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Visa is widening its aperture. In a new ad for the financial services company narrated by Ryan Reynolds that’s set on a haunted desert island, the company is pitching itself not just for everywhere you want to be anymore, but everywhere you don’t want to be. “True story: we actually pitched this campaign idea to Visa years ago and it kind of went nowhere,” Reynolds tells Fast Company. “Lots of time brands will come to us and say ‘scare us’ and then we do and they run away screaming. It wasn’t until early this year when I got connected to [Visa CMO] Frank [Cooper] and I half jokingly told him we had worked on this idea and he was like . . . wait a second . . .” The spot, by the production company Maximum Effort that Reynolds and George Dewey cofounded in 2018, imagines Fyre Fest but spookier. The failed music festival is a zombie brand that sold its brand assets in July on eBay for $245,300 to a mystery buyer. Its value isn’t in putting on a successful music festival, but for the meme of it all. Though Visa didn’t buy the name, they’re using it in the ad to set the tone. As the camera zooms through the scene, an actual zombie pops out of the sand, and when the viewer is brought to the shore, they learn the only way off the island is via a man with a boat named Rusty. “And he does not take emotional distress,” Reynolds says in the voice over. But Rusty does, however, take Visa. Reynolds then closes out the ad with Visa’s slogan “everywhere you want to be,” and follows it up with his subversive twist, “and some places you really don’t.” Reynolds calls the process of creating the ad “fairly simple”: “Take an iconic positioning and try to bring new life to it with a simple subversion. It’s core to how we think at Maximum Effort,” he says. The zeitgeisty production company is behind ads for brands like Mint Mobile, Netflix, and July’s quick-turnaround video for Astronomer starring Gwyneth Paltrow, and now it’s bringing humor to the staid payments category. A new twist on an old slogan Visa used the slogan, “It’s everywhere you want to be” from 1985 to 2006 and brought it back in shortened form in 2014 as just “Everywhere you want to be.” The slogan was about connecting the brand to experiences, Cooper, Visa’s CMO says. “Everywhere you want to be was closely connected to the idea of cross-border travel, which is one of the major areas for transactions for Visa,” he says. But now the company is looking to expand on it. “People want solutions to two things,” Cooper says. “Problems and dreams, and so we gave them the dreams part.” The new version of the slogan is about solving problems. Visa, which reported reported $10.2 billion net revenue in the most recent quarter, faces a shifting payments landscape where upstart buy-now-pay-later services like Affirm and Klarna compete now with longtime consumer finance giants. In tapping Reynolds, referencing Fyre Fest, and playing with humor, Visa is looking to compete on new ground. “Historically, humor has not played a central role in the brand,” Cooper says. “I think the view has been in financial services overalland even in paymentsthat, hey, this is a very serious category.” But the serious approach is taking a backseat in a world where attention is the ultimate currency. “In a world where we’re battling for attention, and the hardest part is having the stopping power . . . humor is is a great angle in,” Cooper says.
