“Marketing” is a term that gets thrown around a lot in the music industry.
But it’s important to understand exactly what marketing is (and isn’t) if you want to drive results for your music. And one of the more important things to clarify is the difference between music marketing and music advertising.
Here’s a quick explainer for musicians.
What is music marketing?
Marketing is any series of deliberate actions you take to create awareness for your music, build a fanbase, and generate revenue.
It’s also the ongoing effort of sharing your music, or a part of your music’s story, in a compelling way, to the right audience, through the right channels, at the right time, so that someone will notice, care, and take action.
Because “marketing” covers so many possible channels, goals, and tactics, it’s really an umbrella term that can encompass many specific endeavors, including:
Many artists make the mistake of seeing these individual marketing endeavors as separate or even interchangeable. But marketing is the whole strategy, the game-plan that ties each of these efforts together into a larger journey.
It’s a more complete vision for how you’ll get your music noticed and move listeners from strangers, to fans, to customers, to lifelong advocates of your art.
What is music advertising?
Let’s face it. Your following on social probably doesn’t see everything you post.
So if you lean on organic social posts to do all your communication work, you’re leaving a lot of opportunities on the table:
Enter advertising, sometimes called “paid media.”
(Because you’re paying… for media… to get attention.)
The focus of advertising is to give you a fast and targeted way to reach the right audience at the right time:
Different forms of music advertising
Advertising — even within a single industry, such as recorded music — can take many shapes.
Want to run ads for your music? That could mean a full-page ad in a glossy magazine. A billboard in Times Square. Or a radio commercial.
But more often for musicians today we’re talking about digital ads.
The kind of sponsored content you see when scrolling Instagram or TikTok. The pre-roll ads that play before YouTube videos. The audio ads that free users of Spotify periodically hear.
Or the playable banner ads that appear when you’re reading an article on Pitchfork or NME:
Advertising cuts through the noise
When a message or objective is important enough that you’ll pay for people to see it, advertising helps your audience take notice.
Not only because it boosts the likelihood that your content will be served up in the first place, but because ads can be delivered multiple times to the same person.
And in a world of distraction where (by many marketers’ calculations) people need to see something between 7-13 times before they act on the information, advertising does a better job than most other forms of marketing at simply reaching people.
So advertising is a great option for reaching new listeners and growing your audience. But it’s also a good solution when you need to get important messages in front of your existing audience.
And when you factor in “retargeting,” which is the ability to send ads to people you know have already interacted with previous ads, tracks, or videos, then advertising becomes a powerful tool to move listeners from point A to Z.
The easiest way to advertise on major music websites
As you can tell from this article, advertising is just ONE component of the music marketing toolkit. So just like with organic social, you can’t expect it to do ALL the work.
Are you looking for the easiest and most budget-friendly way to get your music onto popular sites like Pitchfork, Billboard, RollingStone, MTV, and NME? Check out ReverbNation’s Promote It! You can launch your first campaign in minutes.
Special offer: From now through August 31st, you can even save $10 on a Promote It campaign when you set a campaign budget of at least $21. Use the code PROMOTEIT10 at checkout.
Especially if you want to find new fans, grow your streaming activity, drive merch and ticket sales, and build a sustainable music career.
In this article I’m going to show you how I got 1800+ new plays in just a few days.
Here’s a giveaway: It involves advertising. And I set a budget of less than $50.
Yep. Spending money. But as the saying goes, “you have to spend money to make money.” Or put in music terms, you often have to spend money to reach new audiences and build a lasting fanbase.
Here’s the good news: If you don’t know much about advertising or marketing, getting 1800+ people to interact with my music out of a total of 10k “impressions” (people who were served the ad) in less than a week is an impressive result. And now that I know my first week’s results, I can confidently let the ad run longer as budget allows.
I’ll outline my approach below.
But first, if you’re one of the people who groaned when you thought about spending money on ads, let’s look at some of the shortcomings of other promo options.
The limitations of other music promo
College radio promotion can be worth the effort, especially if you’re doing it the DIY route and establishing your own direct relationships with DJs. But you’re mostly reaching small localized audiences who can’t easily connect the dots between airplay and online engagement.
Posting video content on social is one of the best ways to nurture your relationship with an audience, but it won’t guarantee that anyone new discovers you beyond existing fans.
Enter advertising, a key component of an overall marketing strategy.
Music advertising can be a powerful way to:
Target the right audiences
Generate awareness and brand recognition
Drive specific results
Follow-up with new fans
But when you start advertising your music, platforms like Meta Ads Manager can be extremely complicated to use, and very intimidating for new marketers. It’s a labyrinth in there and they keep moving the walls!
No joke, I’ve heard from many musicians who needed to spend a dozen hours or more just to get properly set up to run ads on Facebook and Instagram.
So where does that leave you?
The simplest way to build your music fanbase with ads
Well, we’ve created a tool to help you find fans in places where music listeners are already discovering new artists — on sites and platforms like Spotify, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, Billboard, The FADER, NME, and Facebook.
And in this article I’ll show you how easy and effective it is.
The tool is called Promote It, and we made it user-friendly and budget-friendly for independent musicians. You can launch your first campaign in minutes.
Special offer: From now through August 31st, you can save $10 on a Promote It campaign when you set a campaign budget of at least $21. Use the code PROMOTEIT10 at checkout.
Get back in front of fans who’ve shown interest in your music
What artists are saying about Promote It:
“I’ve enjoyed using ReverbNation’s Promote It feature because, as an emerging artist that is still building a following, the tool is a way of showcasing my music to listeners of different backgrounds beyond my family and friends.”
– Sarah Dell
“Promoting a new song is crucial to its success. Reverbnation’s Promote It campaign has been a reliable way for me to promote my songs to a real audience and boost my chart position.”
– Mike Williams
How to launch an ad campaign in minutes:
1. Log into ReverbNation (or quickly create a free artist account).
2. Go to the “Promote” tab.
3. Decide on your objective: Do you want to get video views, Spotify plays, feedback on your latest song, traffic to a specific landing page?
Knowing your objective helps us format and place the ad correctly. It also helps us automatically imports the most relevant content, such as a song player or video player, which — depending on your ad objective — can be played right there within the banner ad, without the visitor having to leave the website they’re on.
What’s a good objective to start with?
