According to The Drum, Adform, a Danish demand-side platform (DSP), has appointed Anthony Rhind as chief strategy officer, a new position at the company.

Publicis Groupe decentralized VivaKi, its agency trading desk, earlier this year, and "it did so to capitalize on the increasing performance of programmatic," AdExchanger writes, citing VivaKi CEO Stephan Beringer.

Nielsen has acquired neuromarketing researching company Innerscope Research for an undisclosed sum, Advertising Age has reported. "Founded in 2006 by neuroscientist Dr. Carl Marci and MIT alum Brian Levine, Innerscope uses biometrics such as brain scans and galvanic skin response to measure subconscious emotional responses to media and marketing," writes Advertising Age.

Xaxis, GroupM's programmatic media-buying unit, recently launched Xaxis Audio, which lets advertisers buy digital audio ads programmatically. In an interview with Beet.TV, Nicolas Bidon, Xaxis UK's managing director, talked about the new service.

Business Insider has ranked the "hottest pre-IPO" ad tech startups of 2015. Included in the rankings are Sharethrough, Videology, Mediaocean, AdRoll, PubMatic, DataXu, Centro, AppNexus and more.

Google has been building a secretive anti- ad fraud team -- now up to over 100 -- reports Advertising Age. "Mysterious to many even within Google, the group has never spoken to an outsider about the way it hunts botnets, let alone allowed someone into its offices to observe the process," writes Advertising Age.

Business Insider has launched a publisher trading desk, using technology from Rubicon Project, to bring on small advertisers that didn't meet its spend minimums for direct buys and didn't have their own DSPs for programmatic sales, AdExchanger has reported.

Jivox, a digital ad company, this week announced it has launched new technology that "constructs in real-time the creative components of an ad -- including text and various graphical or animated elements -- for you," writes VentureBeat.

"Industry observers say Verizon intends to acquire AOL for its ad-tech capabilities," writes Advertising Age. "But behind all good ad tech is data -- and lots of it. Both companies complement one another when it comes to data -- especially in terms of mobile location and behavioral data."

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Cadreon, IPG Mediabrands' trading desk, has partnered with programatic video ad-buying platform TubeMogul "to build tools and software for buying targeted TV ads."