Millennials Should Kill The Medical Industrial Complex

Big Pharma isn’t satisfied with old-fashioned television ads. Now they’re partnering with Instagram influencers.

In a pink tutu against a pink backdrop, Erin Ziering, wife of former 90210 star Ian Ziering, advertises Allergan breast implants and Botox side by side in a December 2018 post — the same month the company pulled its textured implants from European markets in response to a notice from the Food and Drug Administration that individuals with breast implants are at risk of developing breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lymphoma (BIA-ALCL).

Let’s put the “medical industrial complex” on the list of things millennials should kill. Maybe then we wouldn’t have Goldman Sachs asking whether curing patients is sustainable.

Instagram Fundraisers Want Your Credit Card Information

Instagram Fundraisers will let you easily donate to non-profit organizations on the platform. It’s also a way for Facebook to get its hands on your credit card information.

New code and imagery dug out of Instagram’s Android app reveals how the Fundraiser stickers will allow you to search for nonprofits and add a Donate button for them to your Instagram Story. After you’ve donated to something once, Instagram could offer instant checkout on stuff you want to buy using the same payment details.

Facebook tried to get banks to give up your data, but now it will have to settle for this instead.

Weed Influencers Online are Helping Firms Get Around Advertising Regulations

Weed firms are using online influencers to get around rules that prohibit the marketing of cannabis, even in U.S. states where the drug is legal. These influencers tend to be young women, who post on Instagram and YouTube, according to a report in Wired. Content can range from confessional videos to product reviews. Even though YouTube said it prohibits content around regulated substances like marijuana and removes the videos when it discovers them, firms marketing the products are benefiting from the influencers’ work.

For marketing agencies and companies selling cannabis products, influencers have been a boon – a creative way to get around regulations, with the added impression of authenticity. Typically, the more people that are looking at your product, or your posts, the better. But as public and legal attitudes to cannabis have shifted, the subcultures immersed in it are being subject to more scrutiny than before.

Amount Ad-Buyers Spend on Instagram Digital Video to Double

The share of ad-buyers’ digital video budgets that is spent on Instagram will double from 2018 to 2020. Bloomberg News reported on a new survey by financial services firm Cowen. It found that 61% of the respondents, who collectively represented approximately $14 billion in ad spend, consider the photo-sharing app the go-to platform for launching a campaign targetting 13 to 34 year-olds.

“Stories” — a relatively new Instagram feature — are helping to grow the app into a campaign favorite. Instagram Stories appear “poised for greater adoption” as more ad buyers allocated some portion of their spend to the feature in 2018 than the year prior, said Cowen’s John Blackledge in a note. Instagram even beat out TV in this younger target group, a medium only 3 percent of respondents said was a primary platform.