If you want listeners to check out your track right there and then, without having to leave the website they’re already on, choose the “Promote a Song” option.
Campaign results, of course, will vary depending on your music, the visuals, the text, and the audience. But in general, “Promote a Song” ads get the highest level of engagement because there is the least amount of “friction” (extra clicks, extra pages, extra steps, etc.) for the viewer.
All they have to do is hit the play button right there within the playable banner ad!
4. Choose or add the song you want to promote.
5. Select the “Advertise on Music Websites” option.
6. Choose a layout for the ad.
7. Select (or upload) a background image and customize how it appears in your ad.
You can Drag or crop the image to adjust its appearance behind the text. Also, select if the image should be full-color or B&W.
The style of the image should work with your musical brand, and it’s difficult to give too specific advice here, since that “vibe” will differ for every artist. However, be mindful to create enough contrast between the image and the overlaid text that your messaging is clear and bold. In the example below, I chose a simple and dark photo so the text would pop.
8. Add two rows of text; a headline and supporting tagline.
Space is limited, so be bold! Use some of the proven tricks of marketing copywriting; make a promise, share an impressive quote or testimonial, or create a sense of daring. For instance, one of the ads I’m running shared a press quote from LA on Lock that said my music was “Songwriting at its best.”
That’s a brag, for sure. But also… I’m challenging the person on the other end of the ad to confirm or deny that claim. “Oh, songwriting at its best, huh? I’ll be the judge of that. Lemme listen and see.”
The tagline, in most cases, should use your artist name and clearly tell people what to do.
For my ad, it says “Listen to Chris Robley now.”
9. View the ad previews.
You’ll have a chance to see your ad in various display dimensions before you finalize the campaign. If it looks good, proceed. If not, you can still make edits!
10. Select a budget for your campaign.
Choose your daily or lifetime budget. How long you run the campaign will depend on your objective. But keep in mind that many successful music ad campaigns leave ads running for at least a week or longer, as opposed to burning through the budget in just one or two days.
Run your music ads and monitor results
And that’s it!
ReverbNation will handle all the audience-targeting based on your genre and location, and we’ll take care of all the placements, ensuring your ads appear on relevant platforms and websites.
And if you run more ads in the future, we’ll automatically target people who previously interacted with your music, videos, and ads.
Once your ads are running, you’ll see real-time stats for engagement and where people are discovering your music!
To help you get started, we’re giving you $10 off your next Promote It campaign*
* From now through August 31st, you can save $10 on a Promote It campaign when you set a campaign budget of at least $21. Use the code PROMOTEIT10 at checkout.
FAQ:
What kinds of things can I achieve with Promote It ads?
There are a number of ad goals to choose from, including:
Driving Spotify streams
Discovery, brand awareness, and building buzz
Getting feedback on a track to test a track’s “market-viability”
Boosting web traffic for a ticket page, smartlink, merch item, etc.
And more
Do I need a ReverbNation account to run Promote It ads?
The answer will vary depending on the artist, genre, audience, and content. But as a general rule, you’ll often see better results with ads that require fewer clicks to get to the end goal.
Because of that, you’ll probably see the best results with a “Share a Song” or “Share a Video” ad type where the content plays right there within the banner ad itself. Visitors don’t have to leave the website they’re on or take any other action besides simply hitting play.
Will advertising be enough?
Advertising is one component of an overall marketing strategy. You still need to create great music and social content, grow your customer list, make merch offers, play live, try to get press, etc.
Major label superstars use advertising in conjunction with a host of other marketing efforts. Their social content generally engages existing fans. Radio and playlist promo helps drive passive listening. And so forth. So don’t expect advertising to do all the work. Ads can be helpful in making introductions and creating a “halo effect.”
If you’ve dialed in an engaging social presence and live concert experience, it’s time to turn the ad budget on in order to bring NEW fans to those aspects of your career you’re already doing well.
Can I do “retargeting” with Promote It?
In a way, yes. Retargeting is built into the functionality of our tool. So your new ads will automatically be served to anyone who previously engaged with your music, video, and ads.
Can I run multiple ads at once?
Yes. And in fact, that’s often a good thing to do. Simultaneous campaigns can give you a better sense for which ad-types, copy variations, images, and objectives perform best for your music.
What Kronenfeld says truly worries her is that Americans are being exposed to Israel’s propaganda while trying to understand UNRWA’s role in the ongoing crisis. Beside the search ads, Israel has aired video ads in the US through Google that say “UNRWA is inseparable from Hamas” and that it “keeps employing terrorists.” Public misunderstanding could further jeopardize support from the US government, which until the war had been the largest donor to UNRWA.
“There is an incredibly powerful campaign to dismantle UNRWA,” Kronenfeld says. “I want the public to know what’s happening and the insidious nature of it, especially at a time when civilian lives are under attack in Gaza.”
Google spokesperson Jacel Booth tells WIRED that governments can run ads that adhere to the company’s policies and that users and employees are welcome to report alleged violations. “We enforce them consistently and without bias,” Booth says of the rules. “If we find ads that violate those policies, we take swift action.”
The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs in New York acknowledged but did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story over the past four months.
UNRWA Takes Action
Using nearly $1.5 billion annually in donor support, UNRWA employs about 30,000 people to educate, feed, and provide care for millions of Palestinian refugees in Gaza and neighboring areas. UNRWA supporters say Israel doesn’t like that the agency preserves Palestinians’ refugee status, which arguably gives them a better shot at reclaiming occupied land someday.
Israel for decades has accused UNRWA of standing in the way of lasting peace by protecting Hamas and enabling the US-designated terrorist organization to indoctrinate generation after generation with hateful ideology.
The agency has acted in response to Israel’s accusations. UNRWA this year has fired 13 employees, including nine whom an oversight body determined may have been involved in last year’s Hamas attack based on evidence provided by Israel. The US has paused funding to UNRWA since January, while other countries that cut off dollars to the agency this year, including Germany and Switzerland, pledged to reopen the spigot.
UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, has said that his organization plays a neutral and vital role in the region and that it engages in screening and training to keep Hamas sympathizers out of its ranks.
Kronenfeld, who is Jewish, says Lazzarini’s transparency and good-faith efforts have left her feeling comfortable about her role. She joined UNRWA USA in 2020 because her grandfather had escaped Nazi Germany and instilled in her that no one should be brutalized ever again based on where they were born. Among her initiatives was ramping up online advertising, with the aim of bringing in at least $3.90 for every $1 spent.
