Your commercial news round-up: internet outage, oil prices, Lewis Hamilton ad, Labubu dolls

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A 15-hour Amazon Web Services (AWS) outage this week disrupted thousands of businesses worldwide and oil prices have spiked following new US sanctions on Russia’s top producers. In the UK, gambling ads featuring Lewis Hamilton and Chelsea FC were banned over concerns about youth influence and, across the globe, the viral Labubu dolls have driven a 250% revenue surge for Chinese toy giant Pop Mart. Read on for LCN’s picks of the top commercial stories this week!

• A 15-hour outage at AWS on Monday 20 October disrupted more than 2,000 companies globally, halting access to major platforms like Snapchat, Signal and Duolingo, and even affecting Amazon’s own operations. Downdetector, a website that tracks internet outages, revealed that there were 8.1 million reports of problems from users across the world, with 1 million coming from the UK. Later in the evening, Amazon announced that all of its cloud services had “returned to normal operations”. According to The Guardian, the incident exposed the world’s deep reliance on a few cloud providers and the fragility of digital infrastructure. AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud dominate 60% of the global cloud market, with control over data processing and proprietary systems that make switching providers difficult. Principal analyst at Forrester, Brent Ellis, commented: "There's great appeal to using tech giants, but assuming they’re too big to fail or inherently resilient is a mistake, with the evidence being the current outage and past ones." Ellis added: "It's a feature of a highly concentrated risk where even small service outages can ripple through the global economy."
   
• Oil prices have surged after US President Donald Trump imposed new sanctions on Russia’s top oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil. The price of brent crude has increased by 5.2% to $65.83 a barrel, which in turn led to a boost in shares of energy companies Shell and BP of about 3%. The move is said to be increasing pressure on Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine. The sanctions have frozen all US-based assets of the companies, prohibiting American companies from conducting business with them. The US has also warned of secondary sanctions targeting foreign financial institutions such as banks who are involved in Russian oil transactions, potentially affecting trade with China, India and Turkey. According to The Guardian, Reliance Industries – the largest Indian buyer of Russian crude – is reportedly preparing to cut or halt imports. Meanwhile, the EU has announced its own sanctions, including a ban on Russian natural gas imports. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, said the US administration was “prepared to take further action if necessary to support President Trump’s effort to end yet another war”.
   
• The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned gambling ads from Kwiff and Betway for featuring Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton and the Chelsea Football Club logo. The ASA warned that Kwiff’s July post on X, promoting the British Grand Prix with Hamilton’s image, and Betway’s May YouTube ad showing fans in Chelsea gear could have a strong influence on underaged viewers. The ASA cited Hamilton’s significant youth following, including 150,000 UK Instagram followers under 18, his appearance in the F1 24 video game rated for ages three and above, and his role on the BBC’s children’s television channel CBeebies. Meanwhile, the ASA said that Betway’s advertisement breached its code because YouTube was an unsuitable platform and it’s, “likely that there was at least a significant number of children who had not used their real date of birth when signing up to YouTube”. Both gambling firms have said that they’re cooperating with the ASA’s recommendations to ensure their ads are compliant.
   
• Chinese toy company Pop Mart reported a 250% year-on-year revenue increase for the three months to the end of September, driven by the August release of mini Labubu dolls. International markets played a key role, with US sales soaring more than 1,200% and European sales up more than 700%. The company’s shares rose by 5.5% in Hong Kong, boosting its market value to approximately £34 billion. Labubu’s global appeal has been amplified by celebrity endorsements from Kim Kardashian and Lisa of Blackpink, as well as collaborations with Coca-Cola and manga franchise One Piece. Pop Mart’s blind box sales model, while popular, has faced criticism for promoting compulsive buying. Since their 2019 debut, Labubu dolls have helped Pop Mart expand to more than 2,000 vending machines and stores worldwide.

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