GoTenna Pro meshing radio aspires to deploy next to rescue, fire and security teams

An example of how the interface might look in use. It can relay the locations of other GoTenna devices at intervals, helping teams keep in touch automatically.

A mesh network spontaneously erupts in the US and helps connect Puerto Rico

Screenshots from Youper, an app for emotional well-being.

The NewtonX team. Courtesy of NewtonX

Instagram's boss Adam Mosseri has revealed that he was "disappointed" to learn actress Selena Gomez deleted the Instagram app from her phone — but said her experience can't be equated with the average user.

Gomez has 152 million Instagram fans, meaning she is the third most-followed person on the platform behind footballer Christiano Ronaldo and singer Ariana Grande. Last week, the actress said on a morning talk show that she got rid of the app on her phone for her own wellbeing.

"It's just become really unhealthy, I think personally, for young people including myself, to spend all of their time fixating on all these comments and letting this stuff in, and it was affecting me," said Gomez, who has been a vocal critic of social media's effect on mental wellbeing in the past.

Read more: Selena Gomez says "social media has really been terrible" for her generation: "They are not aware of the news"

"It would make me depressed. It would make me feel not good about myself, and look at my body differently, and all kinds of stuff," she said. Gomez said she periodically logs on to her account from other people's phones.

Speaking to BBC Radio 1 "Newsbeat," Mosseri said he was "disappointed" to hear Gomez had deleted the app, but caveated it by saying Gomez is not your typical Instagram user. "She has over 100 million followers, it's a whole other world," said Mosseri.

"We need to make sure that creators like her are getting value out of the platform, that they don't get depressed by the platform," he said, but added that the tools Instagram needs to build to protect teenagers from things like bullying are "very different."

Nonetheless, he said he would "love to hear" from Gomez about what she thinks can be done to improve the platform. "We like the criticism, we like to have the conversation," said Mosseri.

Mosseri admitted that Instagram has not kept up with the deluge of harmful content that has proliferated on the platform. "We were under-focused on the downsides of connecting people. Technology is not good or bad — it just is," he said.

Facebook is teaming up with an array of heavyweight multinational companies to launch a new digital currency called "Libra" in an ambitious push to provide financial services to billions of "unbanked" people around the world.

On Tuesday, the Silicon Valley social networking giant officially announced what its buzzy and secretive blockchain team has been working on for the last year or so: A new cryptocurrency that aims to provide fast, cheap, and secure online payments via smartphones across the globe, sidestepping the traditional financial system.

The project represents a striking push from Facebook into a radically new and reputationally risky industry, even as the company continues to suffer under the weight of two years of scandals, ranging from multiple privacy crises to its implication in the spread of hate speech that fueled genocide in Myanmar.

More than two dozen companies have been enlisted to invest $10 million apiece towards the currency's upkeep in return for a vote in its governance, via a not-for-profit foundation called the Libra Association. These range from payment firms like Mastercard and PayPal to tech firms including Ebay, Uber, and Spotify, as well as venture capital firms, blockchain companies, and non-profit groups.

There have been numerous leaks in the media about Libra over the past few months, and while it is being formally unveiled on Tuesday, it won't be available for ordinary users until 2020. Instead, the group is releasing its official "white paper" to outline its aims, introduce developers to the technology early, and try to entice new companies to join the association, which wants to be 100 members strong by the time of the actual launch.

Libra will be "a stable currency built on a secure and stable open-source blockchain, backed by a reserve of real assets, and governed by an independent association," its white paper reads. "Our hope is to create more access to better, cheaper, and open financial services — no matter who you are, where you live, what you do, or how much you have."

Facebook's role risks spooking privacy-conscious users

In addition to kicking off the development of Libra, Facebook is building its own app to sit on top of it: Calibra.

A look at Facebook's Calibra app. Facebook

Calibra will be a mobile app that lets users send and receive the digital currency, and will exist as standalone iOS and Android apps as well as parts of WhatsApp and Messenger, the company's messaging apps. (It's also the name of a new corporate subsidiary that sits under the Facebook umbrella.)