Driven by the war, the return on investment has been $25 on every $1 spent this year, but the competition from Israel on Google has meant UNRWA USA is winning fewer advertising auctions and likely getting its message shown to fewer users.
After Kronenfeld and colleagues complained to Google in January about Israeli ads featuring headlines such as “UNRWA for Human Rights,” they say a company representative told them, without providing a reason, that the ads in question had been removed. Google’s Booth says there was no policy violation.
By May, per screenshots seen by WIRED, Israel was back to promoting the same content but with tweaked verbiage—“UNRWA Neutrality Compromised,” “Israel Unveils UNRWA Issues,” and “Israel Advocates for Safer, Transparent Humanitarian Practices”—that more clearly previewed what users would get if they clicked.
The collaboration of these two longstanding Detroit area organizations aims to propel forward-thinking conversations nationally through traditional and digital marketing efforts
TROY, Mich., August 22, 2024 (Newswire.com)
– Simons Michelson Zieve (SMZ), a 360-degree agency providing everything from media to creative to performance marketing, announced today that it has been selected by The Henry Ford in Dearborn as its agency of record. The agency will manage a wide variety of services for the multivenue museum, including strategy, brand stewardship, creative and media. The Henry Ford includes Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation™, Greenfield Village®, and the Ford Rouge Factory Tour along with the Benson Ford Research Center®, Giant Screen Experience, Henry Ford Academy® and offers specialty programs throughout the year and an online presence at thehenryford.org.
“We are honored to be partnering and collaborating with The Henry Ford, one of the country’s most revered cultural institutions, and proud to have a shared history established in Detroit and sustained for nearly a century,” said Debbie Michelson, vice chair, client director at SMZ. “The Henry Ford has brought innovation, inspiration, imagination, ingenuity, and insight through its initiatives for 95 years and we are very excited to have this opportunity to magnify and share their mission with the world.”
SMZ was selected through a competitive review which highlighted its strategic thinking, along with its fully integrated media and creative capabilities. Additionally, the shared values, loyalty, and longevity of the organizations, both started in 1929, contributed to the decision to partner.
Through the partnership, SMZ will develop strategic campaigns to amplify The Henry Ford’s mission to help shape a better future through unique educational experiences based on authentic objects, stories, and lives from America’s traditions of ingenuity, resourcefulness, and innovation.
“For 95 years, SMZ has amplified the mission and brand of businesses, nonprofits and cultural institutions across the country,” said Ellen Hill Zeringue, Vice President of Venues, Programs and Marketing for The Henry Ford. “The mission of this full-service agency clearly parallels that of The Henry Ford and we are thrilled to be working with this team in an effort to introduce this institution and its world-class collections and programs to new audiences.”
ABOUT SMZ
SMZ is Detroit’s oldest independent advertising agency and a tight-knit group of listeners, thinkers and doers who have delivered winning ideas for 95 years. Current client partners include The Henry Ford, Michigan Lottery, Broadway in Detroit, Comerica Bank, University of Michigan-Flint, Detroit Tigers, Planet Fitness, Genisys Credit Union, General RV and more. Learn more at smz.com.
ABOUT THE HENRY FORD
Located in Dearborn, Michigan, The Henry Ford is a globally recognized destination that fosters inspiration and learning from hands-on encounters with artifacts representing the most comprehensive collection anywhere focusing on innovation, ingenuity, and resourcefulness. Its unique venues include Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Greenfield Village, Ford Rouge Factory Tour, Benson Ford Research Center, Giant Screen Experience and Henry Ford Academy, a public charter high school. The Henry Ford inspires every individual to unlock their potential and help shape a better future through a variety of channels, including its online presence thehenryford.org, its Emmy®-winning national television series, The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation, and The Henry Ford’s Invention Convention Worldwide, a global K-12 invention education curricular program that teaches students problem-solving, entrepreneurship, and creativity skills. With the support of a growing community of affiliates and supporters, The Henry Ford is the home of RTX Invention Convention U.S. Nationals, Invention Convention Americas and Invention Convention Michigan.
The suit, filed in federal court in Texas, says dozens of advertisers followed the recommendation of a key advertising coalition, Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM), to boycott buying ads on X since Musk bought the company. The suit says this turn of events cost the company billions of dollars in revenue. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for violation of US antitrust law.
The right-wing video site Rumble, founded more than 10 years ago as an alternative to YouTube and positioned as a platform “immune to cancel culture,” announced on Tuesday that it had filed a similar lawsuit. “GARM was a conspiracy to perpetrate an advertiser boycott of Rumble and others, and that’s illegal,” the company posted on its X account.
The US House Judiciary Committee, which is controlled by Republicans and has expressed concern about censorship of right-wing views on social media, has been investigating GARM. In a preliminary report in July, the committee found that “the extent to which GARM has organized its trade association and coordinates actions that rob consumers of choices is likely illegal under the antitrust laws and threatens fundamental American freedoms.” X’s lawsuit draws heavily from internal GARM emails reviewed by the congressional panel.
In a video shared to X, X CEO Linda Yaccarino said she was “shocked” by the evidence uncovered by the House Judiciary Committee that there had been a “systematic illegal boycott against X.” Yaccarino attempted to rally X users with references to free speech in her statement. While pointing directly at the camera, she alleged that the advertisers were “targeting our company, and you, our users,” and “threatening your global town square.”
“People are hurt when the marketplace of ideas is constricted,” Yaccarino said.
The Brussels-based World Federation of Advertisers, which oversees GARM, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuits. X’s lawsuit also names Unilever, Mars, CVS, and a Danish energy company as defendants, while Rumble’s suit additionally targets the ad agency WPP. None of the companies immediately responded to requests for comment.
X’s lawsuit contends that advertisers in the past had to individually strike deals with social media companies to set boundaries around what types of content they would sponsor. Through GARM, advertisers have been able to aggregate their power, establish industry standards for content moderation, and enforce them. In X’s view, GARM now has too much say over the content social media platforms may allow.
