The Drum’s Daily Briefing: Grenfell Tower erased, Google fires protesters & H&B fills gap
Our quickfire analysis of the brand, marketing and media stories that might just crop up in your meetings and conversations today.
The Voltarol ad with Grenfell Tower erased
Grenfell Erased from Volterol ad
Consumer healthcare company Haleon is in trouble after Grenfell Tower, the high rise where 72 people died as the result of a fire in 2017, was erased from the background of a TV ad for the brand.
Karim Mussilhy, whose uncle Hesham Rahman was among those who died as a result of the fire, noticed the edit while watching the Channel 4 streaming service when an ad for the pain relief gel brand Voltarol showed a game of football on the Westway pitches close to the council block.
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While two other nearby council towers were left in the picture, Grenfell, shrouded in white sheeting and topped with a banner saying “forever in our hearts,” had disappeared.
“It was really upsetting,” said Mussilhy. “It seems nobody wants to see it any more, that it’s an eyesore. The vibe I feel is that [people] want it gone.”
The ad was commissioned by Haleon, a consumer health company, and has also been running on Channel 4’s terrestrial channel.
A Haleon spokesperson said: “We are deeply sorry for any distress that our recent Voltarol advertisement may have caused. We will be taking the advert off air with immediate effect.”
Google fires staff over Israel protest
28 Google staff have lost their jobs after staging a 10-hour sit-in protest at Google New York offices in both New York and Sunnyvale, California, to voice their concerns over the company’s business ties with the Israel government.
The pro-Palestinian staffers donned traditional Arab headscarves, stormed and occupied the office of senior Google exec on Tuesday and, as a result, their jobs were terminated on Wednesday after an internal investigation.
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A company-wide memo from Google vice-president of global security Chris Rackow said: “They took over office spaces, defaced our property and physically impeded the work of other Googlers. Their behavior was unacceptable, extremely disruptive and made co-workers feel threatened.”
In New York, protesters occupied the 10th floor of Google’s offices in the Chelsea area of Manhattan as part of a protest that also extended to the company’s offices in Seattle for what it called “No Tech for Genocide Day of Action.”
Neumann continues to fight to retain WeWork
WeWork founder Adam Neumann refuses to relinquish control of his beleaguered co-working space company and is making a fresh push to raise hundreds of millions of dollars to emerge from bankruptcy and avoid a sale, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The company has attempted to restructure in court since filing for bankruptcy in November, primarily by renegotiating hundreds of leases. However, it was running short of cash and needed as much as $400m in fresh funding to have a chance of emerging viably, the people said.
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The required figure remains in flux, but if WeWork was unable to raise new money, it would have to pivot to selling itself, according to a source close to Neumann.
Neumann stepped down as WeWork’s chief executive officer in 2019 after a failed attempt to take the company he co-founded public. Flow, his new property company, has already made a conditional offer of about $600m for WeWork.
Holland & Barrett fills health care gap
High Street retail brand Holland & Barrett is training 600 staff to be equipped to offer in-store advice on health issues around period pain, mood swings and sleep – a move aimed at filling a health gap and easing the pressure on doctors and pharmacists.
The trained staff will act as women’s health coaches after research by H&B revealed demand for broader support on hormonal and menstrual issues, with menopause the “tip of the iceberg.” Gynecological conditions were the number one topic raised by the 100,000 women who responded to a government survey that helped shape England’s first women’s health strategy in 2022. But 31% of women said they were last equipped with information on their cycle and hormones “when at school, or not at all,” according to YouGov research commissioned by Holland & Barrett.
This is the latest innovation by the once staid health food chain as it attempts to reinvent its more than 700 UK shops as destinations for “accessible wellness solutions that work,” selling products “rooted in science.”
Microsoft invests £1.5bn in Abu Dhabi AI group
Microsoft is to invest $1.5bn in Abu Dhabi artificial intelligence group G42, the company’s latest big bet on the technology that underscores deepening collaboration between the US and United Arab Emirates.
The deal will see Microsoft gain a minority stake in G42 and vice-chair and president Brad Smith will take a seat on the G42 board. It comes after G42 severed links with Chinese hardware suppliers, which had been scrutinized by US lawmakers.
Amid concerns from US lawmakers about G42’s links to China and the possibility that US citizens’ data could be passed to the Chinese government, the Biden administration played a key part in negotiating the deal.
Microsoft’s investment further strengthens Abu Dhabi’s position as an AI hub and is a sign of the emirate’s ambitions in the technology arena. It also shows how the Gulf, long seen by many in Silicon Valley as an easy source of funding, is increasingly regarded as a credible technology partner.