While it will be responsible for Calibra's upkeep, Facebook says it won't have any more influence over Libra itself than any of the other members of the association, and it won't use transaction data from the digital currency to profile users and target them with advertising. Facebook engineers have been responsible for developing the software thus far, though it is open source, meaning anyone can (in theory) contribute.

Facebook's battered reputation around issues of privacy and data security might make some users hesitant to adopt Libra. In an interview with Business Insider, Kevin Weil, Facebook's VP of blockchain product, said that convincing some users will "take time, no question about it, and it'll be much more actions than words," pointing to the data separation policy as an example of this.

Facebook's lack of overall control over the project may also assuage potential users' concerns — as well as those of regulators and lawmakers, who have viewed the social network (and other tech firms) with increasing scrutiny over the last year.

Providing financial infrastructure for billions of people

"Libra's mission is to enable a simple global currency and financial infrastructure that empowers billions of people," Dante Disparte, head of policy and communications at the Libra Association, said in an interview.

In practice, that means a digital currency that will be available to use via a smartphone app to make easy payments and send cash across borders without the kind of fees that the financial industry is notorious for.

Initially, the focus seems to be squarely on people who are "unbanked," without access to financial services — of which there are 1.7 billion people across the globe, according to the World Bank. Facebook says it isn't trying to make a profit off the project for now, but that introducing new people to digital finance could encourage them to create Facebook pages or buy ads on the social network, indirectly boosting the company's finances.

Down the line, Weil said, Facebook is considering building more sophisticated financial products like credit that it could make a profit off of.

As well as peer-to-peer payments, Libra will also be used to make online purchases, and Weil suggested partners like Uber might pass on savings from the digital currency's lower transaction fees onto users — making it cheaper to use Libra to pay for things than traditional payment methods.

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Former Snap chief strategy officer Imran Khan has launched his new e-commerce company Verishop, a little over six months since he raised $17.5 million for the startup in November. The company is rolling out its website and iOS app Tuesday, with about 150 brands, including AllSaints, Diane von Furstenberg's DVF, and Levi's.

Khan is pitching Verishop as an alternative to Amazon, specifically in the categories of fashion, beauty, and wellness, by offering a fast, convenient way to get hand-picked products that's better for shoppers and brands alike.

"Retail is a $5.5 trillion industry, and we're only in the first or second innings of e-commerce," Khan told Business Insider. "Uber is not the only player in ride-sharing, just like Google is not the only player in advertising. There is a big opportunity for players other than Amazon as we transition from brick-and-mortar to online sales."

Read More: Everything we know so far about Verishop, former Snap chief strategy officer Imran Khan's new e-commerce startup that aims to take on Amazon

Verishop is trying to compete with Amazon through user experience

The Verishop iOS app Verishop Khan said other marketplaces are rife with counterfeit goods and unverified third-party sellers, hurting brands and consumers. Verishop is taking control of the process by buying products wholesale from vetted brands, warehousing them, and reselling them.

Verishop will use a mix of tech and human power to help people discover products. It'll be aided by an editorial team and seven influencers including Tiffany Ma and Megan Pormer who will pick products for what it calls "Tastemaker shops."

Verishop is also promising free, 2-day shipping regardless of the size or quantity of the order. In contrast, Target announced that it would start offering one-day shipping for $9.99, and Walmart offers two-day free shipping on qualified items, according to those retailers' sites. But Amazon just announced it would cut its two-day free shipping to one day for Amazon Prime members.

Khan acknowledged that Amazon has a leg-up on logistics, but said he believes Verishop will still have an edge over other retailers, as a lot of brands find it too expensive to deliver this kind of convenience.

Its pitch to brands revolves around integrity and quality

Khan's pitch is to help established brands reach millennial shoppers and direct-to-consumer startups expand their reach, and he said this focus on millennials and integrity has helped it attract well-known brands such as Diane von Furstenberg's DVF.

Notably, Verishop will not monetize itself through advertising, and brands don't have to pay for better placements, as they do on Amazon. Khan said Verishop will share analytics and macro-trends with brands but won't sell consumer data.

"With advertising, you end up violating consumer trust, because whoever pays the most money is the one that ends up at the top," he said. "Never say never, but we don't plan to run ads."