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E-Commerce
In a sign of how unusual this week’s Federal Reserve meeting is, the decision it will make on interest rates usually the main event is just one of the key unknowns to be resolved when officials gather Tuesday and Wednesday.For now, it’s not even clear who will be there. The meeting will likely include Lisa Cook, an embattled governor, unless an appeals court or the Supreme Court rules in favor of an effort by President Donald Trump to remove her from office. And it will probably include Stephen Miran, a top White House economic aide whom Trump has nominated to fill an empty seat on the Fed’s board. But those questions may not be resolved until late Monday.Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is mired in uncertainty. Hiring has slowed sharply, while inflation remains stubbornly high.So a key question for the Fed is: Do they worry more about people who are out of work and struggling to find jobs, or do they focus more on the struggles many Americans face in keeping up with rising costs for groceries and other items? The Fed’s mandate from Congress requires it to seek both stable prices and full employment.For now, Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed policymakers have signaled the Fed is more concerned about weaker hiring, a key reason investors expect the central bank will reduce its benchmark interest rate by a quarter point on Wednesday to about 4.1%.Still, stubbornly high inflation may force them to proceed slowly and limit how many reductions they make. The central bank will also release its quarterly economic projections Wednesday, and economists project they will show that policymakers expect one or two additional cuts this year, plus several more next year.Ellen Meade, an economics professor at Duke University and former senior economist at the Fed, said it’s a stark contrast to the early pandemic, when it was clear the Fed had to rapidly reduce rates to boost the economy. And when inflation surged in 2021 and 2022, it was also a straightforward call for the Fed, which moved quickly to raise borrowing costs to combat higher prices.But now, “it’s a tough time,” Meade said. “It would be a tough time, even if the politics and the whole thing weren’t going on the way they are, it would be a tough time. Some people would want to cut, some people would not want to cut.”Amid all the economic uncertainty, Trump is applying unprecedented political pressure on the Fed, demanding sharply lower rates, seeking to fire Cook, and insulting Powell, whom he has called a “numbskull,” “fool,” and “moron.”Loretta Mester, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said that Fed officials won’t let the criticisms sway their decisions on policy. Still, the attacks are unfortunate, she said, because they threaten to undermine the Fed’s credibility with the public.“Added to their list of the difficulty of making policy because of how the economy is performing, they also have to contend with the fact that there may be some of the public that’s skeptical about how they’ve gone about making their decisions,” she said.David Andolfatto, an economics professor at the University of Miami and former top economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said that presidents have pressured Fed chairs before, but never as personally or publicly.“What’s unusual about this is the level of open disrespect and just childishness,” Andolfatto said. “I mean, this is just beyond the pale.”There are typically 12 officials who vote on the Fed’s policies at each meeting the seven members of the Fed’s board of governors, as well as five of the 12 regional bank presidents, who vote on a rotating basis.If a court rules that Cook can be fired, or Miran isn’t approved in time, then just 11 officials will vote on Wednesday. Either way, there ought to be enough votes to approve a quarter-point cut, but there could be an unusual amount of division.Miran, if he is on the board, and Governor Michelle Bowman may dissent in opposition to a quarter-point reduction in favor of a steeper half-point cut.There could be additional dissenting votes in the other direction, potentially from regional bank presidents who might oppose any cuts at all. Beth Hammack, president of the Fed’s Cleveland branch, and Jeffrey Schmid, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, have both expressed concern that inflation has topped the Fed’s 2% targer for more than four years and is still elevated. If either votes against a cut, it would be the first time there were dissents in both directions from a Fed decision since 2019.“This degree of division is unusual, but the circumstances are unusual, too,” Andolfatto said. “This is a situation central banks really don’t like: The combination of inflationary pressure and labor market weakness.”Hiring has slowed in recent months, with employers shedding 13,000 jobs in June and adding just 22,000 in August, the government reported earlier this month. And last week a preliminary report from the Labor Department showed that companies added far fewer jobs in the year ending in March than previously estimated.At the same time, inflation picked up a bit last month and remains above the Fed’s 2% target. According to the consumer price index, core prices excluding food and energy rose 3.1% in August compared with a year earlier.With inflation still elevated, the Fed may have to proceed slowly with any further cuts, which would likely further frustrate the Trump White House.“When you get to turning points, people can reasonably disagree about when to go,” Meade said. Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writer
