Another Global Brand Sunsets CMO Role; WaPo And Vox Compete On Ad Tech

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No Mo’ CMO

Silvia Lagnado, McDonald’s global CMO since 2015, will leave the company in October, Ad Age reports. McDonald’s plans to scrap the global CMO role in favor of two marketing SVPs: Bob Rupczynski will oversee marketing tech and Colin Mitchell will focus on global branding, menu strategy and merchandising. “With the team, strategy and work on strong footing, Silvia has decided this is the right time to pursue new challenges and opportunities,” CEO Steve Easterbrook wrote in a message to employees. More. Lagnado is the latest in a string of high-profile global CMOs to exit without a replacement, including the former global CMOs of Coca-Cola, Unilever and Mars. But the disappearance of the global CMO role is, counterintuitively, a good sign for ambitious marketers. Many CMOs are elevating to positions where they make board-level decisions and have executive spending authority, like chief growth officer, brand president and even CEO.

News You Can Use

Competition is heating up between The Washington Post and Vox Media, which both have digital content management and monetization platforms. Both publishers developed a CMS as an internal solution before turning it into a commercial product. The revenue models are different, though. Vox’s Chorus business negotiates a flat rate based on audience size, plus an onboarding fee, while the Post’s offering Arc charges a monthly rate based on impression volume and bandwidth. But both fill the same publisher need to invest in ad tech and pool inventory without stretching budgets. “I wish we had the luxury of having infinite resources to really own the full stack,” Daniel Strauss, Tribune Publishing’s product chief, told Digiday. “But I want to pick my bets. As the team was evaluating Arc from the get-go, we saw there was going to be a lot of commitment to iterating the feature set. We could never be as aggressive as they are going to be.” More.

Fines On Fines

The FTC is expected to reveal a settlement with Facebook over its violation of privacy practices as soon as this week, likely right before the platform reports its Q2 earnings on Wednesday. In addition to a $5 billion fine, Facebook will be required to create a new board committee that focuses on privacy oversight, The Wall Street Journal reports. More. Also on the topic of data breaches, Equifax reached a $700 million settlement with the FTC and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Monday regarding its 2017 data breach that exposed the personal information of roughly 150 million Americans. If the settlement is approved by the Northern District Court of Georgia, the company will have to set aside $425 million for a consumer monetary relief fund and pay the CFPB $100 million civil money penalty. WSJ has more.

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