Verizon/AOL Deal Complete; EU Acquisition Train

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Done Deal

Verizon’s behemoth $4.4 billion AOL acquisition closed on Tuesday, less than two months after the takeover was announced. On a call with press, Verizon EVP Marni Walden shared two key updates. Bob Toohey, president of Verizon Digital Media Services, will now report to AOL chief Tim Armstrong. Cursory details about a mobile-first video product slated to surface this summer were also revealed. “Ad-supported data is part of the offering,” Walden said. The product will focus on live, emerging and on-demand content. While it will work across networks and on Wi-Fi in the US, it “will work best when it’s on Verizon networks,” Walden said. Read on via the NYT.

M&A In The EU

Multiple acquisitions hit the wire Tuesday in the European digital consulting space, as Accenture purchased Brightstep, a Swedish content and commerce agency, and Publicis Groupe’s Starcom MediaVest Group purchased AKOM360, a German digital marketing and content agency. Considering the eurozone has outperformed researchers’ expectations in digital marketing performance, it should come as no surprise that consultancies with strong regional roots are being shopped around.

Programmatic Revolution

The programmatic advertising ecosystem is rubbing off on marketing, according to Harvard Business School senior lecturer Jeffrey Rayport. “Is advertising a bellwether for all of marketing?” asks Rayport. “If so, we will soon see a comprehensive array of marketing functions transformed by programmatic techniques.” When mar tech takes hold, enterprise software systems will add rigor to ROMI (return on marketing investment) metrics and increase the efficiency of campaign planning and bidding. And that ROI focus will bring CFOs and CMOs closer together. Harvard Business Review has more.

From Digital To Edible Cookies

Mondelez International has renewed its marketing content deal with Facebook, citing a need to “exploit the fastest growing consumer behaviours,” which are video consumption and mobile commerce. Mondelez, one of the world’s largest packaged-foods firms, wants to convince consumers to make more impulse buys online or via mobile. They can solve for frictionless payment processing all they want, but consumers are deterred by a lack of instant gratification when they add Oreos to their online shopping cart. The Drum has more.

All Aboard The Techie Yacht

Cannes is a harbinger for the marketing and advertising industries, and its traditional roster of creative agencies has shifted more toward ad tech companies. Following the big SIlicon Valley platforms, ad tech companies hit the beach in force last year, and now it appears to be the year of cloud marketers. Adobe, Oracle and Salesforce are busy at the festival. Evidently, now “Cannes is less about hosting Kardashian-filled yacht parties, and more about detailed informational seminars.” Read more at The WSJ.