“In a competitive market, each social media platform would set the brand safety standards that are optimal for that platform and for its users, and advertisers would unilaterally select the platforms on which they advertise,” the complaint states. “But collective action among competing advertisers to dictate brand safety standards to be applied by social media platforms shortcuts the competitive process and allows the collective views of a group of advertisers with market power to override the interests of consumers.”
NEW YORK — All forms of artistry are common means of expression in the queer community.
Marcos Chin, an illustrator in Brooklyn, creates striking pieces of art that blend his sexual and cultural identities. He says, “I became interested in being an artist at a very young age. Illustration, for me, is the art and business of communication. It allows me to draw and express myself in a way that feels really natural.”
Chin says his projects are very personal. “My work is informed by my experience. I’m Chinese. I came out when I was in my mid-20s. I was in deep denial, self-loathing, internalized homophobia. I wanted to incorporate coming out and the experiences of being a young gay person in my illustration work.”
Chin has also made art for high-profile companies like Target, Starbucks, Banana Republic and The New York Times. He says, “When I see my work in public, I’m as excited as when I was when I got one of my first projects as a young illustrator.”
The crossover between his work and identity makes Marcos feel free to express himself and proud of his queerness.
NEW YORK — All forms of artistry are common means of expression in the queer community.
Marcos Chin, an illustrator in Brooklyn, creates striking pieces of art that blend his sexual and cultural identities. He says, “I became interested in being an artist at a very young age. Illustration, for me, is the art and business of communication. It allows me to draw and express myself in a way that feels really natural.”
Chin says his projects are very personal. “My work is informed by my experience. I’m Chinese. I came out when I was in my mid-20s. I was in deep denial, self-loathing, internalized homophobia. I wanted to incorporate coming out and the experiences of being a young gay person in my illustration work.”
Chin has also made art for high-profile companies like Target, Starbucks, Banana Republic and The New York Times. He says, “When I see my work in public, I’m as excited as when I was when I got one of my first projects as a young illustrator.”
The crossover between his work and identity makes Marcos feel free to express himself and proud of his queerness.
Apple pulled the latest short film in its The Underdogs: OOO (Out of Office) series set in Thailand. The tech giant scrubbed it over complaints about stereotypical portrayals of Thailand and its people in certain scenes.
reports that Apple issued an apology to the people of Thailand for the fifth film in its Underdogs series. The ad series features a group of travel weary office workers navigating the world using Apple’s various products.
Several viewers posted comments criticizing the film’s use of a sepia filter to make Thailand seem underdeveloped. The comments also called out the costuming and scenery decisions in its airport scene using outdated representations of Thailand’s citizens.
Sattra Sripan, the spokesman for the Thai House of Representatives’ committee on tourism, called for a boycott over the ad.
“Thai people are deeply unhappy with the advertisement,” Sripan said in a statement. “I encourage Thai people to stop using Apple products and change to other brands.”
Apple issued an apology for the ad shortly after pulling it off of YouTube. Lawmakers have also invited Apple representatives to visit with them to discuss the ads and how they portray Thailand on film.
“Our intent was to celebrate the country’s optimism and culture, and we apologize for not fully capturing the vibrancy of Thailand today,” the statement read.
This is the second time this year that Apple has apologized for a commercial. that it told AdAge “missed the mark” for its new thin iPad Pro. The commercial features a giant pneumatic press crushing a large collection of items used in or to represent creative endeavors such musical instruments, paints, a generic arcade cabinet, and camera equipment. The steel crusher smooshes everything flat and lifts up to reveal an intact iPad sitting on the lower steel block that a voiceover describes as “the most powerful iPad ever is also the thinnest.”
Artists, musicians and other creators took offense to the ad’s implied tone that generative AI would replace human artistic endeavors. Apple vowed not to air the ad on TV but it’s still on its YouTube page with the comments section disabled.
Several of the most prominent alt-weekly newspapers in the United States are running search-engine-optimized listicles about porn performers, which appear to be AI-generated, alongside their editorial content.
If you pull up the homepage for the Village Voice on your phone, for example, you’ll see reporting from freelancers—longtime columnist Michael Musto still files occasionally—as well as archival work from big-name former writers such as Greg Tate, the Pulitzer Prize–winning music critic. You’ll also see a tab on its drop-down menu labeled “OnlyFans.” Clicking on it pulls up a catalog of listicles ranking different types of pornographic performers by demographic, from “Turkish” to “incest” to “granny.” These blog posts link out to hundreds of different OnlyFans accounts and are presented as editorial work, without labels indicating they are advertisements or sponsored.
Similar content appears on the websites of LA Weekly, which is owned by Street Media, the same parent company as the Village Voice, as well as the St. Louis–based alt-weekly the Riverfront Times. Although there is a chance some of these posts could be written by human freelancers, the writing bears markers of AI slop.
According to AI detection startup Reality Defender, which scanned a sampling of these posts, the content in the articles registers as having a “high probability” of containing AI-generated text. One scanned example, a Riverfront Times story titled “19 Best Free Asian OnlyFans Featuring OnlyFans Asian Free in 2024,” concludes with the following sentence, exemplary in its generic horny platitudes: “You explore, savor, and discover your next favorite addiction, and we’ll be back with more insane talent in the future!”
“We’re seeing an ever-increasing part of old media be reborn as AI-generated new media,” says Reality Defender cofounder and CTO Ali Shahriyari. “Unfortunately, this means way less informational and newsworthy content and more SEO-focused ‘slop’ that really just wastes people’s time and attention. Tracking these kinds of publications isn’t even part of our day to day, yet we’re seeing them pop up more and more.”
LA Weekly laid off or offered buyouts to the majority of its staff in March 2024, while the Riverfront Times laid off its entire staff in May 2024 after it was sold by parent company Big Lou Media to an unnamed buyer.
The Village Voice’s sole remaining editorial staffer, R.C. Baker, says he is not involved with the OnlyFans posts, although it appears on the site as editorial content. “I handle only news and cultural reporting out of New York City. I have nothing to do with OnlyFans. That content is handled by a separate team that is based, I believe, in LA,” he told WIRED.
Likewise, former LA Weekly editor in chief Darrick Rainey says he, too, had nothing to do with the OnlyFans listicles when he worked there. Neither did his colleagues in editorial. “We weren’t happy about it at all, and we were absolutely not involved in putting it up,” he says.
