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A weekly comic strip from AdExchanger that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem…

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. You The User Google announced major changes to its advertising control features. Users can now see brands that are targeting them for retargeting campaigns – what Google calls “reminder ads” – and decide whether to shut them down. Next it will expand the tool […]

Media and telco M&A volume in the US increased 29% year over year in 2017 to nearly $140 billion, driven mostly by megadeals like Disney’s $68.4 billion bid for 21st Century Fox, according to new data from PwC. More specifically, there were 18 megadeals in 2017, including Discovery’s $11.8 billion merger with Scripps. Although large […]

TGI Fridays has a growing appetite for artificial intelligence (AI) and personalization. AI tech is a strategic investment area for the casual dining restaurant chain this year, said James Washington, TGIF’s product manager for digital platforms. Top-of-the-agenda use cases include improving the dining experience and enhancing the brand’s cross-channel messaging strategy, both of which hinge […]

Twitter is a company that always seems on the verge of flight. The potential is there, but the question remains: Will the platform ever be able to fulfill it? Instability in Twitter’s C-suite doesn’t help. On Tuesday, COO Anthony Noto – second in command to Jack Dorsey – became the most recent top Twitter exec to fly […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Tim Ware, vice president of advanced television at Telaria. In my last column, a little more than a year ago, I outlined the philosophical differences between programmatic TV and digital video buyers. While both […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Settle An Old Score Changes are afoot at comScore, but it’s unclear if those changes are for the better or the worse. Bloomberg reports comScore has enlisted Goldman Sachs to explore a potential sale, though no formal talks have begun. The measurement firm also […]

As the value of publisher data surges, Adam Harris, VP of data products at Hearst Magazines Digital Media, is tasked with maximizing its opportunities. When Harris joined in May, he looked at how Hearst data can be used to create experiences that drive sales, which performance-focused advertisers demand from their digital media. The work builds […]

Although video header bidding is still nascent, early adopters are starting to see results. Social-heavy publisher Diply has been using AppNexus’ video header bidding solution Prebid Video since the end of last year to allow programmatic auctions to compete alongside its ad server –  Google’s DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP). Customizing its header bidding wrapper helps […]

Just six weeks into her new role as CMO of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Andrea Zahumensky is hitting the market Sunday with her first big campaign launch for the quick-serve restaurant’s new Smoky Mountain BBQ flavor. Zahumensky, who joined KFC from Procter & Gamble, where she was brand director for baby care products in North America, […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Adam Schenkel, vice president of programmatic at GumGum. Correction: This column has been updated to more accurately characterize Chrome’s ad-blocking enforcement. Per Google, a single noncompliant ad format or creative […]

Conde Nast wants to quickly build up its data science practice, so it acquired Lighthouse Datalab on Monday. In so doing, it added three people to its data science team who will enhance the machine-learning and AI capabilities of Spire, its data platform. Lighthouse Datalab founder Sriram Subramanian will serve as head of data science […]

When Wavemaker, the agency born from GroupM’s joining of MEC and Maxus, hired former Publicis exec Oleg Korenfeld last month, it asked him to build a platform to facilitate media planning, buying and strategy across eight major markets. The agency knows that having globally scaled technology is key to its ability to consolidate. Korenfeld is […]

When Facebook updates Ads Manager or tests a new ad placement, agencies – and even their account reps – are sometimes the last to know. In some cases, new features are enabled by default without any overt communication from Facebook, which can be “par for the course,” said Anita Walsh, director of social strategy at Horizon […]

TBS and TNT’s new CMO, Michael Engleman, is on a mission to make the networks’ brand marketing engine much more agile. Engleman, who helped rebrand the Sci Fi Channel as SyFy during his time at NBCUniversal, thinks broadcasters will be forced to adapt as new content producers and channels compete for consumer attention. For years, […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Up To BAT The programmatic market in China grew roughly 49% to $16.7 billion in 2017, according to new figures released by eMarketer. Almost 80% of programmatic spend in China went to mobile.  Programmatic’s share of display spend in China is 60%, which still […]