Apparel brand BLDWN, which sells its product in its own stores and more than 75 retailers, saw Verishop as a way to broaden its audience, said Diego Dominguez, men's global sales director at the company.

"My biggest draw was that they're helping tell our story, and it's not getting lost with hundreds of other brands, as it tends to happen on other mass retailers," he said. "It's like a digital department store focused on cool, niche brands from specialty boutique stores, and the visuals and styling are exactly how they would be on our own website."

Another seller, Paige Adams-Geller, founder of denim brand Paige, said she was drawn to the platform because of Khan and his leadership. Khan was Snap's chief strategy officer, and helped steer it through its IPO in 2017. Its executive team includes former Amazon exec Cate Khan as chief strategy officer and Dollar Shave Club's Jason Bosco as vp of technology.

'Verishop is finding white space where Amazon isn't as strong'

There's no getting around the fact that Amazon is an online retail behemoth. Nearly half (46.7%) of all product searches start on Amazon, according to eMarketer, and its breadth of assortments and efficiency is unparalleled.

Verishop's emphasis on trust and the shopping experience can help it stand out, though, said experts. Amazon's breadth can be overwhelming for consumers, brands find it hard to get discovered, and counterfeit goods and unverified third-party sellers persist.

"Amazon has a number of problems, especially for brands," said Forrester analyst Sucharita Kodalily. "It is a rogue marketplace in spite of its best efforts, and that is not compatible with protected brands."

Verishop was playing it smart by "finding white space where Amazon is not as strong," said Jason Goldberg, chief commerce strategy officer at Publicis.

Still, Amazon is a global giant playing in many different lanes, said Will Margaritis, svp of Sellwin Consulting at Dentsu.

"If you're looking to take on Amazon, you need to consider it a many-headed hydra — try to beat it at retail, and you still need to contend with AWS, and the rapidly-growing advertising revenue," he said. "The money is flowing into Amazon so quickly, from so many disparate parts, that I can't see anyone getting ahead of them overall."

Advertising could also be a huge missed opportunity for Verishop, he said.

"An e-retailer thinking from the ground-up about what makes e-retail unique, between the data and the consumer journey, could build something very attractive to brands," he said. "But Verishop does not seem to be laying down the groundwork for a secondary revenue stream."

Niantic, the creator of "Pokémon Go," has acquired UK game studio Sensible Object for an undisclosed amount.

Sensible Object will remain based in London and form Niantic's London arm, while CEO Alex Fleetwood changes role to become Niantic's head of London studio. The company will continue with its own products for the time being, but will eventually focus on building new games on Niantic's open augmented reality platform.

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Alex Fleetwood told Business Insider that his firm had been looking to raise another round of venture capital, or for an acquirer, prior to the deal.

Sensible Object sells connected board games, such as "Beasts of Balance," in an effort to make analogue, tabletop games more appealing to a smartphone-obsessed audience.

Read more: An early Spotify and Airbnb investor is raising Europe's biggest startup fund of $800 million, but 6 sources say his VC firm has run into problems

But the reason for the Niantic acquisition lies as much in the company's prior history as in its current experience making games. Fleetwood was previously a founding director at Hide&Seek, a pioneering creative game studio that mixed real-world play with digital games.

Hide&Seek shut down in 2014 but Niantic's CEO, John Hanke, was already taking an interest in the crossover between the real world and screen-based games and got to know Fleetwood and his work. The same thinking would inform Niantic's monster hit, "Pokémon Go," when it arrived in 2016.

Niantic founder and CEO John Hanke. AP Photo/Kathy Willens

"I'm pretty confident he's the only CEO of a unicorn startup who has awareness of that kind of work," Fleetwood said of John Hanke. "We'd met a couple of times. When we were looking at what Sensible Object's route was in terms of another fundraise, or M&A, we reached out to him to get some advice, and that kicked off an acquisition discussion."

According to Fleetwood, Niantic wants to build out the number of game studios developing on its AR platform after buying LA-based Seismic Games. The firm is also encouraging developers to build games on its platform.

