Postmaster General Louis DeJoy hires a consulting firm

Hi! Welcome to the Insider Advertising daily for October 12. I'm Lauren Johnson, a senior advertising reporter at Business Insider. Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday. Send me feedback or tips at ljohnson@businessinsider.com.

Today's news: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy hires a consulting firm, Beyond Meat bets big on breakfast, and Instagram adds audio features to Reels.

Facing Congressional investigation, Postmaster General DeJoy hires a consulting and PR firm with deep Trump administration ties

• Patrick Coffee reports that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy hired a consulting firm with ties to President Trump to represent him after the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation into his private business.
• The investigation follows a Washington Post report that the longtime Republican fundraiser may have violated campaign fundraising law.
• Patomak Global Partners was founded by Paul Atkins, a former SEC executive who has advised Trump on financial deregulation and served on his business council.

Read the full story here.

Beyond Meat thinks breakfast is the next big battlefield for plant-based meat makers — its CMO explains why

• Alex Bitter spoke with Beyond Meat's CMO Stuart Kronauge about why the brand will start selling breakfast sausage links at retailers like Kroger and Whole Foods, the plant-based meat company's fourth product introduction and second breakfast-themed one so far this year.
• Rival Impossible Foods has also spent 2020 breaking into breakfast sausage, though the company has focused on restaurants instead of retailers.
• Sales of fresh plant-based breakfast meats nearly tripled in the 12 weeks ending August 9, according to data cited by Beyond Meat from provider SPINS.

Read the full story here.

Instagram has added new audio features to Reels that solve a major pain point for music marketers and could help it compete with TikTok

• Instagram rolled out new products last week to make it easier for people to find trending songs on Reels, reports Dan Whateley.
• The company created a new song discovery page featuring "trending" tracks, added the ability to share audio pages with friends in direct messages, and created an option for users to bookmark songs for later use (similar to the "favorite" feature in TikTok).
• The features could help Instagram compete more with TikTok, which has a heavy focus on music.

Read the full story here.

More stories we're reading:

• Amazon is giving free Prime Day credits worth $200 to first-time ad buyers, as it tries to leverage its retail muscle to boost its advertising business (Business Insider)
• Shaq, MLK's son, former Disney executives team up to create SPAC (Wall Street Journal)
• Google tries to turn YouTube into a major shopping destination (Bloomberg)
• TikTok spins Ocean Spray-Fleetwood Mac viral video into a commercial (AdAge)

Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow! You can reach me in the meantime at ljohnson@businessinsider.com and subscribe to this daily email here.

— Lauren