All posts tagged: adverts

Secondary teacher job adverts hit a historic low – report

Secondary teacher job adverts hit a historic low – report

Published by skeptic

The teacher labour market has “contracted”, with the number of secondary school job adverts down by around a third compared to last year, a new report suggests. The latest annual recruitment and retention report from Teacher Tapp and SchoolDash shows secondary teacher vacancies have hit the lowest level in the nine-year period data is available. The study, which draws on job advert monitoring as well as daily polls of a pool of more than 10,000 teachers, shows secondary school teacher job adverts are down 32 per cent compared to last year, and 46 per cent on 2018-19. ‘Contraction’ in secondary labour market The report suggests schools are anticipating falling pupils rolls, while a weak wider labour market appears to be suppressing teacher turnover. Teacher Tapp co-founder Becky Allen said: “Schools know their intakes are shrinking, so they’re not replacing staff who leave, and with fewer opportunities elsewhere, fewer teachers are leaving in the first place. “The result is that staffing problems have gone underground: fewer advertised vacancies, but more classes covered by non-specialists and more teachers …

Perplexity Admits AI Adverts Were a Mistake, Is Now Getting Rid of Them

Perplexity Admits AI Adverts Were a Mistake, Is Now Getting Rid of Them

Published by José Betancourt

Anthropic aired a spicy ad during this year’s Super Bowl, skewering competitor OpenAI’s decision to cram ChatGPT with ads for users who don’t pay for a subscription. “Ads are coming to AI,” the ad’s tagline reads. “But not to Claude.” The marketing campaign appeared to hit a nerve, sending OpenAI CEO Sam Altman — who called ads a “last resort” a mere two years ago — into a tailspin in which he accused Anthropic of “doublespeak.” Needless to say, it’s a hot-button topic in the AI industry as companies continue to look for new ways to recoup some of their gigantic losses. Just last week, OpenAI researcher Zoë Hitzig announced her resignation in a New York Times essay, warning that the company may use ads to manipulate “users in ways we don’t have the tools to understand, let alone prevent.” Ads in AI tools have become so controversial that other players in the space are second-guessing as well. As the Financial Times reports, AI startup Perplexity, which became one of the first generative AI companies to introduce ads …

Christmas adverts are hijacking the Love Actually feel-good spirit to get us spending more

Christmas adverts are hijacking the Love Actually feel-good spirit to get us spending more

Published by skeptic

The Christmas advert season has officially started, and Richard Curtis’s genius is all around – again. From the carrot expressing love on a placard in the Aldi advert, to the moment when Keira Knightley finally says yes to Joe Wilkinson (and to his food) in the Waitrose commercial, the Love Actually film seems to be everywhere in Christmas adverts. The spending spirit is being neatly squeezed into our minds, just like the extra syllable in the original lyrics of the Love Is All Around anthem. These adverts are trying to tap into our growing loneliness and desire for togetherness and to persuade us that the best way to get it is to spend money on gifts. In the Pandora advert, for example, the boy character plans a Christmas gift for his mother to the sound of the Beach Boys hit song God Only Knows, which could be intended to remind us of the ending of Love Actually in the arrivals hall at Heathrow airport. It’s no surprise that advertisers use works of fiction to reconnect …