"Bringing in studios around the world like us means we're going to be using that platform, getting to grips with it, and accelerating the process of making that platform ready for more generalized use cases outside Niantic's core team," Fleetwood said.

His experience running play-focused events is also likely to come in handy. "A big strand of how Niantic make 'Pokémon Go' successful was large-scale events in Dortmund and Chicago," he said. "Nothing on that scale has run in the UK, but it aligns closely with the work we did at Hide&Seek. It's something we're really interested in developing as part of the range of activities."

In a deafeningly noisy world, selling your own unique brand has never been more important, whether you're a budding Instagram star or an unhappy cat.

Few appreciate this better than Joy Howard, the chief marketing officer of Lyft, who is about to take up the same role at software security firm Dashlane, which raised $110 million in a funding round led by Sequoia Capital in May.

Her previous jobs include stints as Sonos' CMO, Coca Cola's global marketing director, VP of global marketing for the Converse All Star (owned by Nike), and VP of marketing at outdoor clothing firm Patagonia.

Howard says there is a particular way that all companies — tech startups included — should think about their brand. It is this way of thinking that holds the key to successfully marketing your company, she says.

Brands symbolise the culture you want to build around your product

"People often have a misconception about what a brand is," she explains. "They tend to easily conceive of it as a value proposition, and a brand is something much, much broader than that. It's really the set of perceptions that shape your experience of the product. In other words, you have to think of it as the culture around the product.

"In that respect, the most important thing marketers can do is think about how they want to use their company to shape people's perceptions of their product. What do you want the experience of your product to say about your brand and who you are as a company?

Howard has most recently served as CMO of Lyft, after spells at Coca-Cola and Nike. Getty Images

"So that would be my highest-level advice: To think about the brand as the culture of the product. Especially earlier-stage companies who think the brand is the name, the logo — but that is really not a brand.

Read more: Dashlane closes $110 million in Series D funding led by Sequoia Capital; Joy Howard will join as chief marketing officer

"[You have a brand] when people really start to experience your product, your product starts to be something that people share. Until a set of associations come with your product, you don't really have a brand."

This is important for tech startups, who have to build a vision around what they're trying to achieve and communicate it clearly and impactfully to customers and potential financiers.

For Lyft, Howard explains, the branding message is bold. It is not just another taxi firm, it's "reinventing transportation, building cities around cars." She adds: "Brands are so much bigger than any kind of day-to-day changes. That's the promise of what a business can be but also what a brand can be."

Nike is successful because people live the brand — starting with the workers

Howard's time marketing some of the world's most successful brands only reinforced her beliefs. At Nike, people live and breathe the company's identity, she says.

"Nike is a company where you see the importance of living the culture of the product, and living the culture of the brand inside the company in order to build the brand," she says.

"Everyone within Nike really lives what that brand is about. It was the same within Converse. I think Converse really learned a lot of that living the brand from Nike.

"That's been a part of every brand I've touched since working at Nike, and it always will be, because if you think about your company as a brand, as the culture of the product, then that really starts with the culture you build within your company."

Nike founder Phil Knight helped turn a humble shoe distributor into one of the most successful brands of all time. Gregory Shamus/Getty

This is not to say Howard thinks marketing doesn't depend on more foundational skills, of course. It's just that these foundational skills will not suffice to create a truly great brand, in her view.

Data is an important starting point for brand building

"The foundation is customer insight," she says. "There's also creative development, understanding marketing channels, metrics and analytics, the technology behind marketing. Those are foundational capabilities that one needs to learn. Then if you become really great at those, you can build an organisation and culture around the brand.

"So in terms of what makes you a great marketer, you want to understand and tap into culture and create something with just a very high level of craft. You want to marshal imagination and discipline and craft to really build something great that inspires people. That's what separates the really great marketers from the mediocre ones."

Apple's cheaper iPhone XR is already a fan favorite — it's been well-received among reviewers and is the best-selling new iPhone model in the US according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners. But it sounds like the entry-level iPhone coming in 2020 will address one of the biggest differences between the XR and Apple's pricier phones: its screen.

Apple will outfit all of its new iPhones with an OLED screen in 2020 according to TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. He shared details regarding Apple's 2020 iPhone lineup in a new note, as 9to5Mac reported on Monday.