Former employees are disturbed to see their archival work comingling with SEO porn slop. “It’s wrenching in so many ways,” says former Riverfront Times writer Danny Wicentowski. “Like watching a loved home get devoured by vines, or left to rot.”
In an article for Variety from earlier this year, Kyle MacLachlan is quoted as saying, “There I was. I don’t care. I’m up for anything.” Although it was in reference to his rash of, let’s say, wondrously weird TikTok videos, the actor could have just as easily been referring to his latest “artistic” endeavor: a commercial for Arby’s. An unexpected addition to the “K-Mac” oeuvre, the actor perhaps mentioned wanting to make it more “bespoke” than usual to the fast-food chain—possibly suggesting that the marketing team come up with something “in his range.” And, well, they certainly did.
The commercial starts out “normally” enough, with MacLachlan pulling up to the intercom to relay his order: “Can I get a beef and cheddar? And for you to bring back the potato cakes please. Please. I really need them. I really need them. The employee peers her head out of the drive-through window to say, “Sir, please, I keep telling you, they’re not coming back.” MacLachlan insists, “I know you have them.” The beleaguered employee returns, “Come on, Mr. MacLachlan.” Looking into the camera as though someone is watching him, he corrects her with, “Kyle MacLachlan.” She continues to rebuff his demand, insisting, “It’s over.” Defeated and tired of fighting, MacLachlan solemnly responds, “Okay, I’ll just have the beef and cheddar, thank you.” Seeing the sadness radiating off of him, the Arby’s worker can’t help but look sympathetic to his distinct yearning.
Just when MacLachlan has committed to surrendering to yet another day without potato cakes (or what Jewish people would probably call a bastardized latke), eerie music—Twin Peaks-y music—starts to play in the background. In the distance, he sees a shining yellow light suspended in mid-air, beckoning to him from the suburban version of “woods.” Wasting no time in getting out of his car (just as the Arby’s worker is about to hand off his order, too), MacLachlan beelines for the “nature area,” convinced the yellow light must be trying to tell him something. He’s not wrong, of course. For Agent Cooper-inspired instinct never lies. And when he follows that Lynchian light into a clearing in the woods, MacLachlan starts digging through the dirt to unearth the signaturely-shaped delight known as a potato cake.
The apparently oracle-like, stout triangle then proceeds to speak to MacLachlan in a combination of highfalutin gibberish and word salad until MacLachlan directly asks, “What?” The glowing potato cake (some might say it’s more “illuminati-coded” than Twin Peaks-coded) then answers simply, “Potato cakes are back.” That’s certainly more of a resolution than David Lynch could ever provide. But such is the way of capitalism: sooner or later (usually sooner), you have to tell the consumer what it wants. And it wants some damn fine potato cakes. For, ever since Arby’s discontinued the menu item in 2021 (instead opting to make its crinkle fries permanent “in lieu of” PCs or something), the outrage has been vocal and consistent.
Thus, when the commercial freeze-frames on MacLachlan holding the potato cake up toward the heavens, the following words are placed over the image: “Every vocal Arby’s potato cake lover on the internet manifested this [including, needless to say, MacLachlan]. Potato cakes are back for a limited time.” That “limited time” caveat perhaps being as ominous to some as any Lynchian narrative. As for MacLachlan carrying on the Twin Peaks-related torch, it’s but a continuation of his long-standing affection for the auteur, having once remarked in a 2012 interview with The Observer, “David Lynch plucked me from obscurity. He cast me as the lead in Dune and Blue Velvet, and people have seen me as this boy-next-door-cooking-up-something-weird-in-the-basement ever since.”
His enduring appreciation for their friendship was proudly showcased just a little over a week before posting the Arby’s commercial, putting up a video of various “Mac and Lynch” moments to the tune of Billie Eilish’s “Birds of a Feather” (because, as MacLachlan has made it clear by now, he’s a man who’s up on current trends and music). Who knows? Maybe it was but an “Easter egg” for how Lynch-oriented the Arby’s commercial was going to be.
On the heels of an iconic Arby’s on Sunset Boulevard closing (the one with the giant neon-worded cowboy hat), MacLachlan’s Lynchian homage to potato cakes might be just the thing to jumpstart the fast-food restaurant’s “career” again. Much as MacLachlan’s was by Blue Velvet. But, in this case, “the return” of something never tasted quite so good (ergo, endlessly unhealthy—as is also the way with Lynch-promoted menu items like pie and donuts).
For the past eight months, Europeans uncomfortable with the way Meta tracks their data for personalized advertising have had another option: They can pay the tech giant up to €12.99 ($14) per month for their privacy instead.
Launched in November 2023, Meta introduced its “pay or consent” subscription model as fines, legal cases and regulatory attention pressured the company to change the way it asks users to consent to targeted advertising. On Monday, however, the European Commision rejected its latest solution, arguing its “pay or consent” subscription is illegal under the bloc’s new digital markets act (DMA).
“Our preliminary view is that Meta’s “Pay or Consent” business model is in breach of the DMA,” Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the EU’s Internal Market, said in a statement. “The DMA is there to give back to the users the power to decide how their data is used and ensure innovative companies can compete on equal footing with tech giants on data access.”
Meta denied its subscription model broke the rules. “Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and complies with the DMA,” Meta spokesperson Matt Pollard told WIRED, referring to a Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) decision in July that said that Meta needed to offer users an alternative to ads, if necessary for an appropriate fee. “We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close.”
In a press briefing on Monday morning, Commission officials said their concern was not that the company was charging for an ad-free service. “This is perfectly fine for us, as long as we have the middle option,” they said, explaining there should be a third option that may still contain ads but are just less targeted. There are different, less-specific ways of providing advertising to users, they added, such as contextual advertising. “The consumer needs to be in a position to choose an alternative version of the service which relies on non personalization of the ads.”
Under the DMA, very large tech platforms must ask users for consent if they want to share their personal data with other parts of their businesses. In Meta’s case, the Commission said it is particularly concerned about the competitive advantage Meta receives over its rivals by being able to combine the data from platforms like Instagram and its advertising business.
Meta has a chance to respond to the charges issued on Monday. However if the company cannot reach an agreement with regulators before March 2025, Brussels has the power to levy fines of up to 10 percent of the company’s global turnover.
