky characters," the company wrote in its report. "It's not about the loudest voice, but increasing the number of creators, sometimes even by 50% — to drive impact at scale."

Working with creators who know how to speak to a specific community can help a brand build trust, Taylor said.

"I'm not saying there isn't a time and place for a mass message," Taylor said. "What I'm saying is people will build a relationship with you on TikTok if you're talking to them like the community."

Jamie Gersch, chief marketing officer of the fashion brand Rothy's, told BI the company looks to work on campaigns with influencers who are already engaging with its products on social media.

"The in-house team is living and breathing on the platform and finding people that are naturally talking about us and love us," Gersch said.

3. Brands should treat life stages differently for modern consumers

Marketers should rethink the way they talk about traditional life milestones like buying a home when they speak to TikTok users.

These milestones can induce "FOMO and anxiety about falling behind," the company wrote. It pointed to users on the app who have shared their struggles with student debt and homeownership.

Instead of posting videos that value classic life stages, brands could lean into other goals TikTok users have shown they care about, like improving mental health or going on a hike.

"People are getting married later. People are moving abroad as a milestone. People are having different career goals," Taylor said.

• The advertising giant WPP is telling workers to come to the office four days a week from April.
• Business Insider obtained the internal memo sent to the company's 114,000 employees.
• "I believe that we do our best work when we are together in person," CEO Mark Read said in the memo.

The advertising giant WPP has told its workforce of more than 100,000 employees to return to the office at least four days a week.

"From the beginning of April this year, the expectation across WPP will be that most of us spend an average of four days a week in the office," WPP CEO Mark Read wrote in a memo sent to staff on Tuesday and seen by Business Insider.

The Financial Times first reported the move.

The policy is set to go into effect in April to give staff time to make adjustments and to "address capacity requirements" in offices, he wrote.

The CEO said in-office attendance was associated with "stronger employee engagement, improved client survey scores and better financial performance."

"I believe that we do our best work when we are together in person," he wrote. "It's easier to learn from each other, it's a better way to mentor colleagues starting out in the industry, and it helps us win pitches as a truly integrated team."

Under the new policy, WPP will allow staff one flexible working day a week and consider individual circumstances through a formal approval process, a person familiar with the matter told BI.

One WPP employee, speaking with BI on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly on company policy, said they still had questions about the return-to-office plan's practicalities. They said that in some offices, there were already issues with securing enough desk space or meeting rooms, for example.

AT&T this week began implementing a staggered five-day RTO mandate, and workers told BI that limited available desks and elevators at some offices complicated their return.

Amazon encountered office-capacity issues last year, which, as BI previously reported, delayed its full return-to-office plan for some employees.

Another WPP insider said they felt the move would be positive for younger staff and help them network and learn from colleagues, while allowing flexibility for those who required it.

WPP's announcement follows that of its fellow advertising giant Publicis Groupe, which last year told employees to return to the office at least three days a week. The company later fired hundreds of employees for noncompliance with the mandate, Ad Age reported in October.

Bruce Daisley, a workplace-culture consultant and former Twitter vice president, said WPP's return-to-office policy would be an employee-morale gamble because advertising jobs already aren't as lucrative and aspirational as they once were.

"Working in an advertising agency used to be gloriously paid, now those who work in the field squint into spreadsheets all day earning salaries that are often substantially lower than the clients and media owners they deal with," Daisley wrote in his Make Work Better newsletter.

Read the full memo CEO Mark Read sent to WPP employees:

To everyone at WPP

I hope you had a restful holiday season and the chance to recharge over the break.

As I wrote to you in December, 2025 is going to be a year of opportunity for WPP — a year when we can win through a relentless focus on our clients.

With that in mind, I wanted to share our priorities for the next 12 months, as well as a change we are going to make in the way we work.

Clients, creativity and our work

WPP's mission is to deliver creative transformation for the world's leading brands. This means not only producing exceptional work in every discipline of modern marketing, but helping clients transform how they operate for a very different world. This is ever more true of our largest and most important clients, who come to us for the quality of what we do, the breadth of our skills, and our ability to prepare them for the future.

While industry mergers and jostling for status may distract our competitors, focus will be paramount for us in 2025. We have the opportunity to stand out by being more obsessed than ever with serving our clients. In every single decision we make, we should ask ourselves "how will this help us do even better work for our clients?" Those companies who embrace this philosophy will be those who emerge on top.