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E-Commerce
Its a big day for iPhone owners around the world today. Thats because Apple will release the iPhones new iOS 26 operating system to the public. iOS 26 sports the most significant redesign to the iPhones software in more than a decade, thanks to its new Liquid Glass design language, which makes the iPhones interface elements look like they are made of glass. But iOS 26 features more than just a visual redesign. The new operating system is packed with everything from new AI capabilities to a revamped calling experience. And best of all, iOS 26 is a free download. Heres what you need to know about iOS 26, including which iPhones support it and what time you can download it in countries around the world. When does iOS 26 come out? Apple never confirms an exact time that its new software will be made available to download on its devices. The company has only confirmed the date. To that end, when Apple announced the new iPhones at last weeks annual iPhone event, the company also announced that the iPhones new iOS operating system would become available today, Monday, September 15. However, based on Apples past software release schedules, we can also make a pretty good educated guess as to what time Apple will release iOS 26 to the public. Apple generally likes to release its major software updates at 10 a.m. Pacific. We expect Apple to stick to this timeline today. What time can I download iOS 26? If Apple does indeed release iOS 26 at 10 a.m. PT today, most users in America will be able to install the update before the afternoon is over, if they so wish, since 10 a.m. PT on the West Coast is 1 p.m. ET on the East Eoast. But if youre located outside of the continental United States, iOS 26 will become available at a later local time due to the time zone differences between Cupertino and other countries around the world. With that in mind, here are the times iOS 26 should release to the public in other time zones and countries around the world: Hawaii: 7 a.m. Alaska: 9 a.m. U.S./Canada Pacific (California, Arizona, Vancouver, etc.): 10 a.m. U.S./Canada Mountain (Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, etc): 11 a.m. U.S./Canada Central (Texas, Missouri, Wisconsin, etc): 12 noon Columbia, Ecuador, Puru: 12 noon U.S./Canada East (New York, North Carolina, Florida, Toronto, etc.): 1 p.m. Bolivia; Manaus, Brazil; Venezuela: 1 p.m. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina: 3 p.m. Iceland: 5 p.m. United Kingdom, Portugal, Mali, Guinea: 6 p.m. Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Algeria, Angola: 7 p.m. Moscow, Russia; Finland; Turkey; Zambia; South Africa: 8 p.m. Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Kenya: 9 p.m. India: 10:30 p.m. Laos, Cambodia, Thailand: 12 midnight, Tuesday, September 16 China; Singapore; Hong Kong; Perth, Australia: 1 a.m. Tuesday, September 16 Japan, South Korea: 2 a.m. Tuesday, September 16 Adelaide, Australia: 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, September 16 Sydney, Australia: 3 a.m. Tuesday, September 16 New Zealand: 5 a.m. Tuesday, September 16 What iPhones can I download iOS 26 on? As long as you have a compatible iPhone, youll be able to install iOS 26 on it today. But before you do so, check out Fast Company‘s guide on how to get your iPhone ready for iOS 26. Once youve done that, you can install iOS 26 via your iPhones software update mechanism. iPhones that support iOS 26 are: iPhone 17 iPhone Air iPhone 17 Pro iPhone 17 Pro Max iPhone 16e iPhone 16 iPhone 16 Plus iPhone 16 Pro iPhone 16 Pro Max iPhone 15 iPhone 15 Plus iPhone 15 Pro iPhone 15 Pro Max iPhone 14 iPhone 14 Plus iPhone 14 Pro iPhone 14 Pro Max iPhone 13 iPhone 13 mini iPhone 13 Pro iPhone 13 Pro Max iPhone 12 iPhone 12 mini iPhone 12 Pro iPhone 12 Pro Max iPhone 11 iPhone 11 Pro iPhone 11 Pro Max iPhone SE (3rd generation) iPhone SE (2nd generation) Is Apple releasing other software today besides iOS 26? iOS 26 isnt the only operating system that Apple is releasing to the public today. The company is also releasing updated operating systems for its other devices besides the iPhone. These operating systems include: iPadOS 26 for the iPad macOS 26 Tahoa for the Mac tvOS 26 for the Apple TV visionOS 26 for the Apple Vision Pro watchOS 26 for the Apple Watch You can download the above operating systems on their supported devices by running Software Update on those devices. These new OS’s should also become available at the same time that the iOS 26 update launches.
Category:
E-Commerce
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