Five things worth sharing from the last week or so, brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Vic.
1. Google Ads has a nasty surprise for UK advertisers
Despite Google being worth an estimated $1 trillion, the company has decided that the 2% Digital Services Tax on its revenues shouldn’t be paid by them, so instead, the charges have been passed on to Google Ads advertisers in the UK. Nice.
But at least Google pays its fair dues in other taxes, right? HAHAHA. No.
The fee charges for advertisers will be applied from November 2020, and will be added to monthly invoices.
More information on the fees can be found here.
2. Get back to the office, plebs
Now that the kids are back at school, it’s time for all us other plebs to get back to the office so we can show our ‘Bulldog Spirit’ and pay the landlords rent and buy a sandwich from Pret that costs a fiver.
Well, turns out, we’re having none of it. Things have been quiet so far, with only 37% of UK office workers returning to their business premises. But really, who can blame us, when England has the highest level of excess deaths from coronavirus?
No need to worry about that, though. An ad on the Tube was shared widely this week, which suggested that people actually LOVE being in the office, and listed all of the reasons why.
https://twitter.com/helloalegria/status/1301290315593191426
Turns out the ad was a tone-deaf attempt at a ‘Choose Life’ Trainspotting-style… thing, created by some marketing people working for the disinfectant brand, Dettol.
You can see it in all it’s hideous glory here, along with some of their other recent ads. I nearly threw up after ‘Proper bants’, so if you made it to the end and managed to keep your breakfast down, well done you.
3. Boris has some glaring gaps in his employment history
Were you denied a coronavirus business interruption loan? Is your company struggling to stay afloat? Do you have no clue what the government guidelines are on the pandemic anymore?
Well, fear not! Boris has set up a LinkedIn account to provide updates on the latest guidance and support for businesses. Huzzah!
He’s done a proper job of filling out his profile too, adding his current employer, a headshot, and a very smart banner image of him coming out of Downing Street holding a folder in an attempt to demonstrate he has some vague idea of what he’s doing.
However, one area that seems to be missing a few details is his ‘Experience’ section, where he’s decided it was probably best to leave out all the jobs he’s been sacked from…
Not that anybody noticed…
https://www.indy100.com/article/boris-johnson-linkedin-account-support-business-9700601
4. Twitter announces changes to Retweets
Hi, Twitter here, with yet another thing nobody asked for. Quote Tweets.
https://twitter.com/Twitter/status/1300554631618220032
Cue the usual billion replies asking for an edit button with people making intentional errors in their Tweet. Hilarious.
5. David Blaine does a stunt
No idea why David Blaine decided to float off on a load of balloons, but I have to say, the thought of just drifting off into the atmosphere, slowly losing consciousness due to high-altitude hypoxia, looking down on the disaster that is planet Earth while taking your last few breaths in a complete state of delirious euphoria *does* sound pretty appealing to me right now.
Anyway, I digress. He’s done similar stunts or whatever you want to call them before, like when he was in a box for ages in London and people went and lobbed eggs and raw sausages, and even dangled a hamburger from a remote-controlled helicopter at him. Ha.
If you have a spare three hours and fancy watching what is essentially a rubbish (but less depressing) version of Pixar’s Up (no talking dog, for a start), have at it.