Technology, data and AI

Demand from clients for creative ideas, effective media plans, brilliant PR campaigns and outstanding design remains constant, but the way in which we deliver our work is changing faster than I have ever seen. That's why technology, data and AI are at the heart of our plans for the future, and why adoption of our AI-driven marketing operating system WPP Open has grown so quickly. Keeping up that momentum is another key objective for 2025.

WPP Open helped us win a number of 2024's biggest reviews and we are going to increase our investment in Open this year to build on the success it has brought us. It will be central to how we bring an integrated, AI-enabled offer to market, with the goal of producing better results for clients and winning more than our fair share of pitches in the year ahead.

A culture of winning, together

Finally, we are going to focus on the culture of our company. For all our technological sophistication, we remain a people business. Across everything we do, our success still relies on the fundamentals of human connection, creativity and relationships. Teams of talented individuals, working towards common goals, are what drives growth for our clients and our agencies.

I believe that we do our best work when we are together in person. It's easier to learn from each other, it's a better way to mentor colleagues starting out in the industry, and it helps us win pitches as a truly integrated team. The data from across WPP agencies shows that higher levels of office attendance are associated with stronger employee engagement, improved client survey scores and better financial performance. More of our clients are moving in this direction and expecting it of the teams who work with them.

For all these reasons, spending more time together is important to all of us, and we are making a change to help that happen. From the beginning of April this year, the expectation across WPP will be that most of us spend an average of four days a week in the office.

This doesn't mean we're going back to old ways of doing things. During the pandemic we all learned the value of greater flexibility in our working lives and of being trusted to balance work and personal commitments. We need to keep that spirit of flexibility and trust, and will approach this transition with pragmatism and an understanding of people's different circumstances. There will be a clear process to request additional flexibility — including for those with caring responsibilities, health issues and other considerations. Some roles that have always been fully or largely remote will continue as they are.

We know that for some colleagues this new policy will require adjustments to their routines and arrangements, which is why it will not come into effect until April — giving people time to make any changes they need to. There is also work to do between now and April to ensure we make the best use of our workspaces. Our WPP campuses offer superb working environments in beautifully designed buildings with leading environmental credentials. But it will take detailed planning in the coming months to address capacity requirements and other related areas, and I'd like to thank the teams who are already hard at work figuring that out.

Your leaders are working closely with the WPP People and Real Estate teams, and will follow up with next steps for your part of the business. It's important that we take a consistent approach across our agencies, who will communicate the requirements to you in detail. In the meantime, visit insideWPP for FAQs, details of the policy, and an AI-powered chat agent to help answer your questions.

A collaborative, winning culture is what makes WPP and our agencies a great place to work, and it's the key to our future growth and success. I firmly believe this change we are making will protect and enhance that culture, for the benefit of everyone.

As always, if you want to get in touch, email me.

Mark

• An Audible ad has sparked a debate on TikTok over audiobook speed preferences.
• Someone in the ad said that anyone who listens to audiobooks "real fast" is a "psychopath."
• Critics argued the ad's tone was condescending, while others said taking offense was an overreaction.

An Audible advertisement has caused a stir on TikTok, upsetting some fans with the suggestion that there is a right — and wrong — way to listen to audiobooks.

Over the weekend, Audible released an ad promoting its narration speed feature in which celebrities, authors, and audiobook narrators were asked for their thoughts on the ideal listening speed.

Some said they liked to listen at 1.5 or above ("SNL" star Bowen Yang said 1.8). Others, however, were purists and thought the right pace was "the speed at which it was recorded."

But one remark struck a nerve, particularly on BookTok — the community of literary fans on TikTok.

One respondent suggested that she thought people who "go real fast" were akin to being a "psychopath."

While some viewers saw the video as lighthearted fun, others took offense and felt Audible was alienating its audience.

"I listened to your judgmental ad on 2x speed 🙄" one viewer commented. Another asked: "Is this rage bait??"

Some said they found the tone of the ad condescending, especially as consuming audiobooks and other media at a faster speed can be helpful for some people with ADHD.

Sonya Barlow, an author and presenter who has been diagnosed with ADHD, for example, told Vice in a piece about speed-watching movies that she thinks it helps her to focus.