The current version of the iPhone XR has an LCD screen, while the more expensive iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have OLED screens. OLED screens generally offer better contrast and can produce noticeably deeper black levels than LCD displays — a characteristic that could be increasingly important now that a system-wide Dark Mode is coming to iOS this year.

Read more: Apple's iOS 13 software is further proof that it's fixing one of the iPhone's biggest criticisms

That's not to say the iPhone XR doesn't have a high quality screen; most reviewers agree that the trade-off is certainly worth the iPhone XR's cheaper price. But OLED screens are generally capable of displaying bolder and more vibrant colors compared to LCD panels. It would also help Apple keep up with the competition, considering affordable smartphones from rivals such Google and Samsung already boast OLED screens.

It's one of the few key differences between the current iPhone XR, which has a 6.1-inch screen and starts at $750, and the iPhone XS, which has a 5.8-inch OLED display and begins at $1,000.

Of course, there are several other noteworthy discrepancies to take into account as well. For example, the iPhone XR comes in a wider range of bright colors and has a different finish than the glossy iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max. It also only has one rear 12-megapixel camera, while its more premium siblings have both a wide-angle and telephoto lens. And it doesn't come in a 512GB storage option like the iPhone XS or iPhone XS Max.

Still, the notion that Apple might add an OLED screen to its less expensive flagship phone could be a sign that the gap between the entry-level iPhone and its pricier counterparts is getting smaller. The drawback with this new model, however, would be its lack of 5G support compared to Apple's other new iPhone models in 2020, according to Kuo's report.

As for this year's iPhones, the latest rumors and reports indicate Apple's iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max successors will have a new triple-camera system, while the next-generation iPhone XR will get a double camera. There's also a possibility that this year's iPhone XR sequel will have an OLED screen, but reports have conflicted on this. While a report from Reuters citing South Korea's Electronic Times suggested that all three new 2019 iPhones would have an OLED screen, Kuo has predicted that at least one model released this year will retain that LCD screen.

Apple typically unveils its new iPhones in September. An Apple representative did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

Over the years, developer software company Atlassian has spent $1 billion to buy more than 20 companies, five of which it snapped up in the past year alone. And yet the $31 billion company is taking a stand against the power that large acquirers like itself have over the startups they buy.

On Monday, Atlassian made an unprecedented move to publish its new M&A term sheet, giving potential acquisitions — and everybody else — a deep look into exactly what they're getting themselves into when they enter in to the deal-making process.

For Chris Hecht, the head of corporate development at Atlassian, there's too much "antagonism built into the process" of acquisitions, which makes it difficult for companies and their leadership teams to actually integrate with the bigger company once a deal closes.

While many founders are excited to sell their startups, the selling process can leave them feeling like they shoulder too much financial risk if something goes wrong in the process, Hecht said. Tense negotiations take an emotional toll the people involved, and that toll can continue to burden the founders after the companies have merged, he said.

"They're coming into this process super excited that they're going to sell the company, but it becomes very arduous for them mentally and emotionally," Hecht said.

Read more: Investors used to balk at startups for software developers — but after Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion, they're all inHecht, who spent time as an investment banker before leading mergers and acquisitions at Salesforce, worked closely with Atlassian Chief Legal Officer Tom Kennedy to revamp the default term sheet the company uses in M&A. The two execs agreed on one big idea: Even if an acquirer, like Atlassian, takes on more risk on its term sheet, it will benefit in the long run from a less stresful and more peaceful M&A process.

"M&A as a practice traditionally has not been aligned with Atlassian's values," Hecht told Business Insider. "We think that increasing transparency will drive a much healthier experience. We think we can drive a lot more value more quickly."

More financial risk, but less stress

The new term sheet hasn't been used yet. But the next company that gets an offer from Atlassian will notice a few founder-friendly elements that aren't offered by an other tech companies, as far as Hecht is aware.

For one, Hecht and Kennedy wanted to close the risk gap, which their analysis found protects acquirers beyond what is necessary.

