FIRST IN PI — CONSUMER BRANDS NAMES INTERIM PRESIDENT: The Consumer Brands Association has tapped Stacy Papadopoulos, general counsel and senior vice president of operations, to be the trade group’s interim chief executive while the association searches for a permanent leader to replace Geoff Freeman. Freeman is leaving the group next month to take the helm of the U.S. Travel Association, after resuscitating the trade group previously known as the Grocery Manufacturers’ Association in a rebrand. — Freshpet’s Billy Cyr, General Mills ’ Jeff Harmening, Glanbia Performance Nutrition’s Wendy Davidson, the Clorox Company’s Linda Rendle, Procter & Gamble’s Monica Turner and PepsiCo’s Steven Williams , all of CBA, will lead the search, along with Leslie Hortum at Spencer Stuart. — “Consumer Brands has built an agenda that united the industry, expanded membership and revenue and grown into an association that we are increasingly proud to be a part of — and one well positioned to recruit a strong new leader,” Harmening, who also serves as the packaged goods group’s chair, said in a statement. The group said it has seen a 35 percent increase in membership since its rebrand, along with a nearly 50 percent increase in its dues revenue. LOBBYING COMES FOR THE INFLUENCERS: “Washington’s political power brokers are quietly inching toward a full embrace of influencers,” Wired’s Benjamin Wofford writes in a fascinating look at the ad-tech startup Urban Legend and its increasingly popular model of deploying social media personalities to advance political and ideological aims. — “Staffed by a plucky 14-person team, Urban Legend keeps its largest asset carefully hidden away inside its servers: an army of 700 social media influencers who command varying degrees of allegiance from audiences that collectively number in the tens of millions.” — “The company has painstakingly cultivated this roster to reflect every conceivable niche of society reflected on the internet: makeup artists, Nascar drivers, home improvement gurus, teachers, doulas, Real Housewives stars, mommy bloggers, NFL quarterbacks, Olympians, and the occasional Fox News pundit.” — “In two years, Urban Legend’s influencers have run more than 400 campaigns, connecting people to its clients millions of times. Henri Makembe , a veteran Democratic campaign strategist in Washington who has worked with Urban Legend several times, compared the concept to ‘unboxing’ videos—when an influencer unwraps and showcases a product sent to them by a brand. Such product influencers are a $15 billion marketing industry. ‘Now we’re realizing, “Oh: We can do that with an idea,”’ Makembe says.” — “But the rise of this new messenger has disquieted some. For one, it’s unclear whether influencers are following federal disclosure rules. And as at similar firms, the names of Urban Legend’s influencers and clients are a closely held secret — or were, until recently — creating the prospect of an internet flush with untraceable money, in which Americans can no longer tell an earnest opinion from a paid one.” WHO’S FUNDING SCOTT BROWN’S CONSERVATIVE TECH GROUP: “A group fighting antitrust legislation targeting the biggest US tech companies presents itself as a grassroots advocate for American taxpayers, yet it hasn’t disclosed a significant source of funding from one of the industry’s giants,” Bloomberg’s Emily Birnbaum reports. — “The Competitiveness Coalition , led by Scott Brown, a former Republican senator from Massachusetts, has received more than $1 million from Amazon, according to three people familiar with the organization’s funding.” — “Founded in March as the bipartisan antitrust bill was gaining steam on Capitol Hill, the Competitiveness Coalition has held meetings with Republican lawmakers, run television ad campaigns and blasted out op-eds opposing the measure — all without revealing the backing from the e-commerce giant.” — “The coalition was spawned by the National Taxpayers Union, a conservative advocacy organization, and counts more than a dozen right-leaning groups as members. NTU, one of the most prominent voices against regulation in Washington, has received money from Amazon and Google for years, according to public disclosures by the companies.” ALPINE GROUP ADDS COMPETITIVE FUNDING PRACTICE: The Alpine Group is partnering with Capitol Funding Solutions and its CEO Becky Nictakis to launch a new competitive funding group to work with clients on strategic positioning, drafting and submission of funding proposals and applications to win competitive funds. The partnership will allow Alpine Group to expand work for corporate clients as well as local and tribal governments and ports, the firm said, amid an “unprecedented amount of competitive federal funding available.” THE CHAMBER SUES FTC: “The US Chamber of Commerce accused the Federal Trade Commission of a lack of transparency about its competition enforcement in a lawsuit Thursday, stepping up its campaign on behalf of corporate giants against antitrust threats from the Biden administration,” Bloomberg’s Leah Nylen reports. — “In an unusual move designed to pressure a federal agency whose policies the trade group opposes, the Chamber alleged that the FTC refused to turn over public records about its proceedings, creating a ‘black-box environment’ of uncertainty for business.” — “The nation’s largest business lobby had sought information under public records law from the antitrust and consumer protection agency about its communications with other regulators regarding the merger between Illumina Inc. and cancer-test startup Grail Inc., along with its practice of counting votes cast by departed commissioners. The agency denied those requests, as well as another related to FTC Chair Lina Khan’s employment at the agency in 2018.” — “The suit intensifies the clash between the nation’s biggest business lobby — whose members include AT&T Inc., Pfizer Inc. and tech stalwarts Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. — and Khan’s FTC. The trade group, which spent $65 million on lobbying last year, accused the agency of ‘waging a war on American business’ by allegedly manipulating its rules and engaging in political interference.”
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