"I'm used to running around. So when I watch TV or listen to podcasts, it's not that I am rushing the show; more that I'm avoiding the silences and long pauses in between, which can slow things down," Barlow said.

Stephanie Mitropoulos, who posts book reviews to her 88,000 followers on TikTok, made a video in response.

"They literally have a clip of someone saying that if you listen over one time speed, you are psychopathic," she said in her video, which amassed more than 300,000 views.

Mitropoulos said her preferred speed was somewhere around 1.85, and she knew of many other people who liked to listen to 1.5x or above.

She said she thought it was "absurd" to make such a flippant comment.

"Why would you even post that? Why would you put that out there? Why are we trying to shame people for listening at the speed that is most comfortable for them?" Mitropoulos said. "I don't spend $16 a month to be called a psychopath."

Many commenters echoed Mitropoulos's views, but others thought it was an overreaction.

In the comments under Auduble's original video, viewers have shared dismay that some were upset by it.

"This is what made people upset?" one person wrote. "This can't be it."

A TikToker called Emma Skies, who has 174,000 followers on her BookTok account, said in a video she feared society was "losing context" and taking the ad too seriously.

"Do we truly think that it's strange or anger-inducing or offensive that when a performer, an audiobook narrator, is asked, Hey, at what speed do you think your performance and your peers' performances are best consumed? And that that performer says, 'the speed at which I performed it'?" Skies said.

She felt the ad was intended as a joke and not meant to mock anyone — especially as Audible was promoting the speed function.

"Nobody cares. They're not going to stop you," she said. "There's a reason that that's an option on Audible."

In a message to Business Insider, Skies said her video was less about Audible and more about "encouraging people to keep in mind the context of any piece of media they see, even silly little ads."

Skies also pointed to Audible's royalty rates, which, at 25%, have been criticized as lower than the industry standard.

Authors who are exclusively linked with Audible benefit from a higher rate of 40% — something Skies also took issue with.

"Audible Exclusives are hoarded not only from other retailers (as one might expect of a retailer exclusive), but also from being available to public libraries because of Amazon's monopolistic business practices," she said.

Amazon and Audible did not respond to requests for comment from BI.

• Some advertisers are expressing concerns about Meta's commitment to brand safety.
• Meta this week unveiled a new approach to content moderation, removing third-party fact-checkers.
• Many ad industry insiders doubt it'll lead to major spending shifts, however.

Meta's new plan to shake up its content-moderation policies has some advertisers worried about the social giant's brand-safety standards. Despite that, ad insiders who spoke with Business Insider generally didn't expect the changes to hurt Meta's business.

"It's the final nail in the coffin for platform responsibility," an ad agency veteran told BI. They and some others interviewed asked for anonymity to protect business relationships; their identities are known to BI.

The industry reaction — or lack of it — reflects both advertisers' reliance on Meta and the shifting conversation around how brands should approach "brand safety" or "suitability," which refer to when marketers try to avoid funding or appearing next to content they deem unsuitable.

"A lot of brands have shied away from platforms that are too tied to news or controversy, mostly out of fear of cancel culture," said Toni Box, EVP of brand experience at the media agency Assembly. "But at some point, we have to ask: Are we missing opportunities to connect with people during meaningful moments because we don't trust audiences to tell the difference between a news story and an ad?"

The brand-safety tides are shifting

Meta used to bend over backward to address advertisers' brand-safety concerns. But brands weren't mentioned in Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's video announcing the changes or in policy chief Joel Kaplan's interview on Tuesday morning with Fox News' "Fox and Friends."

Instead, their pitch was about preventing the censorship of speech. Meta said it plans to replace third-party fact-checkers with a community-based fact-checking program, addressing criticism that the previous system was too partisan and was often overcorrective. The company also said it would loosen some content moderation restrictions on topics that are "part of mainstream discourse" and be more open to reintroducing political content to people's feeds.

Meta did give a very brief public nod to advertisers. A Meta spokesperson pointed BI to a LinkedIn post from Meta ads exec Nicola Mendelsohn that said the company continued to be focused on ensuring brand safety and suitability by offering a suite of tools for advertisers. In an email from Meta account reps to ad buyers, copies of which were viewed by BI, the company said it knew how important it was to continue giving advertisers transparency and control over their brand suitability. And in an interview with BI, Meta's chief marketing officer Alex Schultz said advertisers' primary brand safety concerns were around hate speech and adult nudity and that its tools would focus on "precision and not be taking down things we shouldn't be taking down."