"Buyers are getting a lot more insurance than they need. We spent many months going through hundreds of deals to figure out how much risk sharing was expected," said Hecht.

The term sheet eliminates some key provisions common at other companies, such as indemnity clauses — special provisions designed to protect the acquirer. Those provisions might include the ability to hold a startup's founders legally liable for certain problems that arise as part of the deal, or even change the terms of escrow.

Escrow terms mean that part of the proceeds of the sale are held by a third party until both parties agree that the sale is satisfactory, almost like a security deposit.

Most companies ask for 10% to 20% of the purchase price to be held back in escrow, Hecht said. That can be annoying for founders, who then have to wait for the deal to close to everybody's satisfaction to see their full payout.

Atlassian's new terms ask for just 5% in escrow, going as low as 1% in escrow if the company opts to purchase insurance to protect the deal.

This fixes a sticking point for a lot of founders looking to sell, Hecht said, because they often have to negotiate between the buyers who insist on keeping a large amount of the sale total in limbo, and from their investors and other shareholders who want to put as little of the purchase price at risk as possible.

Robert L. Dixon, Jr. says he grew up in corporate America, working at the household products company Procter & Gamble and the beverage company PepsiCo. Now, he's joining the board of $14.57 billion identity management company Okta, where he hopes to bring the "voice of the customer."

"The more I researched about Okta, the more excited I got about it, and the more conversations I had with [ Okta CEO Todd McKinnon] and the management team, the more excited I got as well," Dixon told Business Insider.

At Procter & Gamble, Dixon held various executive positions, while at PepsiCo, he was Global Chief Information Officer and Senior Vice President. Although these are consumer companies, he says they had a "very significant technology emphasis." Nowadays, Dixon is the owner of The RD Factor, Inc., a consulting business.

"We needed someone who has been a CIO who can bring the perspective of a buyer," McKinnon told Business Insider. "More importantly, the challenge they have is taking a large company that formerly was not a technology company to move them to do technology."

McKinnon says Okta is transitioning its board from having mostly venture capitalists to having more business leaders, and Dixon is another step in that direction. To that end, McKinnon says Okta was looking for someone who can give guidance on its strategy on working with consumer companies, and Dixon was "by far the best candidate."

"If you look at the board, we have a lot of experts in a lot of things, we didn't have someone who has been a customer, someone who would buy Okta at a big company, especially someone who looked at technology from the lens of 'I'm a big traditional company,'" McKinnon said. "That's an important role."

Dixon first heard about Okta through a colleague. In the process, he also reached out to Shellye Archambeau, the former MetricStream CEO who joined Okta's board last December. She suggested that he take a look at the opportunity to join Okta's board.

Read more: She helped one company define a new market. Now, former MetricStream CEO Shellye Archambeau is joining $7.4 billion Okta to do it again

Since he previously worked at consumer companies that sold household or beverage products, Okta has a different business as its product is the technology, Dixon says that he brings insight on going to market and engaging with IT leaders.

"Technology for the most part was a critical enabler to how do you do R&D around the product and take it through the business model value chain all the way to the consumer," Dixon said. "The technology was an enabler. In a tech company like Okta, the product is technology."

Dixon says he looks forward to helping Okta navigate its growth.

"The way they grow right now is astronomical," Dixon said. "I'm looking forward to being able to grow their business and work with management to channel the growth."

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The real test of the Range Rover, to be honest and evocative of my favorite Roxy Music album, is to explore country life. The carmaker's Terrain Response system enables the four-wheel-drive setup to be configured for a variety of conditions, a legacy of the brand's reputation for formidable offroad capability.

You buy a Range if you seriously intend to bust around the back 40, surmounting hill and dale in wind and rain, perhaps passing weekends with a bit of shooting. You might contend with mud, snow, or ice, and fording a stream could be on the agenda.

But you also buy a Range if you want to tool around the 'burbs in Sloane Ranger style. You could choose a Jeep, but the Range is more elite. It sends the right signals at the school-dropoff line and looks right in certain parking lots.

In that context, does it matter if you're getting 30 mpg or just 20? It doesn't, but for Jaguar Land Rover, a portfolio made up of V6 and V8 SUVs, with some robust diesels thrown in, might not, you know, survive the brave new world of higher emission and fuel-economy standards. Hybridization is a good way for the brand to come into compliance.

