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Last Friday, about 5 minutes after we had hit send on our newsletter, a notification hit all of our phones: Roe v. Wade was being struck down. Over the weekend much of the focus was on the response and laws of individual states. Some had trigger laws already in place that effectively banned abortions immediately, while others have plans for similar laws — The Guardian has a helpful map on where abortion laws stand in each state.
Medication abortions
In years gone by images of abortion clinics have dominated media coverage of the issue — but surgical abortions are no longer the norm. In fact the majority (54%) of all abortions performed in the US in 2020 were medication abortions, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute. Approved for use for up to 10 weeks of pregnancy by the FDA, medication abortions are now often mailed to patients after an online or telehealth consultation. That rule — to allow pills to be sent by mail — only changed in April 2021, and is likely to become the next major legislative battleground for states looking to ban, or restrict, access to abortions.
The prevalence of medication abortions, coupled with the change in mail ruling from last year, could make enforcement for states looking to ban abortions difficult. One organization, Just The Pill, is planning a fleet of "mobile clinics" that will park on state borders and provide consultations or pills to women where bans are in effect.
Zero to $12bn
TikTok is on track to reel in $12bn in advertising revenue this year, according to new reports from people familiar with the company's financials.
When compared to the established big players in digital ads, namely Google and Facebook, that's small potatoes — Google Search alone brought in almost $150bn last year, and Facebook did more than $110bn.
But when you compare where TikTok is on its journey, having been founded in just 2016, the company's progress is remarkable. If those reports prove accurate, Tiktok will have broken the $10bn a year mark in just its sixth full year — a milestone that took Facebook more than a decade. YouTube took 14 years. Snapchat and Twitter? They're both barely halfway to that milestone.
What's more remarkable is that TikTok's parent company, Bytedance, which owns a number of other social media and tech assets in China, is on an even steeper trajectory. Bytedance reportedly made $34bn last year, less than a decade since it was founded.
Trying to do it
Nike is still having a tough time in China.
In its latest set of results, Nike reported that sales in Greater China had fallen almost 20%, as COVID disruptions continue to play havoc on parts of the country's supply chain. That result, plus a cautious outlook for the coming quarter, sent Nike shares down 7% yesterday, wiping more than $11bn from the company's market cap.
But Nike can't blame everything on COVID. Indeed, there is an increasing amount of evidence that Chinese consumers are starting to turn away from western apparel companies, towards homegrown brands like Anta, Li-Ning, and Xtep. Front Office Sports reports that for the year ending January 31, 2022, domestic Chinese brands saw sales grow by 17% while foreign brands saw sales decline by 24%.
Endless growth in China is no longer a certainty for Nike and other western consumer brands — even if COVID and supply chain disruption is fully resolved.
1) Volkswagen's boss believes the German giant can overtake Tesla in electric vehicle sales by 2025. We charted both companies relative progress until now in this chart.
2) A couple spent 2 years tracking the data on what choices made them sleep better or worse.
3) Ever wondered how images can get compressed 90%+, but still look the same? This video explains how it works.
4) Gong analyzed 10,332 deals to understand what drives results and how to make revenue forecasts that are mind-blowingly accurate — and they're all in the 6 Can’t-Miss Forecasting Metrics for Revenue Leaders.**
5) Accounting firm Ernst & Young has been fined $100m after it came to light that nearly 50 employees had cheated on the ethics part of the CPA exam.
6) 51 people died in Texas after being abandoned in a tractor-trailer in soaring temperatures. The deaths came in the context of record high migrant encounters at the southwest land border.
7) Celebrating 15 years of the iPhone.
8) Work in marketing? Join 30,000 marketers who get the latest advertising hacks, insights and breaking news from our friends at Stacked Marketer. It's curated industry news and actionable advice in a free jam-packed daily read. Sign up today.
**This is sponsored content.
