The Facebook advertising boycott's impact, and what's next

Hi! Welcome to the Insider Advertising daily for August 3. I'm Lauren Johnson, a senior advertising reporter at Business Insider. Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday. Send me feedback or tips at ljohnson@businessinsider.com

Today: Advertisers return to Facebook, Netflix's new CMO Bozoma Saint John, and Microsoft reportedly eyes TikTok.

Advertisers not part of the boycott also cut back spending on Facebook in July, but the platform says it will be just fine

• July is over. So what was the upshot of the Facebook ad boycott?
• According to analytics firm Pathmatics, Facebook's top 1,000 advertisers spent far less on the platform in July compared to the same period a year ago, including some that didn't publicly join the boycott, reports Tanya Dua.
• But some boycotters like Hershey and North Face said they would resume spending on Facebook in August, and Facebook downplayed the boycott's impact.

Read the full story here.

How Netflix's new CMO Bozoma Saint John rose to become the biggest 'badass' in marketing

• Tanya Dua and Patrick Coffee profiled Netflix's incoming chief marketing officer Bozoma Saint John, who is known as a glamourous executive and uses her close ties to celebrities to work with brands like Pepsi and Apple.
• "There are some marketers that lead with logic and data, and there are other marketers that lead with instinct and culture; [Boz] sits far out on the instinct and culture side," said friend Jonathan Mildenhall, who is cofounder of consulting firm TwentyFirstCenturyBrand.
• Others warned that Saint John's growing personal brand could overshadow the companies she works at.

Read the full story here.

Trump to reportedly order TikTok's owner ByteDance to sell its US operations

• On Friday, President Donald Trump reportedly planned to ask China's ByteDance to sell its US ownership of TikTok.
• It's unclear if Trump has power to order a foreign company to sell its ownership but the report comes on the heels of the Trump administration saying that it was considering banning TikTok because of the app's ties with China. ByteDance offered to 'divest' its stake in TikTok's US operations to avoid Trump ban.
• Fox Business Network reported that Microsoft is in talks to buy the stake. The New York Times also cited a person with knowledge of the talks between Microsoft and TikTok in a report.

Read the full story here.

More stories we're reading:

• Marvel insiders say they're skeptical of its recent pledge to improve diversity in its comics and company, after employing only 2 Black editorial staffers in the last 5 years (Business Insider)
• Disney Plus executive Agnes Chu is replacing Condé Nast Entertainment president Oren Katzeff, who made offensive jokes about women and people of color (Business Insider)
• Brands like Target and ASOS are doubling down on the pajama-inspired 'day gown' as Americans stuck home look to elevate their leisurewear (Business Insider)
• 'People were sick to their stomachs with his fake sincerity': Frustrated Amazon sellers slam Bezos for claiming his retail platform empowers small businesses (Business Insider)
• Peacock said it signed up 10 million users, but what marketers should watch for is time spent (Insider Intelligence)
• BuzzFeed starts selling products directly to consumers (Wall Street Journal)
• Pinterest surges on July sales lift as advertisers, users return (Bloomberg)

Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow! You can reach me in the meantime at ljohnson@businessinsider.com and subscribe to this daily email here.

— Lauren