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A few weeks ago, we examined TikTok’s uncanny ability to provide entrepreneurs with major marketing opportunities at the expense of brand control. The potential downsides of the latter became clear last week when President Biden signed a bill into law that could ban the social network in the U.S. Under the provisions of the bill, which passed both the House and Senate with considerable support, TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance has 270 days to sell the app to an American Continue reading

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March 8, 2024

On February 1st, Universal Music Group (UMG) allowed its licensing deal with TikTok to expire after accusing the platform of providing insufficient payments to artists. In an angry letter, the music giant said that the video-sharing app was “flooded with A.I.-generated recordings,” which diluted the pool of potential revenue for legitimate artists. As a result, TikTok removed all music affiliated with UMG from its platform, a drastic move that escalated in severity last week. After failing to make any progress Continue reading

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January 31, 2024

Founded in 1913, the Stanley company has sold steel-insulated mugs for more than a century, operating for much of that time as a niche brand with a small but loyal customer base. Over the last few years, however, Stanley tumblers have become ubiquitous products thanks to the company’s canny use of social media. Their brightest moment in the spotlight happened last November when a TikTok user posted a video showing how her Stanley mug survived a car fire with the Continue reading

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June 23, 2023

From 2011 to 2021, the value of Rolex watches outperformed real estate and stock markets as well as commodities like gold. This video looks at the risks and rewards of the $20 billion used watch industry, from soaring demand and big price tags to small margins and extensive counterfeiting.

 Questions:

  1. Why are counterfeit products harmful to luxury brands like Rolex?
  2. How does high demand for Rolex encourage counterfeiters to produce knockoffs?
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September 23, 2022

When Airbnb launched in 2008, the short-term rental company marketed itself as an easy alternative to hotels that had supposedly become too restrictive for the modern traveler. 14 years after its founding, however, many guests are heading back to hotels because of extensive cleaning requirements from Airbnb hosts. For example, teacher Christina Marie recently booked a short-term rental house on Lake Tahoe with her family of six. She spent the last day of her vacation cleaning and ensuring that her Continue reading

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September 20, 2022

Over the years, Instagram has attracted hundreds of millions of daily users by providing a platform for people to share pictures and videos of their family and friends. Starting in 2020, though, the social network launched Instagram Reels, a short-video feature made to rival TikTok. Although Instagram’s parent company Meta has staked much of its future on Reels, internal company documents show that the feature is not very popular with users both large and small. 

For example, Instagram users Continue reading

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August 24, 2022

exasperated woman working at computerLike other social networks, TikTok users share almost everything about their lives on the app, from their favorite music and TV shows to their anxieties about work. In fact, talk about the latter has increased significantly in recent weeks as videos about “quiet quitting” generate millions of views among young professionals. The phrase is meant to convey the opposite idea of “hustle culture,” another popular work-related topic on TikTok that encourages people to devote themselves entirely to their careers. Quiet Continue reading

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March 31, 2022

Sales of houseplants skyrocketed during the onset of the pandemic, and ever since growers around the world have struggled to keep up with ever-increasing demand. Not only are they reaching production capacity, but growers are also in a race against time to get their plants to market before they die on store shelves. This video takes a detailed look at the advanced growing techniques used on modern houseplant farms as well as the flood of TikTok-driven demand that growers must Continue reading

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October 19, 2021

With more than 1 billion users worldwide, TikTok has become a commercial powerhouse as companies fight for the attention of this enormous user base. Products that go viral on the short video platform are almost guaranteed to see sales skyrocket, leading some stores to create “As Seen On TikTok” sections to corral all these in-demand items together. For example, the New York-based candy store It’Sugar started stocking a brand of fruit-shaped gummies after they appeared in untold thousands of videos Continue reading

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September 2, 2020

The video sharing app TikTok has become a big hit with millions of Americans over the last few years. According to the federal government, however, the Chinese-owned company presents national security risks that could lead to a ban on the app in the U.S. This video looks at the controversy surrounding TikTok’s American operations as well as the larger dangers of a fractured global Internet. 

Questions:

  1. Why is the federal government considering a ban on TikTok? 
  2. Do you Continue reading
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