In the past week, the EU has issued a series of reprimands to US tech giants. The Commission warned Apple that its App Store is in breach of EU rules for preventing app developers offering promotions directly to their users. Brussels also accused Microsoft of abusing its dominance in the office-software market, following a complaint from rival Slack.
California lawmakers have revived legislation to charge online platforms for the news articles they publish, a proposal that stalled last year amid divisions within the journalism industry and intense opposition from Google and other tech companies.
New amendments published Monday to Assembly Bill 886 are meant to address concerns from small publishers and make the plan more similar to the way Canada charges platforms for distributing news content.
The bill, also known as the “California Journalism Preservation Act,” requires digital advertising giants to pay news outlets a fee when they sell advertising alongside news content. Publishers would have to use 70% of those funds to pay journalists in California.
The changes call for calculating payments based on the number of journalists a news outlet employs, similar to Canada’s model, rather than on how many impressions an article generates, as originally proposed. And they call for creating a fund that platforms pay into, which would distribute the money to news outlets. Google is paying $74 million annually into a fund for the news industry under the law that took effect last year in Canada.
“What we learned with the Canada version is that it’s possible, and that news is of value, it’s critical,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland). “And that we should be doing everything we can to ensure that our publishers are compensated for the work that they’re providing.”
New amendments in Wicks’ bill also would give an additional boost to small publishers by making them eligible for funding beyond the per-journalist payout and allowing them more flexibility in how they spend the money they would receive under the program by dropping the portion they must spend paying journalists to 50%.
The bill is sponsored by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member. Publishers argue that online search and social media platforms are harming the journalism business by gobbling up advertising revenue while publishing content they don’t pay for.
The changes to the bill mark a key development since the bill was put on pause last year in the face of massive opposition from Google and other companies. Google argued the legislation would upend its business model and wrote in an April blog post that the bill “undermines news in California.” The search giant flexed its muscle against the bill earlier this year by removing links to California news sites from its search results for some users.
Google did not respond to an email seeking comment on the latest changes to the bill.
But the amendments are unlikely to be the final modifications. Lawmakers often ramp up negotiations on difficult issues as they approach the end of the legislative session in August. The bill is scheduled for a hearing on June 25 in the Senate Judiciary Committee, its next big hurdle.
State Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), who chairs that committee, said he expects further changes as negotiations continue. He said he would like to see the bill pass but wants to make sure it strikes the right balance between what the news industry needs and what the tech platforms can pay for.
“I believe that we could screw this up so that we make it so expensive that the platforms don’t carry [journalism] content,” Umberg said. “That would be catastrophic. So I don’t know where we hit that sweet spot.”
A separate bill seeking to aid the journalism industry would impose a new tax on Amazon, Meta and Google for the data they take from users and pump the money from this “data extraction mitigation fee” into news organizations by giving them a tax credit for employing full-time journalists.
As a tax measure, Senate Bill 1327 would require approval from two-thirds of the Legislature and presents a political challenge in an election year. Nonetheless, state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda) said his bill is compatible with Wicks’ legislation, and he remains hopeful lawmakers can find a way to help the journalism industry.
“I continue to have many conversations with her and others about how we have to solve the problem,” Glazer said. “There’s lots of ways to try to go at it.”
There are currently six types of ads companies can buy on Instagram, according to Meta. They can buy ads that look like photo posts, ads that look like video posts, ads that look like slideshows, ads that look like Stories, and ads that look like Reels. Companies give Meta money, and Meta gives them the chance to slot their content in its users’ feeds. What happens then is up to you, the user. Sometimes you’ll tap through, or at least remember the product’s name; most of the time, you’ll tap or scroll them away.
You’re probably most familiar with unskippable ads from the world of video. YouTube, Hulu, and countless other streaming sites ask users to sit through ads before or in the middle of content. It’s a familiar bargain, a business practice carried forward from television and stretched to extremes online: Who among us hasn’t occasionally sat through a 30-second video ad to watch a 17-second clip on a news website? What Instagram is doing here, though, is different in a way that the few users who have encountered it seem to find extremely disruptive. The ads are not interrupting or delaying a video. They’re interrupting users’ scrolling, putting up an invisible barrier through which no thumb can pass, at least for a few seconds. Instagram users are accustomed to seeing a lot of ads, being aware of a lot of ads, and passively consuming or actively dismissing a lot of ads. Depending on how you use it, Instagram can feel like a platform entirely composed of ads, in which organic posts from brands hoping you’ll buy something are occasionally interrupted by paid posts from brands hoping you’ll buy something. What Instagram users are less accustomed to is taking orders from ads. It’s one thing to get held up for a few seconds before watching a 14-minute YouTube video. It’s quite another to be held up for a few seconds before scrolling down to see, basically, more ads.
This is the sort of obnoxious behavior you’d expect from an AI spam farm, a newspaper website in the process of being squeezed to death by a private equity firm, or a porn site. The ads are perhaps most reminiscent of free-to-play mobile games, which routinely stop their users at monetization checkpoints as frequently as they’ll tolerate. “This’ll be the last straw for me when it comes to Instagram,” wrote Reddit user notthatogwiththename, who posted screenshots of the feature in testing. “I could stand the plethora of ads sprinkled throughout the entire app already, but unskippable? Gtfo.”
A scroll-stopping ad is jarring, as Meta certainly knows. But at this point, they may not care much. They have long deprioritized Instagram’s feed in favor of video-heavy Stories and Reels, both of which created a lot of valuable ad space of their own. As users have started posting less on their main feeds, the original core of Instagram has begun to hollow out. The arrival of hostile ad units would be a pretty clear sign that the company sees its feed less as a product with a future than as a declining resource that needs to be harvested to the fullest extent possible. Users are already abandoning it. Why not toll them on the way out?
Disclosure:Longtime journalist Steven Brill is the founder or cofounder of a number of publications and companies, including NewsGuard, where he is the co-CEO and coeditor in chief. Among other services, NewsGuard offers advertisers brand-safety services aimed at countering the pitfalls of unvetted programmatic advertising. This story is excerpted from his new book, The Death of Truth.
In 2019, other than the government of Vladimir Putin, Warren Buffett was the biggest funder of Sputnik News, the Russian disinformation website controlled by the Kremlin. It wasn’t that the legendary champion of American capitalism had an alter ego who woke up every morning wondering how he could help finance Vladimir Putin’s global propaganda network. It was because Geico, the giant American insurance company and subsidiary of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, was the leading advertiser on the American version of Sputnik News’ global website network.
