• PayPal Holdings Inc. said it will lay off 2,000 employees, or 7% of its workforce, as the company looks to “focus resources on core priorities” amid a challenging economic environment. With the announcement, PayPal joins several other major tech firms in reducing headcount, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce Inc. (CNBC)
• Nike Inc. filed a lawsuit against Lululemon Athletica Inc. claiming the high-end sportswear retailer’s Chargefeel, Blissful and Strongfeel sneakers infringe upon its patented Flyknit technology. It’s now the second active patent infringement case between the two companies; Nike also sued Lululemon in 2022 over technology used in its Mirror fitness device. (CNBC) 
• McDonald’s Corp. announced plans to spend more than $1 billion on opening 1,900 new locations around the globe this year, including up to 100 sites in the United States. The investment, which comes as inflation-strapped consumers increasingly turn to cheaper food options, marks the first time in nearly a decade that the fast food giant has made a U.S. growth push. (Yahoo News) 
• Former Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are launching a new social media platform, called Artifact, which offers users a personalized feed of news articles and a forum to discuss content with friends. The app currently only accepts users through a waitlist. (Platformer News)

Most Americans Don’t Like Where Social Media Platforms Are Headed but Still Aren’t Interested in the Alternatives

Morning Consult

NBCUniversal Restructures Sales Division With Focus on Streaming and Small Business

Parker Herren, Ad Age

NBCUniversal announced today a new structure for its advertising division, which is aimed at making TV advertising more accessible to small businesses and helping legacy clients better apply new sales technology native to streaming. 

Apple’s Soccer TV Push Comes With No Guarantees for Advertisers

Gerry Smith, Bloomberg

Tech giant isn’t accepting ads from sports betting companies.

European telecoms’ advertising venture set for EU approval -sources

Foo Yun Chee, Reuters

Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica and Vodafone’s plan to take on Big Tech with their own advertising joint venture is set to win unconditional EU antitrust approval, people familiar with the matter said.

Bloomberg Looks to Make More Documentaries, Talk Shows

Alexandra Bruell, The Wall Street Journal

News publisher to launch climate, science and sports shows on rebranded streaming platform.

Warner Bros. Discovery reaches deals with Roku and Tubi to license 2,000 hours of content, including ‘Westworld’

Aisha Malik, TechCrunch

Warners Bros. Discovery has reached deals with Roku and Tubi to license 2,000 hours of movies of TV shows, the companies announced on Tuesday. The deal will bring Warner Bros. branded free, ad-supported channels to the two streaming services. 

Trump sues Bob Woodward for releasing audio of their interviews without permission

Rachel Treisman, NPR News

Former President Donald Trump has made good on his threat to sue Bob Woodward over the Washington Post journalist’s latest book, accusing him of releasing audio recordings of their interviews without his consent and seeking nearly $50 million in damages.

MLB Network Yanked From YouTube TV Lineup As Contract Talks Break Down

Patrick Hipes, Deadline

MLB Network was pulled off the YouTube TV platform Tuesday as talks broke down over a new carriage agreement, the news coming as the league put the finishing touches on its 2023 regular-season schedule that begins March 30.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek eyes elusive profits

Sara Fischer, Axios

Heavy investments in technology, marketing and content helped fuel Spotify’s top-line revenue and user growth in 2022, but weighed on the company’s profits, frustrating investors.

Marketers seek agency-of-record relationships with influencer agencies as influencer marketing matures

Kristina Monllos, Digiday 

As influencer marketing matures, marketers are seeking longer-term relationships with influencers themselves as well as influencer marketing agencies.

Chiefs Vs. Bengals Scores Most-Watched NFL Conference Championship In 4 Years For CBS; Eagles Vs. 49ers Posts Solid Audience For Fox

Katie Campione, Deadline

The Kansas City Chiefs close victory over the Cincinnati Bengals during Sunday’s AFC Championship Game scored them a ticket to the Super Bowl LVII — and it scored CBS the most-watched NFL Conference Championship in four years.

Meta Insiders Debate Key Issue for Reels: Whether to Share Ad Dollars With Creators

Slyvia Varnham O’Regan and Kaya Yurieff, The Information

When Wall Street analysts dial into an earnings call tomorrow with Mark Zuckerberg, they’re likely to pepper the Meta Platforms CEO with different versions of a favorite question: What’s the latest on making money from Reels, Meta’s answer to TikTok?

OpenAI releases tool to detect machine-written text

Ina Fried, Axios

ChatGPT creator OpenAI today released a free web-based tool designed to help educators and others figure out if a particular chunk of text was written by a human or a machine.

