The 11th Hour Dispatch — Thursday, September 27, 2018
BINGE WATCH
NBC has slated a live tribute to the musical Wicked hosted by its original stars Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel. The special will celebrate the Broadway hit’s 15th anniversary and feature various celebrities belting songs from the musical and avoiding residual green body paint, including Ariana Grande and Pentatonix. “Wicked is a blockbuster musical playing all over the world and still selling out night after night after 15 years on Broadway, and we’re thrilled to be partnering with Emmy and Tony-winning producer Marc Platt and the entire Wicked team to celebrate the enduring success of this show,” said Doug Vaughan, NBC’s EVP, Special Programs and Late Night. The special will air just in time for pre-Halloween on October 29 at 10 pm ET.
YOUNG MONEY
Online payments pioneer Stripe has picked up $245 million in its latest funding round. It’s now valued at…wait for it…$20 billion. Just two years ago, it was only valued at $9 billion. Insane. The round was led by Tiger Global Management, Sequoia Capital, and DST Global. Stripe has raised $686 million to date, and counts CapitalG and Visa among its investors. Stripe plans to use its latest funding round to build out its global engineering team. It currently has hubs in San Fran, Seattle, Dublin, and soon, Singapore. The outsized startup (the entrepreneurial equivalent of a “man child”) counts Google, Spotify, and Uber among its clients, and it operates in 130 markets across 25 countries. It estimates it will hit $4 trillion in online sales by 2020, which is a total many of you would relate to if I were to check your Amazon Prime receipts.
BIG BUSINESS
As user numbers continue to decrease, Snapchat has opened up self-serve shoppable ads to all advertisers, a feature it has been rumored to be testing since June. Advertisers can now upload their product feeds themselves into Snap’s Ad Manager, as well as access Snap’s targeting tool Snap Pixel. Additionally, Snapchat has launched collection ads, which allow an advertiser to display up to four clickable products in a single ad spot. eBay, Wish, and Guess, which were selected as pilot participants as Snap refined the features, reported engagement increases anywhere from 4.1 to 17 times with these collection ads. This move toward programmatic dramatically decreases the cost of advertisements on Snapchat, but it also means Snapchat’s about to get a lot more corporate — but maybe not as much as you might fear. Snap’s expected to bring in about $666.2 million in ad revenue this year, a 18.7% increase from last year, but a dramatic decrease from the $1.03 billion it was originally projected to see.
NOTHIN’ BUT ‘NET
This cat discovering he has ears has melted my heart and freaked me out at the same time.
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