“Change is neither good nor bad. It simply is,” declares Donald Draper, the unflappable star of “Mad Men”, a television drama set in 1960s adland. Not all advertising executives share his sangfroid. Today, technology is changing the industry faster than at any time since Mr Draper’s era. The result is a reshaping of Madison Avenue that is leaving some admen choking on their Old Fashioneds. More
It’s that time of year again, when we celebrate our successes and gloss over our failures. For our 2024 employee awards we have all our classic categories, from team member of the year and newcomer of the year to the big one: employee of the year. As usual, the winner of that award will enjoy a weekend away in a location of our choosing. More
It was as if the sun came out on Wall Street. Donald Trump’s election victory was met not just with a blistering stockmarket rally, but also a flurry of dealmaking. Mondelez, a snack-seller, is reportedly trying to buy Hershey, a chocolatier. Consolidation beckons for the advertising industry. Bankers are expecting that many more tie-ups will follow. The surge in activity partly reflects a level of certainty that would have materialised whoever won the election. But it also has much to do with the changing of the guard at America’s antitrust authorities. More
SITTING ON THE board of a large American company is at once the plummest and most thankless work in business. Plum because, when everything is going right, you pocket $300,000 a year in cash and stock for showing up to a well-catered meeting every month and a half. Thankless because you seldom get credit for things going right but take the blame when they go awry. And awry they go with disturbing regularity. More
The biggest supermarket merger in American history is dead. In the space of just a few hours on December 10th, federal and state judges both sided with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), America’s main antitrust regulator, to block the acquisition of Albertsons, a big supermarket chain, by Kroger, another such firm. By the next day the pair were adversaries: Albertsons has not only called off the deal, it is also now suing Kroger for failing to make “best efforts” to get regulatory approval. More
THE 12 DAYS of Christmas are meant to start on December 25th. But not in the world of artificial intelligence (AI). On December 5th OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, began a blizzard of product shipments dubbed, gratingly, the “12 days of shipmas”. It has included a full roll-out of Sora, its video-generation tool, as well as Canvas, a writing and coding product. More
On the night of December 7th San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, with its lakeside colonnade echoing a Roman ruin, turned into Mar-a-Lago, as Silicon Valley’s newly emboldened right-wingers gathered for a Christmas bash organised by the All-In podcast. The festive good cheer did not extend to everyone; The Economist in particular was made to feel most unwelcome. But not before being privy to a riotous celebration of how a clique of billionaires—the so-called PayPal Mafia—helped clinch Donald Trump’s election victory and has taken Washington by storm. More
Things have never looked rosier for foreign firms in China—at least according to the country’s Council for the Promotion of International Trade. The body, which is controlled by the commerce ministry, claims that 90% of foreign companies rate their experience in China as satisfactory or better. According to a recent survey by the council, foreign firms say the economy is strong, local markets are attractive and their outlook is bright. Following years of isolation during the covid-19 pandemic, China’s government insists that the country is open again for business, and that reforms have made life easier for foreign companies. More