That might sound sort of mean-spirited of me, so let me now discuss my favorite aspect of the Range Rover HSE P400e I tested — the drivetrain!

It's a dang four-banger! In a really big truck! And it makes almost 500 pound-feet of torque! I felt like I had a V6 under the hood, at the very least. This feat of engineering has won my undying respect. I'm not sure I'd buy it, but as technological triumphs go, JLR should pat itself on the back and give the folks responsible for this powerplant a bonus.

Otherwise, I tend to be quite taken by Range Rovers, and the HSE P400e was no exception. I've never much liked the infotainment system, but it's more an issue of function than design. But the rest of the machine is superb. Range Rovers are also keeping up with the times; my tester came with a host of driver-assist features, including lane-keep assist, blind-spot assist, and adaptive cruise control.

Yeah, this Range ain't cheap. But it is worth it. And for some owners, the added MPGs and in-town optimization could certainly be very appealing.

CANNES, France — Nine months after Antonio Lucio became Facebook's global CMO, he's announced a plan to restore the embattled tech giant's reputation.

The company is planning a new ad campaign to restore trust in its corporate brand and promote the value of its products including Instagram and WhatsApp. It will be led by creative agencies such as WPP's Ogilvy on Instagram, Wieden + Kennedy on the Facebook app, and Accenture Interactive's Droga5 on the corporate brand.

Business Insider caught up with Lucio at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Here is an edited version of the conversation.

Tanya Dua: What has been your focus over the past nine months?

Antonio Lucio: With all the challenges we have faced over the past two years starting with Cambridge Analytica, it became very clear to Mark [Zuckerburg], Sheryl [Sandberg], and I, that things needed to fundamentally change at the company. But we also needed to do a much better job in telling the story. We needed to rebuild trust for the Facebook brand, but also rebuild value for each one of the apps.

Read more: Facebook's Carolyn Everson says that advertisers should focus on its massive reach instead of narrowly targeting consumers

Dua: How are you building trust with consumers?

Lucio: Consumers need to understand the moves that we're making as a corporation, that we're moving into privacy-first. There's a lot of communication work we're already doing on that front that will be amplified by direct-to-consumer marketing later on in the year. The same holds true for everything that we're doing and we will continue to do to provide significantly higher level of controls for the user, and areas like data management.

Dua: What channels are you using communicate this?

Lucio: Our platform continues to be the most important part of our spending because our customers are already there. As a marketer, that is an enviable position, having your own platforms as a channel. But when you're talking about issues of trust and value, and are trying to bring people onto the platform, off-platform advertising also becomes an integral part of the mix, so everything from TV to billboards.

Dua: Other marketers are using fewer agencies. Why did you just expand your roster?

Lucio: We've brought outside partners in because for the first time, we're doing not just on-platform advertising, but also off-platform. We now have a fundamentally different business challenge. Earlier, it was all on-platform work, and I had my internal agency doing it. But what I have today is a hybrid model. Anything that is on our own channels, our internal agency does, because we know that channel better than anyone else and we can move faster. And anything that is off-platform, that's when the new agencies are going to come in. We have the data and we have the platforms; we want the creativity.

Dua: Have you made other changes to Facebook's marketing?

Lucio: We have created chief creative officers for each one of the apps. They work together with the external agencies to ensure that we have a cohesive brand vision for each of the apps and the corporate brand, and that the external agency and the internal agency are working together. They report to the app leads, who report to me. They ensure that the creative stewardship is ours. They are also in charge of production best practices and ensure that we're using the right level of external partners, at the right costs, and that we are delivering on diversity metrics.

Dua: Diversity has been a passion of yours since your HP days. How are you planning to expand on it at Facebook?

Lucio: I'm following the same playbook that I did at HP. To transform the industry and transform business, you need holistic and systemic change, which means clients, agencies, and production companies have to have diverse teams. I probably have one of the most diverse teams that I've ever led in terms of women and people from underrepresented groups. We will measure and publish it. We're just starting at Facebook, but the scale and impact can be significantly bigger. We're demanding this of some of the biggest agencies in the world.

