Juul sales halted in China + more

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Juul Sales Halted in China, Days After Launch – WSJ – this could be as much about IP as anything else that caused the Juul sales halted in China. The e-cigarette was invented by a Chinese engineer looking for a healthier option to cigarettes. Secondly tobacco is a monopoly in China run by a state owned enterprise that is a valuable source of government revenue. There are even tobacco sponsored universities. I am only mildly surprised that Juul sales halted hadn’t happened in the US, given that Juul is so popular with teens

Trend-bucking Maccas turns back to tradition | The Australianthe most interesting implication of McDonald’s selection of W+K is what it says about client conflict. W+K already has the North American account for KFC and has been producing spectacular work for the brand. McDonald’s made no request of W+K to drop KFC in order to work for it, with its North American chief marketing officer, Morgan Flatley, noting the potential client issue “doesn’t concern us”. “We wanted to make the decision around getting the best work that this business deserves,” she said. – it wouldn’t have been that long ago that a major client would tolerate that degree of client conflict

Exclusive: Australia concluded China was behind hack on parliament, political parties – sources    – Reuters – the Australians were too scared of the Chinese to confront them about it at the moment. This is a situation that could

Gasp | The Blogfather | Brand Building Breakdown – nice summary which emphasises why brand is more important than activation in terms of marketer focus

McDonald’s picks Wieden & Kennedy New York as lead U.S. creative agency | AdAgeit “also suggests that a bespoke agency model … may not be the definitive answer for major marketers when it comes to creative partners.”

The New Target That Enables Ransomware Hackers to Paralyze Dozens of Towns and Businesses at Once — ProPublica – similar to tactics that Chinese hackers have been doing for years. Yet another argument against cloud

China’s TikTok social media app has captured the NFL, but not Hong Kong protesters – The Washington Post – you know ByteDance are censoring the sh*t out of it to keep the Xi administration happy, more online related content here

LS Keynote 2019 Speaker Introduction: Pablo Mauron, DLG (Digital Luxury Group) – luxury brands need to find ways to adapt and integrate their globally-developed creative assets for use in different markets

LS Keynote 2019 Speaker Introduction: Kai Hong, JINGdigital – how brands can truly engage and grow their WeChat communities with the right social CRM strategy

LS Keynote 2019 Speaker Introduction: Jacques Roizen, EVP Digital Transformation and New Ventures, Baozun – the evolution of omnichannel retail and how brands can leverage new opportunities to create better customer experiences

Frankfurt Motor Show: Winter Is Coming | EE Timesthe moon shot of autonomous driving may one day lead to falling accident rates, but that the development costs — and liabilities of public testing — may destroy them on the way. Almost everyone has stepped back from the brink of a ludicrous business model. This begs the question about autonomous driving as a killer app for 5G

Standing out is the key brand challenge, so great brands play with their codes | Marketing Week – purpose-wank aside, removing every single letter from your packaging is actually a very smart and very effective move. Because when companies play with well-established codes like this and remove or alter their appearance, the impact on salience and brand image is significantly improved – great article by Mark Ritson, but requires decades of brand consistency to work well

Design: pharma’s next frontier | eyeforpharma – on human centred design

Facebook warns about Apple iOS 13 privacy improvement – the blog post appears to be a way to get out in front of software changes made by Apple and Google that could unsettle Facebook users given the company’s poor reputation for privacy.

The new Microsoft To Do is here – pity the poor product manager who is trying to transfer Wunderlist which built up an amazingly loyal following

Underwear Ads Lose the Macho: How Marketing Has Embraced Real Men – The New York Times – I suspect that it’s like Gillette in that men who buy Hanes by out of habit and women buying for men are the people to influence