Nor was it because a marketing executive at Geico had decided that advertising on the Russian disinformation outlet was a good idea. That would have been especially unlikely, not only because of the Buffett connection, but also because Geico stands for Government Employees Insurance Company and has its roots dating to the 1930s, providing insurance to civilians and members of the military who worked for the American government, not its Russian adversary.
In fact, no one at Geico or its advertising agency had any idea its ads would appear on Sputnik, let alone what anti-American content would be displayed alongside the ads. How could they? Which person or army of people at Geico or its agency could have read 44,000 websites?
Geico’s ads had been placed through a programmatic advertising system that was invented in the late 1990s as the internet developed. It exploded beginning in the mid 2000s and is now the overwhelmingly dominant advertising medium. Programmatic algorithms, not people, decide where to place most of the ads we now see on websites, social media platforms, mobile devices, streaming television, and increasingly hear on podcasts. The numbers involved are mind-boggling. If Geico’s advertising campaign were typical of programmatic campaigns for broad-based consumer products and services, each of its ads would have been placed on an average of 44,000 websites, according to a study done for the leading trade association of big-brand advertisers.
Geico is hardly the only rock-solid American brand to be funding the Russians. During the same period that the insurance company’s ads appeared on Sputnik News, 196 other programmatic advertisers bought ads on the website, including Best Buy, E-Trade, and Progressive insurance. Sputnik News’ sister propaganda outlet, RT.com (it was once called Russia Today until someone in Moscow decided to camouflage its parentage), raked in ad revenue from Walmart, Amazon, PayPal, and Kroger, among others.
Every workday, approximately 2,500 people sit at desktops or laptops using these programmatic advertising algorithms to spend tens of millions of dollars an hour. They work at advertising agencies scattered around the world, or, in the case of some major companies, at their in-house advertising shops. Their titles might be “programmatic specialist,” “programmatic associate,” or “campaign manager.” What they have in common is that they are usually in their first jobs out of college. Although many work from home post-Covid, if they are in the office, they sit at carrels in large open spaces that resemble the trading floor of a stock brokerage.
A Keyboard Replaced Mad Men
Let’s call our archetype specialist Trevor, and assume that he works in the programmatic advertising unit of one of the five major global advertising agency holding companies. He probably has a salary of $60,000 to $80,000 a year. Trevor will be logged in to what is known as a demand-side platform. Think of it as a kind of stock exchange for buying advertising instead of shares of a company. The demand-side platform is where all of the available advertising space on every page of every website in the world that the platform has assembled as its inventory is made available to a buyer like Trevor.
In proximity, or in close touch if working remotely, will be another junior staffer with a title of “media buyer,” “planner,” or “campaign manager,” whose job is to make sure that the advertising effort, or “campaign,” that has been planned by higher-ups on the creative and planning teams is communicated to Trevor. This includes loading the actual ad for the product onto the demand-side platform for deployment, and also giving Trevor, sitting in front of the demand-side platform’s dashboard, the all-important targeting decisions that the planners have made: Who should be reached with what message? Yes, humans are still involved in picking the sales strategy and creating the message (although generative AI may change that, too). However, humans do not decide which publisher—the local newspaper website, or a website posing as a local news site but publishing Russian propaganda—gets the ad.
A majority of US TikTok creators don’t believe the platform will be banned within a year, and most haven’t seen brands they work for shift their marketing budgets away from the app, according to a new survey of people who earn money from posting content on TikTok shared exclusively with WIRED.
The findings suggest that TikTok’s influencer economy largely isn’t experiencing existential dread after Congress passed a law last month that put the future of the app’s US operations in jeopardy. The bill demands that TikTok separate from its Chinese parent company within a year or face a nationwide ban; TikTok is challenging the constitutionality of the measure in court.
Fohr, an influencer marketing platform that connects creators with clients for sponsored content, polled US-based TikTok creators on its platform with at least 10,000 followers. It got 200 responses, half from people who rely on influencing as their sole source of income. Out of the respondents, 62 percent said they didn’t think TikTok would be banned by 2025, while the remaining 38 percent said they believed it would be.
Some creators may be skeptical that a ban will really happen after they watched the Trump White House and Congress try and fail several times to crack down on TikTok over the past few years. The platform has so far only continued to grow more popular in the US, sparking alarm in Silicon Valley over the threat its competition poses. There’s also the possibility TikTok will be sold to a group of American investors—several interested bidders have emerged—though TikTok has made it clear that such an acquisition would be practically impossible.
Some creators are simply struggling to believe the bizarre situation their favorite app has landed in. “I’m in denial, because I think the TikTok ban is ridiculous,” one anonymous creator told Fohr through its survey. “I think our government has bigger things to worry about than banning a platform where people are allowed to express their views and opinions.”
Most creators said they haven’t lost business from brands that pay for marketing content on TikTok since the new law was signed: 83 percent of the influencers who responded said their sponsorships have been unaffected. But the rest had seen signs of brands pulling back from the app or at least diversifying their marketing. Some 7 percent said a brand had paused or canceled a campaign they worked on, and 8 percent said a brand had asked to shift a deliverable to another social media platform or at least inquired about such a change.
Companies may be reluctant to walk away from TikTok because it’s become one of the most popular avenues for consumers to discover new products, particularly from small businesses. Over the past year, TikTok has tried to leverage that influence into a new revenue stream through an ecommerce feature called TikTok Shop. Over 11 percent of US households have made a purchase through TikTok Shop since September 2023, according to credit card transaction data published in April by the research firm Earnest Analytics.
It doesn’t look as though the passage of the divestiture bill last month prompted people to spend significantly less time on TikTok or avoid the app altogether. The popularity of the platform in US app stores has remained largely consistent over the past month, according to the market-intelligence firm Sensor Tower. And Fohr found that 60 percent of creators said their video views have remained the same, 28 percent said they had seen them fall, and 10 percent reported their engagement increased. These shifts could simply be caused by routine changes TikTok makes to its algorithm, variability of the content that influencers are sharing, or the whims of users consuming videos.