Despite private grumbling from some advertisers about the changes, and how they appeared to be timed to appease incoming President Donald Trump, industry insiders said they don't expect much public blowback on Meta.

Advertiser boycotts and similar actions were once seen as a point of leverage for marketers. One high-profile example was the 2020 #StopHateFor Profit movement when hundreds of major brands protested Meta's policies on hate speech and misinformation.

But brand safety has recently become a political hot potato and been a flash point for some influential, right-leaning figures.

Last year, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, began investigating whether advertisers had illegally colluded to demonetize conservative platforms and voices. Elon Musk's X went on to sue the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, the brand-safety initiative at the center of Jordan's investigation, and some of its advertiser members after they withdrew ad dollars from the platform. GARM discontinued activities days later. Jordan has continued to press advertisers about their involvement in GARM, and X's litigation against it and some of its members is ongoing.

A media agency employee told BI that they had clients who were now more cautious about criticizing platforms in public or saying they would pull spending.

Industry analysts also said that — politics aside — many marketers would likely continue to spend with Meta so long as it delivered them the audiences and ad performance they had come to expect. Meta commands about 21% of the US digital ad market, behind only Google, according to data firm EMARKETER.

"For us, after Google, Meta is the next-best performer as far as ROI is concerned," said Shamsul Chowdhury, VP of paid social at the digital ad agency Jellyfish, referring to the return on investment advertisers get from their campaigns.

Advertisers are split on whether the changes will improve Meta's platforms

Some advertisers who spoke with BI said they had outstanding questions about the new thresholds Meta would apply to removing posts, what's on the road map for monitoring trends around misinformation, and whether they would still be able to effectively apply their own third-party brand suitability software to content on Meta's apps.

Advertisers said they would pay close attention to how Meta's Community Notes-like feature would work in practice, especially as some hadn't been impressed with X's performance in this area with a similar feature.

"This is a major step back and likely going to result in serious issues where social platforms, not just Meta, are going to hide behind the notion that their users do the moderation and fact-checking for them and they are free speech platforms," said Ruben Schreurs, CEO of the marketing consultancy Ebiquity.

It's not entirely clear how effective X's Community Notes have been. A study published last year by researchers at the University of Luxembourg, University of Melbourne, and JLU Giessen concluded that X's "Community Notes might be too slow to effectively reduce engagement with misinformation in the early (and most viral) stage of diffusion." Still, a separate study from the Qualcomm Institute within UC San Diego found Community Notes helped counter false information about Covid vaccines.

Some advertising execs supported Meta's announcement. Two media agency reps said increasing the number of conversations people are having on the platform could benefit Meta and advertisers alike by boosting engagement.

"I think the best news is free speech and mitigation of harmful or dangerous content remains the primary focus of this maturing program, and Meta has taken a forward position here," said John Donahue, founder of the digital media consultancy Up and to the Right.

Mike Zaneis of the ad initiative the Trustworthy Accountability Group said Meta's announcement should be seen as an evolution of the platform's brand-safety standards and not a retreat from protecting users and marketers.

"The speed and accuracy of the Community Notes tool is impressive and it's the increased transparency that makes a fundamental difference for users and marketers alike," Zeneis said of X's implementation of the concept so far. "If something seems to be working, we shouldn't discourage others from adopting the approach just because it hasn't been precisely tested."

• Instagram has shut down a program that paid creators for ads placed on their profiles.
• Meta began testing the program in 2022.
• Instagram has launched several creator-monetization tests since 2020 — and some haven't survived.

Instagram has ended a program that allowed creators to earn money from ads placed between content on their profiles, the company confirmed to Business Insider.

The Meta-owned platform began testing the program with US creators in 2022 and expanded it in 2024 to eligible profiles in Canada, South Korea, Japan, and Australia.

Meta will continue to place ads in between content on nonteen public Instagram profiles. Businesses will still be able to prevent their ads from running on specific profiles.

According to court documents filed in 2024, Instagram has generated billions in ad revenue for Meta. In 2022, when the platform began testing the ads-in-profile program, it generated $16.5 billion, the same court filing said.

This isn't the first creator-monetization program that Meta has tested and shuttered.