Snap’s Growth Slows Further Amid Tech Downturn

Kalley Huang, The New York Times

Snap, the maker of the messaging app Snapchat, on Tuesday posted its slowest-ever rate of quarterly growth and swung to a net loss, in another sign of the tech industry’s slowdown.

Twitter ends CoTweets, its collaborative posting feature

Mia Sato, The Verge

Users are no longer able to create new CoTweets, and existing posts will only be viewable for another month.

Google is asking employees to test potential ChatGPT competitors, including a chatbot called ‘Apprentice Bard’

Jennifer Elias, CNBC

Google is testing new artificial intelligence-powered chat products that are likely to influence a future public product launch. They include a new chatbot and a potential way to integrate it into a search engine.

Musk Leaves Twitter Staff Without Equity Plan as Deadline Looms

Erin Woo, The Information

Shortly after Elon Musk bought Twitter last fall, he promised Twitter staff that they could look forward to the kind of stock rewards employees at SpaceX—another private company Musk runs—enjoy. 

Neutrogena’s TikTok Reality Dating Show: Inside The Creator-Led Ad People Actually Wanted to Watch

Gillian Follett, Ad Age

Skincare brand leaned on former reality dating series contestants and influencers to shape its ‘Hydro House’ TikTok series.

Oatly Launches Climate Footprint Labels in the US

Zahra Hirji, Bloomberg

The first climate labels will appear on the company’s strawberry, peach, plain and mixed berry dairy-free yogurts, called Oatgurts.

How Brands and Agencies Are Experimenting With ChatGPT From Copywriting to Chatbots

Patrick Culp, Adweek

From copywriting to chatbots, with Mint Mobile and Avocados From Mexico.

Without the Shop tab, brands rethink Instagram strategies

Madeleine Schulz, Vogue

Instagram is relegating the Shop tab in favour of a renewed focus on content creation on the homepage. What does it mean for fashion and beauty brands?

Brands extend inclusive marketing efforts beyond Black History Month

Julian Cannon and Kimeko McCoy, Digiday

In recent years, the one-month approach to Black History Month marketing hasn’t worked for brands as consumers have become skeptic of brand marketing, especially inclusivity promises that came on the heels of the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020.

Kim Kardashian’s Skims Hires First Chief Commercial Officer

Daniel Yaw-Miller, Business of Fashion

The shapewear, intimates and loungewear label has recruited Robert Norton, formerly president of Moncler Americas, to the newly created role, the company confirmed in a LinkedIn post Monday.

Kevin Bacon Explains We Are All Separated by Six Degrees—of a Six-Pack—in Budweiser’s Super Bowl Ad

Kyle O’Brien, Adweek

Anheuser-Busch gave up its exclusivity as the alcohol sponsor for the Super Bowl this year, but that doesn’t mean longtime Big Game advertiser Budweiser is staying out of the game. The brewer has instead produced a regional spot, “Six Degrees of Budweiser.”

Retailers are expanding the CMO role to focus more on customer experience and retention

Maria Monteros, Modern Retail

As retailers recalibrate their C-suites, they’re adjusting the CMO and other marketing-adjacent roles to bring more focus around customer experience.

After brutal layoffs, many workers say they’re fed up with full-time work. Is this ‘The Great Betrayal?’

Joe Lazer, Fast Company

Amid 120,000 tech layoffs, 62% of knowledge workers say they don’t feel secure committing to one employer anymore.

News Corp’s HarperCollins to Lay Off 5 Percent of North American Staff

Georg Szalai, The Hollywood Reporter

Supply chain and inflationary pressures “coupled with declining sales over the last few quarters,” forced the book publisher to “make difficult decisions to realign the needs and resources of the business.”

Employers slowed their increases of workers’ wages last quarter

Tammy Luhby, CNN

Employers continued to raise wages during the fourth quarter to attract workers and hold on to existing staff, though the pace of the increases slowed from the previous quarter.

Regulators Find Apple’s Secrecy Violates Workers Rights

Tripp Mickle, The New York Times

Following a yearlong investigation, a federal labor board determined that the tech giant’s rules interfere with employees’ right to organize.

CEO longevity pays off for JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and other chiefs of World’s Most Admired Companies

Matthew Heimer and Scott Decarlo, Fortune

Like most of his fellow CEOS, Jamie Dimon expects a recession in 2023; indeed, the head of the nation’s largest bank is more bearish than many of his Wall Street peers.