Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.
CPGiants
The world’s largest food manufacturers are trying to swallow each other whole. After reportedly making a bid for Mondelez late last year, Kraft-Heinz offered $143 billion for CPG giant Unilever on Friday (which is roughly Unilever’s market cap, though, oddly, Kraft-Heinz is the smaller company). Unilever rejected the bid. “Still, that is not expected to end the matter,” reports The New York Times. “Pressed by growing competition from upstarts and changing consumer habits, food and consumer-goods giants will have little choice but to seek deals.” More.
YuMe’s Ongoing Restructure
Video ad platform YuMe’s total 2016 revenue decreased 7% to $160.4 million YoY amid a “cost reduction” effort that began last November. With five-year CEO Jayant Kadambi out (Tremor Video’s CEO also exited recently) and YuMe general counsel Paul Porrini in, YuMe said it exceeded earning expectations in Q4 and closed out the year with a total of $21.2 million in programmatic revenue. This time last year, YuMe had no material programmatic revenue. Like other video platforms, YuMe sees connected TV as a growing opportunity and noted significant improvement in its gross margins (52.7%) as proof. More.
Publishers are heeding Pritchard’s call for a healthier supply chain [AdExchanger coverage]. Publisher trade org Digital Content Next is pitching media companies, and not intermediaries, as a cleaning solution for cruddy inventory. “We have heard your calls for human, viewable, third-party accredited inventory,” Kint wrote. “We have heard your calls for brand safety. We want to assure you that our trusted, market-leading brands will continue to engage in meaningful ways to promote and protect your trusted brands.” Read it.
Know Thyself
Facebook quietly added a feature that lets users see which advertisers have access to their personal information. The change came about after a Swiss mathematician, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, pressed legislators to make Facebook turn over specific marketers with his data. The social giant made the fix before the issue could enter arbitration (and the EU now has a track record of punishing arbitration for Silicon Valley giants), reports Kevin Collier at Vocativ. Collier pulled his own data and found 52 brands had his contact information, in many cases with little rhyme or reason. More.
But Wait, There’s More!
- India Offers Citizens’ Biometrics To Tech, Healthcare And App Industries – WSJ
- BuzzFeed Tries To Break Readers Out Of Social Media Bubbles – Bloomberg
- Undertone and Cycle Partner On Branded Content – release
- Baidu Acquires AI Voice Assistant To Compete With Google, Amazon – MediaPost
- YouTube To Stop 30-Second Unlimited Ads – Campaign
- Google Taps Telenor To Launch RCS Messaging In Europe And Asia – blog
- Unlocking The Potential Of Eye-Tracking Technology – TechCrunch
- Amnet And MediaMath Talk The Future Of Programmatic At The Agency – blog
- Accenture Adds 15,000 Jobs In US To Prepare For New Tech Policies – Reuters
- Benedict Evans On Surfing Users, Metrics And Content Creation – blog
- Vietnamese Broadcaster Taps SpotX For Programmatic – release
- Facebook Is Going After A Much Bigger Jobs Market Than Linkedin – Quartz
- The Fatal Flaw In Subscription Publishing Models – TheMediaBriefing
