AdExchanger reports that Interpublic Group is recruiting for at least five new Advanced TV positions for its trading desk and tech unit Cadreon as Madison Ave. prepares for the upfronts. The move is a reaction to networks such as NBCUniversal and Fox attempting to automate digital video, display and now linear TV inventory through private exchanges. However, Cadreon has taken pains to use the "Advanced TV" moniker. Why? “We have a huge appetite for evolving the way TV is planned and bought, but one of the things we wanted to do was to make sure we didn’t call it programmatic TV,” …

Google addressed its move to open dynamic allocation within its ad server to outside exchanges during AdExchanger'sPROGRAMMATIC.IO event this week in San Francisco. Paul Muret, who replaced longtime Google vet Neal Mohan as VP of display and video ads last year, addressed the header-bidding move as well as other proverbial “elephants” in the room: “It’s very important that we can make the open web very healthy and sustainable with a vibrant publisher community,” Muret said. “We’re really looking at this from a user experience standpoint first, but also to help publishers monetize appropriately." And here's what Muret had to …

The Wall Street Journal offers an interesting roundup of industry executives and their preferences for who should acquire Yahoo. Preliminary bids are due Monday for Yahoo’s core Web business—which includes video sites, Yahoo Sports, Yahoo Finance and a vast pool of data from its email addresses—and potentially its Asian assets. For example, Bryan Weiner, executive chairman of Dentsu's 360i, picks Verizon: "Verizon makes a ton of sense because AOL within itself does not bring enough of an audience. [Verizon purchased AOL in 2015.] There is not a big enough audience at AOL to compete with Facebook and Google. Verizon needs …

Research from Econsultancy and Signal found that people-based marketing, or reaching customers with one-to-one messages, is on the rise. In fact, 92% of media buyers and their clients are increasing spend in the area, according to the research. Interestingly, 83% of media buyers said people-based buys have superior performance compared to traditional buys. Of course, it's still early days for the approach, and some marketers have concerns. Seventy-eight percent said they're concerned about data governance within walled gardens, and 77% said they had concerns about closing the attribution loop within these gardens. Additionally, 74% of respondents said they worry about …

Social Times comes out cautiously in favor of Brave, the new browser "whose intention is to realign the ad industry by making the browser a gatekeeper between ads and Internet users." Brave has already caused much controversy, garnering a "blatantly illegal" label from the Newspaper Association of America because it "amounts to re-hosting content, which is a violation of copyright law." Still, notes Social Times' Kimberlee Morrison, while "it’s unlikely that Brave will have an easy time bring its new model to market... users are already speaking out about the …

For local news site Philly.com, the digital presence of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, adding header bidding to its programmatic strategy more than a year ago "grew programmatic from 12% of revenue two years ago to 30% of revenue today," writes AdExchanger's Sarah Sluis. The most difficult part of that strategy: "getting buy-in from senior sales leadership. The idea of programmatic competing against direct-sold impressions can be difficult to swallow." But top members of the team were convinced, with solid results. Excellent case history here, with this sales tip for publishers: "In the past, sales teams would …

Three in four U.S. marketers say ad blocking will have a negative impact on programmatic advertising, according to February research from RBC Capital Markets and Advertising Age via eMarketer. The research found that 58% of respondents said that ad blocking had a "somewhat negative" effect on programmatic, while 20% said it had a "significantly negative" impact. hree in four US marketers say that ad blocking will have a negative effect on the programmatic advertising ecosystem, according to February 2016 research. - See more at: http://www.emarketer.com/Article/Ad-Blocking-Bad-Programmatic-Advertising/1013823?ecid=NL1001#sthash.GRmkeK8B.dpuf

The Guardian reports on itself. David Pemsel, the CEO of the paper's parent company, Guardian Media Group, said the newspaper would consider preventing readers from accessing its content if take-up of ad-blocking software becomes widespread. Pemsel said the paper would not be drawn on the rate of ad-blocking among Guardian readers, but acknowledged that there were some “big scary numbers” in some markets, with reports as high as 25% of readers. “What is important is that in the end we need to make sure the economics stack up,” he said. “If more and more of those ad-blockers are introduced, we …

Rocket Fuel CEO Randy Wooten, in a conversation with AdExchanger'sJames Hercher, tried to explain the company's value proposition and challenges: “We’ve struggled since we acquired x+1 [in August 2014] to communicate to the market who we are and what our distinct value prop is,” he said. Wooten continued: "At its most basic, being a platform means you can have a set of customers interact with you in a self-service way. Everything is in the interface and you only need Rocket Fuel if something breaks or there are issues on the back end. When you have managed service, and this was …

Altitude Digital will pump $20 million into its newly launched Arena platform for publishers, and it's also raised $17.5 million in new funding. Arena, Altitude’s customizable, self-serve supply-side platform (SSP) is used by publishers to manage their video ads. Altitude CEO Jeremy Ostermiller told TechCrunch Altitude's SSP launch is different because premium publishers are “commoditizing” inventory sold through big ad tech platforms. He says his SSP enables publishers to take back some control over their ad inventory, including the ability to create direct relationships with the demand-side platforms that buy advertising, and their own private marketplaces and ad exchanges.