Procter & Gamble isn’t done trimming its agency and advertising investments, even after a year of deep cuts to media and production budgets, according to senior managers during the company’s Q2 earnings report on Tuesday. Digital media and tech vendors have become more transparent since P&G began crusading against online supply chain failures a year […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Will Luttrell, founder and CEO at Amino Payments. For years, programmatic was considered the efficient channel for media buying. And it is, depending on how you define “efficient.” I would […]

The cookie is under pressure. On Tuesday, Amsterdam-based cross-device vendor Screen6 released a tool that CEO David de Jong says can add cookies to cross-device graphs in real time before they have a chance to decay. Device fragmentation, Apple’s recent moves to prevent third-party tracking in iOS 11 and environments where there are no cookies, […]

The paid ads folks at mattress brand Purple and online watch retailer MVMT spend their days obsessing about measurement – and stressing over data silos. Budgets are lean, and they’re under pressure to tie spend to success. A six-person team at Purple manages paid advertising across more than 15 channels. But combining, analyzing, comparing and activating […]

Many large brands have in-housed advertising technology as part of a data-driven marketing overhaul. But for Marriott, the data-driven plan has meant taking more ownership of media production, including travel news sites and documentary features, as data ties creative content to bottom-line results. Last year, Marriott consolidated data from its Marriott and Ritz-Carlton rewards programs […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. When Less Is More Facebook’s recent algo change could lure TV dollars if it reduces the amount of publisher video content in the news feed. If pubs spend less on Facebook traffic, it “could lead to less inventory and push advertisers towards the more […]

“Brand Aware” explores the data-driven digital ad ecosystem from the marketer’s point of view. Today’s column is written by Bennett Rosenblatt, rider display marketing lead at Uber. At Uber, our programmatic strategy prioritizes transparency and trust above all. We run campaigns in an enterprise self-service demand-side platform (DSP) and leverage a transparent ad server to […]

Netflix will inevitably need ads, predicted Jo Ann Ross, CBS’ president and chief advertising revenue officer, during a fireside chat at AdExchanger’s Industry Preview on Thursday. “Maybe they’ll offer a lower-cost version of their service [or a different model],” she said, “but if they’re spending that much money [on content], they will look for ways […]

“On TV And Video” is a column exploring opportunities and challenges in advanced TV and video. Today’s column is written by Tom Weiss, chief technology officer and chief data scientist at Dativa. With online segments overlaid on linear schedules, many are hoping for a golden age of TV advertising, where brands can break out beyond […]

Within the context of Publicis Groupe’s broader restructure, Publicis Media was born to simplify the group’s media offering while leveraging a more modern definition of scale. “Although it’s become so much more complex, media has always been about scale and insight,” said Steve King, CEO of Publicis Media. “We weren’t leveraging that scale effectively.” Publicis […]

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Ad Bubble? Investors have overestimated the growth potential of digital advertising, claims The Economist. Valuations are sky-high for Google and Facebook, which generate their revenue from ads, while mega-mergers like Comcast-NBCUniversal and AT&T-Time Warner’s pending deal are justified in part on the basis of […]

With Time Warner on board or not, AT&T is pushing forward with its vision for the next potential addressable ad platform giant. CMOs or holding company agencies might pour money into Google and Facebook, but “they’re nervous about the content they’ve produced living in environments they can’t control,” said Brian Lesser, AT&T’s CEO of advertising […]

The advertising industry has been plagued by a lack of trust, with vendors, agencies and marketers looking at each other askance. Ad fraud, bad traffic and hidden fees have taken their toll, and while industry players have taken measures to reinstitute their good standing, their work isn’t nearly complete. During a panel Thursday at AdExchanger’s […]

“Data-Driven Thinking” is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. Today’s column is written by Ed Camargo, vice president of paid media at PMX Agency. As marketers, we are constantly prompted to consider the question, “How do people intuitively engage with media?” We are, after […]