Advertising news today: Vaynerchuk’s speakers bureau, Russia’s Facebook ads

Gary
Vaynerchuk
Amy
Harris/Invision/AP

Gary Vaynerchuk has made a name for himself by speaking at
hundreds of keynote talks, conferences, and events that bring in
crowds of #Vaynernation fans fascinated with his hustle-and-grind
work philosophy.

Now he’s making a new business out of it.

Vaynerchuk is launching VaynerSpeakers, which is a standalone
company under VaynerX (which also houses companies like ad agency
VaynerMedia, Gallery Media Group, and ad-tech firm Tracer). The
company will operate as a speakers bureau and help find people to
speak at conferences and private events.

Click here to read more about
VaynerSpeakers.

In other news:

Russia has allegedly been spreading far-right propaganda
on Facebook to try and influence the US midterms — here it
is. A Russian woman has been charged by the US
Justice Department with conspiring to interfere with the US
midterm elections.

Apple’s iPhone is still the ‘dominant device brand’ among
American teens. Only 10% of teens surveyed said they
planned to buy an Android phone next, according to Piper
Jaffray’s semi-annual teens survey.

ESPN has a huge opportunity to dominate the future of
sports, but it has to fundamentally change its business
model. Barclays analysts say ESPN+ is a potential
big win for Disney in dominating sports digital media.

Twitter is shutting down bot accounts posting pro-Saudi
tweets about missing dissident Khashoggi. Twitter
has suspended hundreds of bot accounts identified by NBC News as
being involved in a coordinated campaign to defend the Saudi
government’s role in the disappearance of Washington Post
columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

A shadowy group spent £257,000 on Facebook ads asking
people to drive a knife into Theresa May’s Brexit
plan. Politicians have uncovered evidence of a dark
advertising campaign on Facebook, in which Brits were encouraged
to lobby against Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan.

A former Coca-Cola executive turned cannabis startup
founder reveals why crafting the Apple Store of weed is a
multi-billion dollar opportunity. Toast,
Herbessntls, and MedMen are mimicking tech companies’ style of
marketing and branding.