Other programs you may remember include:

• IGTV (Instagram's now defunct YouTube competitor) shared ad revenue with creators from 2020 to 2022.
• Instagram briefly had a native affiliate program between 2021 and 2022 that allowed creators to earn revenue from shopping tags on their posts.

The Instagram Reels Bonus, which paid creators a sum of money based on how their reels performed, was paused in 2023. It was reintroduced in 2024 as a series of limited-time bonuses.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Reddit unveiled new trends tools aimed at businesses and a new ad format for its Ask Me Anything (AMA) Q&A sessions. The announcements come after a record fiscal quarter for Reddit. In Q3 2024, the social network reported more than 100 million daily active users for the […]

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• Free TV startup Telly hired Seho Lee as its first advertising president.
• Lee, formerly of Uber, will pitch Telly's personalized ad capabilities.
• After early distribution hiccups, the company says 2025 will be a big growth year.

Telly, the startup that's giving away TVs in exchange for viewers' personal data, just hired its first advertising president as it gears up for an ad blitz.

Seho Lee is hitting the ground running, with a packed meeting schedule with marketing and ad agency executives at the CES electronics show this week. He comes from Uber, where he helped Uber Ads become a $1 billion business.

Pluto TV cofounder Ilya Pozin launched Telly in May 2023. The startup raised a seed round of over $20 million from investors, including media analyst Rich Greenfield's LightShed Ventures and VaynerMedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk.

Telly gives users a 55-inch, 4K HDR display with a separate, programmable screen that sits under the main display and shows news, sports, games, and other content. Users can also use Telly to make video calls, play video games, do fitness workouts, play music, and connect to smart-home devices like doorbells and thermostats.

At launch, Pozin said the Telly would be worth $1,000 if sold at retail. But it's free for users who consent to an extensive questionnaire about brands they prefer and products they use.

Telly has had early interest from advertisers

Many advertisers in the current marketplace are demanding measurable results from their ads. Telly's general pitch is that it serves personalized ads on the second screen that encourage viewers to take action without interrupting them.

"We're bringing a new and innovative format to the big screen that's never been really utilized before with our dual-screen operating system," Lee said.

Telly has seen some interest from advertisers. In January 2024, it was named a participant in WPP ad-buying giant GroupM's Ad Innovation Accelerator program. The group sought to create ad formats that could be distributed across TV platforms like Telly, Roku, YouTube, and more. Telly said it's worked on a pilot basis with several partners in categories like fast food, retail, and car insurance, mostly pulling from digital and video advertising budgets. It said it plans to share case studies from those partners this year.

"We're big fans of the innovation Telly is bringing to TV, both for consumers and advertisers," said Sam Bloom, head of partnerships at ad agency PMG, which has used Telly on behalf of advertising clients. "Telly's ability to transform the biggest screen in the home into a dynamic and measurable platform is a game changer."

An obvious limitation is distribution. Telly launched with a big media push and a goal of giving away 500,000 TVs in its first year. It fell short of that, though, only distributing "thousands" by the end of the year, the company told Marketing Brew. Telly switched device manufacturers and has been distributing more TVs at giveaways around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Telly execs said there's strong interest based on word-of-mouth signups but wouldn't disclose how many households currently have Tellys or detail its distribution goals.

"I truly do think we'll be one of the fastest growing TV brands in 2025 and potentially the largest and fastest growing 55-inch TV," Lee said. "Our ambitions are to create a multibillion-dollar business."

Telly says its ads can make TV spots work harder

For now, Lee is focused on showing advertisers what they can actually do with the TV.

Telly has a variety of ad units it offers, some of which the company is debuting at CES.

To get the free Telly, people have to answer a 120-question survey about their location, spending habits, and preferred brands. Telly can use that information to create localized ads for brands on the bottom screen. These are meant to sync with and boost the performance of the TV ad running on the top screen (from either network TV or a streaming service).

State Farm, for example, ran a companion ad that let people schedule an appointment with a local agent by clicking.

Another format Telly offers is a tune-in ad, which asks a viewer to click to watch a show, movie, or other offering.

Telly gave other examples of ways advertisers could use its ad products, such as a fast-food chain using the second screen to invite people to order food.

Most of Telly's ads are sold through automated channels, making it easier for advertisers to jump on board. Others require custom creative. Telly is also exploring other ways advertisers can buy, like by time block.