Anglo-French
The French agency holdco Havas has considered options for acquiring its struggling English rival, WPP, The Times of London reports.
WPP right now is floating on a life raft with sharks circling below and vultures above. The company shed 60% of its market cap in the past year and now stands at just above $4 billion in value. (That’s up from about $3 billion before the news of Havas mulling a deal dropped over the weekend.)
Hedge funds have placed short-seller bets on WPP, expecting a payoff if WPP is removed from the FTSE 100, the leading UK stock index. With a market cap in the low billions, WPP is a top candidate for replacement in the index.
Since WPP is now a relatively smaller company, it’s in play for hostile or negotiated arrangements. For instance, Havas, which is a private company controlled by the family of billionaire Vincent Bolloré, could secure a double-digit ownership share in WPP and likely a board seat, the Times reports.
After all, that’s how the Bolloré family began its steady takeover of Havas, then a public company, beginning in 2004.
GDPR-revoir
The era of the EU holding Big Tech accountable is over, and even aspects of Europe’s landmark GDPR law might soon be rewritten, The New York Times reports.
The European Commission, which oversees tech regulation in the EU, will unveil tomorrow a proposed “simplification” of many of its existing rules.
The Commission is responding to criticisms that its heavy hand in regulatory matters over the past decade have stifled the EU’s competitiveness with the US and China and unfairly targeted US-based companies. It also hopes looser regulation will make Europe a leader in the AI race.
For example, the proposed changes to GDPR, which set the template for how digital advertisers collect and use online data, are actually focused on AI. Users will no longer have to consent to data sharing on individual websites, and may instead set their consent preferences at the browser level. The change makes it easier for AI companies to access training data – but also, naturally, impacts the ad industry.
Plus, the Commission is rewriting how it defines “personal data” in the first place, in a complete rethinking of the protections that underlie GDPR.
Chalk it up to another unexpected way AI is changing digital advertising.
Ad Block This
A joke column from Joe Queenan at The Wall Street Journal bemoans that large retail chains – grocery stores, in particular – are playing music at, like, way too high a volume.
Retail employees, he writes, are crying out (while wearing earmuffs to dull the noise) for songs people actually want to hear.
But what he doesn’t know is that retail chains are incorporating audio ads from in-store music feeds into their retail media networks. And behind that uncomfortably noisy shopping experience is a pristine campaign report of verifiably audible impressions.
We’re kidding, of course. But it’s no laughing matter how advertising can cause self-inflicted harms to retail shopping experiences.
Consider the trend of grocery and pharmacy chains rolling out locks on their shelves. Some stores now see a data-driven opportunity to compel customers to download an app, join a member program and share personal info like a phone number to unlock items without an attendant’s help.
There are even shopping carts that auto-lock to prevent shoplifting and blare an alarm when rolled outside the store. Oh, they also display personalized ads.
So maybe it’s no joke how all the worst parts of the retail experience are becoming fodder for advertising.
But Wait! There’s More!
TikTok offers a bunch of new cash incentives to convince users to buy through TikTok Shop. [Digiday]
National CineMedia, an in-theater ad network, acquires Spotlight Cinema Networks, another ad network for movie theaters. [release]
MSNBC launches a new web domain – ms.now – as part of its rebranding and spinoff from NBC News. [The Verge]
Engineers at Google, Meta and Microsoft say the Department of Homeland Security has been slower to follow up on online child sexual abuse material lately because DHS is shifting its resources to immigration enforcement. [NYT]
The four types of political AI deepfakes. [Tech Policy Press]
Why California’s legislative push to get Big Tech to subsidize journalism didn’t pan out. [Talking Points Memo]
