Amid the heightened political turmoil and moves by the major social media platforms Twitter and Facebook to curtail state-sponsored disinformation, eMarketer has released data showing the impact on Hong Kong's social media usage base. Based on eMarketer's estimates, Facebook is a far more significant source of information for Hong Kong's population.

When it comes to "leisure time" activities, advertising executives say they participate in them more than consumers do, according to findings of two separate studies asking each group how they spend their leisure time.

Today marks the 15th anniversary of Google's initial public offering, which preceded a slew of subsequent tech platform offerings -- from Facebook to Uber. While Google's market cap currently is 35 times higher than its first day of trading, many of the newer tech offerings -- including Snap, Lyft and Uber -- currently are underwater.

Amazon is now the dominant source for e-commerce sales for consumer packaged goods marketers, according to data released this morning by Nielsen E-Commerce. With a 39% share of all CPG sales online, Amazon has overtaken the long tail -- also known as "All Others" -- which was the dominant source two years earlier.

Higher-profile and award-winning streaming series, such as "House of Cards," "Orange is the New Black," "Stranger Things," "Narcos," "Black Mirror," "The Crown," "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" have dominated press and social media conversations. In this week's edition, I highlight some of the "hidden gems" that may have gotten less attention, but nonetheless deserve yours. I'll try my best not to provide any spoilers.

The average adult prime-time CPM has skyrocketed 115% since the 2009-10 upfront network TV sales season, according to a trend analysis released by Media Dynamics today. The analysis estimates this year's upfront for the 2019-20 prime-time season averages $36.19 for adult viewers on the major broadcast networks vs. $16.80 for the 2008-09 season.

With an average upfront prime-time CPM of $43.40, Fox is the priciest of the major broadcast networks, according to a five-year analysis of prime-time network CPMs provided by SQAD. The data delineated in this graphic shows the five-year trend line for the adults 25-54 demographic.

Ethnic minorities represent nearly 40% of the U.S. population, yet multicultural media spending makes up only 5.2% of the U.S. marketing industry, according to findings of the just-released "U.S. Multicultural Media Forecast 2019" from the Association of National Advertisers. Conducted by media industry economic tracker and forecaster PQ Media for the ANA's Alliance for Inclusive and Multicultural Marketing (AIMM), the report reveals that overall multicultural advertising and marketing spending totaled $25.9 billion in 2018.

In an analysis published this week, GroupM Global President of Business Intelligence Brian Wieser plotted the inflation of TV advertising costs vs. the rise of consumer inflation over a 38-year period between 1980 and 2018.

As marketers become increasingly focused on the value of "X" -- as in experience -- Deloitte Digital is offering a roadmap for calculating how human values shape how people experience companies, products, services, brands, etc. In a white paper published today, "Quantifying the Value of Human Values," the digital-savvy marketing organization offers a simple analytical tool for plotting and calculating the weight and role of various values as a matrix.