Heineken Ups Programmatic Spend; EU Privacy Issues For Facebook

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Heineken Grows Programmatic Spend

Heineken’s programmatic ad spend will grow to 10% of its total digital ad budget through a partnership with TubeMogul, reports The Wall Street Journal. That’s a relatively modest share to spend on automation (remember AmEx and P&G’s 70 to 100%?), but three years ago Heineken only committed 5% to digital, and that figure has since grown to 25%. “Our media plans were outdated,” said Ron Amram, Heineken USA’s senior media director, “We were too reliant on TV and radio and out-of-home. Now, we are trying to be smarter, measure our impact and be as aligned with consumer behavior and interests as possible.”

EU Eyes Facebook

The EU has repeatedly targeted Google over privacy and antitrust issues – now it’s Facebook’s turn. EU data protection officials have formed a task force composed of regulators from Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany to address Facebook’s latest privacy policy. Regulators take particular issue with the social network’s data collection practices across the web through logins or via its “like” button. Hamburg’s Data Protection Commissioner has also submitted a list of questions to Facebook regarding its new policy. More on that via CIO. Separately, the FCC’s chair introduced a net neutrality proposal on Wednesday that’s ruffling the feathers of carriers like Verizon and AT&T and Internet providers. Read on via Ad Age.

Green Light For Publicis-Sapient

Publicis CEO Maurice Levy may be breathing a small sigh of relief, as his holding company has gotten the regulatory high sign to proceed with its $2.3 billion acquisition of Sapient. The transaction is expected to close on Thursday. Government approval was never seriously in doubt with this transaction, as it was for the company’s doomed Omnicom buy. Press release. Separately, Publicis chief strategist Rishad Tobaccowala has joined the board of Matomy in the wake of an investment last year. Announcement. Holding company, meet tech.

Measuring All The TV

Tribune Broadcasting is strengthening its nationwide TV metrics in cahoots with Rentrak. The publisher and researcher first paired up in 2012 to bring metrics to syndicate stations in Cleveland and Des Moines, Iowa, and this week’s announcement brings that enhanced reporting to all of Tribune’s TV stations. “Rentrak’s data will help our stations make more informed decisions and provide our clients with detailed audience viewing information,” said Larry Wert, the publisher’s president of broadcast media. More.

Bad Coordinates

A report from Thinknear says the accuracy of location data on major exchanges has decreased over the past three months. Sixty-eight percent of mobile ad impressions studied included longitude and latitude, but only 37% of those impressions include coordinates accurate up to 100 meters. “Over the last 12 months, the available inventory for potential location-aware advertising has probably doubled or tripled, and yet during that time the quality of that data hasn’t changed dramatically,” Thinknear general manager Loren Hillberg told Street Fight. “We attribute some of the drop to the overall growth from the mobile web, where location is a bit more challenging to collect from a developer’s perspective.” More.

Bing Kicks Tires On Native

Microsoft’s Bing Ads will experiment with native ads on MSN.com in the second half of 2015, with spots across desktop and mobile. The ads will “pull intent from Bing Ads and extend that into relative programming on MSN,” Bing Ads general manager Steve Sirich told Marketing Land. “If Bing Ads makes it easy for advertisers to test the native ads within its existing interface and the intent signals and targeting prove effective, it could make for a fluid transition for current advertisers to increase spend on the platform,” writes Marketing Land reporter Ginny Marvin. Read on.

But Wait! There’s More!