Dua: What has been the toughest part of your job?

Lucio: Learning the business, earning a seat at the table, and doing the work within the context of a very challenging environment all at the same time. I fundamentally believe that you first have to learn the rules, win by the rules, and then after you've won by the rules, then you transform the rules. Coming to Facebook, which has such huge brands of impact on a global scale, and trying to do that has been the most interesting challenge.Dua: What do you mean by "play by the rules?"

Lucio: It's my first time working in a founder-led organization. In a way, it moves very similarly to big multinationals, but at the same time it's founder-led in many areas of the business — it still moves like a startup. So understanding when it's moving one way or the other has been incredibly interesting. Dua: What are the implications for advertisers of Facebook's privacy focus?

Lucio: Over time, we will be able to create advertising platforms that leverage the totality for all of our product portfolio. There will continue to be what Mark calls the "Town Square" options, and there will continue to be private options. There's a lot of advertising happening in Messenger, for example; not as much yet in the case of WhatsApp. Over time, given the idiosyncrasies of the app and the functional capabilities of the app, we should be able to have one of the most impressive advertising portfolio on offer for advertisers.

Getty/Chip Somodevilla

Apple's challenges in China have eaten into the technology giant's business for months — and they're not going away, a pair of prominent Wall Street firms said on Monday.

Analysts at JPMorgan and Credit Suisse addressed China's posture in the critical market amid declining iPhone sales and trade tensions with the US, updating their clients on this quarter's trends.

JPMorgan's analysts, for their part, slightly lowered their price target and iPhone shipments outlook, while Credit Suisse said trade uncertainty and "deeper structural issues" would render Apple's stock price rangebound.

The two reports come amid a tangle of macroeconomic and company-specific challenges that has ensnared Apple and injected volatility into its stock price this year.

Slowing global economic growth at a late stage in the business cycle is under a microscope, particularly in the key US and Chinese markets. Meanwhile, the trade war the two nations are locked in has rattled markets and weighed on growth outlooks.

Further, Apple shareholders have been underwhelmed by some of the company's offerings in spaces like streaming as it seeks to diversify away from its flagship iPhone product. 

Read more: Apple's big, flashy event underwhelmed investors. Here's why.

"Looking beyond macro/trade concerns, we believe aggressive local competition and a narrower ecosystem advantage in China remain deeper structural challenges for Apple, with no easy near-term fix," the Credit Suisse analysts led by Matthew Cabral wrote.

Cabral's team is discouraged in part by retail sales in China, growth of which has slowed amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. 

Credit Suisse.

JPMorgan assumed a slightly more sanguine stance than their peers at Credit Suisse. 

"The worsening macro environment and its likely impact on consumer spending globally is driving us to trim our iPhone shipment estimates, which in effect modestly lowers the earnings outlook for the near-term," including estimates through year-end, the JPMorgan analysts led by Samik Chatterjee wrote. 

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The firm lowered its price target to $235 from $233 and now sees Apple shipping 183 million iPhones to China this year, compared with a prior 185 million forecast.

Chatterjee's team maintained its bullish "overweight" rating but believes the region's concerns driven by the US-China trade dispute are somewhat temporary. They're also encouraged by Apple's performance in Asian regions outside China. 

"We find investor concerns relative to Apple's share loss in China somewhat overblown, given the continued decline in iPhone shipments in China over the last few years, which Apple has been used to navigating consistently by leveraging their strong presence in the developed markets and APAC ex-China," they wrote.

Apple is expected to report its third-quarter results later this summer. Apple's stock has enjoyed a 23% rally so far this year after a dismal fourth quarter, though it has fallen 17% since its record high in October. 

Now read markets coverage from Markets Insider and Business Insider:

The US economy is resisting a slowdown plaguing the rest of the world. Here's why one Wall Street expert worries its fortunes are about to change.

A growing chorus of Wall Street heavyweights is sounding the alarm on regulatory pressures surrounding America's biggest tech juggernauts

Beware the 'perfect storm of negative events' one expert says will send stocks crashing

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