Social media company X to allow political ads, reversing previous ban

Washington, DC – X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has lifted a ban on political advertising, though it says it will still prohibit the promotion of false information.

The move comes as the 2024 election campaign season in the United States kicks off. In a blog post on Tuesday, X laid out its approach to “political discourse” as the election nears.

“Building on our commitment to free expression, we are also going to allow political advertising. Starting in the US, we’ll continue to apply specific policies to paid-for promoted political posts,” X said in the post.

Ad-free CBC would send $158M in ad dollars to private media

If Canada’s public broadcaster went ad-free, private media in Canada would reap $158 million of its advertising revenue, a study commissioned by CBC/Radio-Canada found.

A position paper released by the broadcaster late Monday afternoon says that the CBC would lose $253 million in annual ad revenue if the broadcaster switched to an ad-free model — but two-thirds of that revenue “would migrate to other Canadian media.”

Fast Food Marketing Disproportionately Targets Kids In Black Neighborhoods: Study

Kids are a lucrative prize for the fast food industry: Studies have found that kids can form strong bonds with certain brands, and that those bonds can last for their entire lives.

A new study from Arizona State University has found that fast food restaurants more aggressively target certain kinds of children with marketing: specifically children living in middle-income neighborhoods, rural communities and majority black neighborhoods. The research will be published in the December edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Hedge Fund Advertising Ban Lifted By SEC

WASHINGTON — For the first time, hedge funds will be allowed to advertise to the general public under a rule adopted Wednesday by federal regulators.

The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 4-1 to lift a decades-old ban on hedge funds marketing their investments to a wide audience.

Hedge funds are still allowed to sell securities only to an exclusive group of investors: those with a net worth of at least $1 million excluding their primary residence, or annual income of more than $200,000 in each of the two most recent years. About 7.8 percent of U.S. households would qualify.

The change was mandated by legislation enacted last year. The law also makes it easier for small startup companies to raise capital without having to comply immediately with SEC reporting rules.

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Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: AP

Parliament must intervene to save the CBC

CRTC decision to allow advertising on Radio 2 and Éspace Musique eliminates CBC radio’s distinctiveness and therefore its relevance.

In a decision that commission vice-chair Tom Pentefountas calls “crazy,” the CRTC has decided by majority vote to allow the CBC to introduce advertising on its Radio 2 and Éspace Musique radio networks.

New "concerned citizens group" has deep pockets and close ties to oil industry

Last week, a new ad promoting oil pipelines appeared ahead of my favourite new song on YouTube. It featured a pair of actors having a simulated ‘real-life’ conversation about the paradox between protecting the environment and future economic growth. After the female actor asks, “But can’t we have both?” the man responds, “but if we let pipelines and tankers into our environment, what safeguards to we have?”

A third, smiling actor steps onto the scene, and says in a reassuring voice: “Let’s look at the facts.” She proceeds to set the environment-versus-economy debate to rest with a series of stats about double-hulled tankers and the "99.9 per cent safety record" of pipelines.

Ottawa spends millions on ads promoting resource development

Natural Resources Canada is spending $185,000 to hold focus groups to vet millions of dollars worth of advertisements promoting responsible resource development, according to documents obtained by CBC News.

The government's supplementary budget estimates document shows the resource development campaign will cost $4 million.

According to the Conservatives, your government is awesome

The federal government is spending tens of millions on commercials that make the Tories look good


The soundtrack is bouncy, the skylines broken by majestic mountains or busy construction cranes. The message is relentlessly upbeat. “Canada’s Economic Action Plan,” says the voice-over, “is creating jobs, growth and prosperity.” It’s another one of those federal commercials that have been unavoidable for anybody with a TV set since Stephen Harper’s government launched its multi-billion-dollar stimulus program into the teeth of the 2009 recession. The recession ended, but the ads remain. The finance department is planning to spend $16 million on the latest phase of the campaign, which began in mid-September and is slated to run through to the end of next March.

When billboards are bad for democracy

OAKVILLE, ONT.—In case you haven’t noticed, disturbing signs abound which indicate the Conservative government is using tax dollars to undermine Canadian democracy.

And I really do mean “signs,” as in billboards.

The fact is, you can’t drive down any street these days without seeing a billboard plastered next to some construction project, boasting about how the new bridge or new parking garage or new whatever was made possible by the Conservative government’s “Economic Action Plan.”

New $20 banknote costs Bank of Canada a pretty penny

OTTAWA — The Bank of Canada spent a sizable sum of taxpayer green to unveil its new green $20 banknote.

Canada’s central bank spent the equivalent of nearly 2,000 new $20 bills — or close to $40,000 in total — to announce the new polymer banknote and display a seven-storey image of it on the Bank of Canada’s headquarters in downtown Ottawa, reveal new documents obtained by Postmedia News under access to information legislation.

Conservatives overspend government advertising budgets by 37 per cent

The Harper government is being transparent with its advertising expenses because cabinet approvals of advertising budgets are posted quarterly, a spokesman for federal Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose said Thursday.

But an examination of the Conservative government’s first five years in office shows it overspent those cabinet-approved ad budgets by $128-million — more than 37 per cent.

Federal advertising report two years overdue with no release date in sight

OTTAWA - An annual report meant to update Canadians on how the government spends taxpayer dollars on advertising is now two years overdue, with no timeline in sight for when it might be published.

The Public Works Department is supposed to prepare a report each year on how the government manages its advertising, including the major campaigns undertaken and the amount of money spent on ads.

A Guide to the Digital Advertising Industry That's Watching Your Every Click

At the start of the 21st century, the advertising industry is guiding one of history's most massive stealth efforts in social profiling. At this point you may hardly notice the results of this trend. You may find you're getting better or worse discounts on products than your friends. You may notice that some ads seem to follow you around the internet. Every once in a while a website may ask you if you like a particular ad you just received. Or perhaps your cell phone has told you that you will be rewarded if you eat in a nearby restaurant where, by the way, two of your friends are hanging out this very minute.

You may actually like some of these intrusions. You may feel that they pale before the digital power you now have. After all, your ability to create blogs, collaborate with others to distribute videos online, and say what you want on Facebook (carefully using its privacy settings) seems only to confirm what marketers and even many academics are telling us: that consumers are captains of their own new-media ships.

But look beneath the surface, and a different picture emerges. We're at the start of a revolution in the ways marketers and media intrude in -- and shape -- our lives. Every day, most if not all Americans who use the internet, along with hundreds of millions of other users from all over the planet, are being quietly peeked at, poked, analyzed and tagged as they move through the online world. Governments undoubtedly conduct a good deal of snooping, more in some parts of the world than in others. But in North America, Europe, and many other places, companies that work for marketers have taken the lead in secretly slicing and dicing the actions and backgrounds of huge populations on a virtually minute-by-minute basis. Their goal is to find out how to activate individuals' buying impulses so they can sell us stuff more efficiently than ever before. But their work has broader social and cultural consequences as well. It is destroying traditional publishing ethics by forcing media outlets to adapt their editorial content to advertisers' public-relations needs and slice-and-dice demands. And it is performing a highly controversial form of social profiling and discrimination by customizing our media content on the basis of marketing reputations we don't even know we have.

How Ads Create False Memories

Can advertising create fake memories about trying products that you have never actually experienced? In a series of research studies that we conducted, consumers who read vivid print advertisements for fictitious products reported false memories of having tried these products, despite the fact that this would have been impossible. These consumers also evaluated the falsely remembered products as favourably as other consumers who actually did try the products. We call this the "false experience effect" because the product evaluations are based on a mistaken belief of having tried the advertised brand.

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Source: The Mark