TikTok’s rise has spurred US tech giants to mimic many of its features, with Google’s YouTube pushing its Shorts format and Meta’s Instagram launching Reels. Fohr’s survey suggests that if creators start leaving TikTok because of uncertainty about the app’s future or a ban, Instagram stands to benefit the most. A clear majority of creators—67 percent—said they saw it as the best alternative for growing their audience, while 22 percent cited YouTube. Only a small fraction pointed to Snapchat, Pinterest, and other platforms.
Several of the creators, however, said that it’s harder to gain traction on Instagram compared to TikTok, and one noted that Meta’s platform doesn’t offer anything equivalent to TikTok’s Creativity Program, which pays users based on how many views and other engagement metrics their videos receive.
Across social platforms, the most common way for creators to get paid is by signing deals with brands to make posts featuring their products. But Fohr’s survey also showed the growth of a novel monetization scheme called the TikTok Creative Challenge, which the app launched last year. It allows companies to post requests for creators to make marketing videos that brands can then use on their own channels. Influencers are compensated based on how well their video performs in terms of views and engagement.
In Fohr’s survey, that type of content, known as UGC, represented the largest TikTok revenue stream for 18 percent of creators. Whatever happens to TikTok in the US, history suggests that it may not be long before its American competitors begin rolling out their own user-generated content initiatives.
One of the new ad formats Google announced today will allow brands to link short-form videos they made—or ones they hired creators to film—to their advertisements in Google’s search engine. AI-generated text summaries of the clips will be included below. “I’ve got three Gen Z-ers at home, and watching them shop, it’s very video-based,” said Madrigal.
Google also launched a tool that allows companies to create entirely new, AI-generated product images based on photos from earlier marketing campaigns and pictures that represent their brand identity. For example, a home goods brand could upload a picture of one of its candles and an image of a beach, then ask Google to “put the candle on a beach that looks like this one under some palm trees.”
Shannon Smyth, the founder of a perfume and body-care company called A Girl’s Gotta Spa, said she began using Google’s AI image tools last year when the company first began rolling them out as part of software called Product Studio. Initially, Google only allowed merchants to swap the backgrounds on existing product photos and make small tweaks, like increasing the resolution.
“It coincided with struggling to keep up on our social channels with professional-looking photography, and as finances became more strapped I decided to give it a try,” Smyth says. She uses it to generate images for use on social media, in an email newsletter, and on her Amazon store. (Google put Smyth in touch with WIRED to discuss her experiences with its AI products.)
Smyth said Google’s AI tools save time and have gotten better as she has continued using them. “I admit, I was frustrated at first if it would generate images without shadows or reflections, or have an unidentifiable object in the photo,” she explained. “I’ve found that as I give feedback on every image, those issues begin to get resolved.”
Google is trying to help advertisers create compelling imagery without needing to spend as much of their time and budget on graphic designers, photographers, set designers, and models. That may not be good news for those workers, and if the product images aren’t accurate, shoppers could be left disappointed. But Google hopes AI imagery will make ads more engaging and draw more clicks—boosting its revenue.
Yet the company and its competitors may also be simply helping retailers avoid paying for expensive software like Photoshop or spending so much on creative services. It’s not clear how many customers will necessarily feel compelled to advertise more. Smyth said her company doesn’t purchase ads on Google, despite how much she appreciates Product Studio.
AI-generated advertising is increasingly becoming a fixture of the internet. Earlier this month, Meta began giving advertisers on Facebook and Instagram the ability to generate new versions of existing product photos using AI, after previously offering just AI-generated backgrounds. Meta and Google also allow advertisers to generate marketing copy for their ads.
Amazon announced a similar beta image-generation tool last fall that can also create backgrounds for product photos. Instead of advertising a garden hose against a plain white backdrop, it allows brands to create, say, a scene of a backyard with a garden and trees—no actual dirt required.
The looming question is whether consumers will find AI-generated ads off-putting, if they notice them in the first place. Some fashion brands, including Levi’s and the dressmaker Selkie, have faced backlash from customers after they announced they were experimenting with artificial intelligence. But for many smaller ecommerce companies, the potential benefits of using AI may outweigh the risks.
“Let’s face it, small businesses are crumbling like a house of cards. We’re barely hanging on,” said Smyth. “It has helped me to stay top of mind to customers and potential customers visually. I’m pretty confident my aesthetic would’ve tanked or I would’ve abandoned many social channels without it as an option.”
You can’t make this stuff up. On this day in 1875, alongside ads for reed organs, horse harnesses, tents, flags, awnings and all manner of items, there was J.N. Frost’s ad. Our man was an ice dealer. Orders left at…
Want your clock cleaned? Charles F. S. Brown at 119 Water St. could do just that, according to the newspaper on this day in 1871. His was only one of many ads, including those for coal, medical treatments, heavy boots…
Loss per share: 40 cents vs. 24 cents loss expected
Revenue: $9.96 billion vs. $10.231 billion expected
Warner Bros. Discovery — which owns streaming service Max, a portfolio of cable TV networks including TNT and Discovery, and a film studio — said revenue fell 7% to $9.96 billion compared to the same quarter last year.
Warner Bros. Discovery posted a net loss attributable to the company of $966 million, or 40 cents per share, an improvement from the year-ago quarter when it reported a loss of $1.07 billion, or 44 cents per share.
The company said total adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization were down roughly 20% during the first quarter to $2.1 billion, noting its “Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League” video game generated significantly lower revenues.
The company’s cash position improved, with free cash flow increasing to $390 million, a $1.3 billion improvement from the same quarter last year, the company noted.
Warner Bros. Discovery has been working to reduce its debt load, which now stands at $43.2 billion, stemming from the merger of Warner Bros. and Discovery in 2022. On Thursday the company said it repaid $1.1 billion in debt during the quarter, and also announced a $1.75 billion cash tender aimed at further reducing its debt.
Besides paying down its debt, Warner Bros. Discovery has been working to make its streaming segment profitable.
The company announced on Wednesday it would bundle its streaming services with those of Disney — tying together Max, Disney+ and Hulu — and offer it to consumers this summer, a callback to the traditional pay-TV package. Pricing has yet to be disclosed, but it will be offered at a discount, CNBC reported.
Warner Bros. Discovery said Thursday it added 2 million direct-to-consumer streaming subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total to 99.6 million.
That segment earned an adjusted $86 million during the quarter, an improvement of $36 million from the prior-year quarter, the company said.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
