Writing in the New York Post, Joshua David Stein reviews Columbia professor Tim Wu's new book, "The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble To Get Inside Our Heads." Stein notes that this "epic scramble" has been going on since "at least 1890, when a young Parisian artist-turned-ad man began plastering the city with brightly colored posters of scantily clad women advertising wine." In exchange for this "eye candy, Parisians tore their gaze from the newly built boulevards and from each other. Thus, the era of modern advertising was born."  Stein notes that as the ad business moved from posters "to precision-targeted …

A judge dismissed a request from France-based ad-tech company Criteo to have a preliminary injunction served against a rival firm it claimed was operating a "counterfeit click fraud" scheme that led to "substantial injury and damage" to its business and reputation, according to a report in Business Insider. Criteo filed its lawsuit against SteelHouse in June. "The suit claimed Criteo had lost business because SteelHouse used a method to falsely take credit for the visits to retailers' web pages. Many retailers measure the performance of their ad tech vendors by using a method called 'last click attribution,' which gives credit to whichever …

A post in the AppNexus blog reports that brands spend the most during Q4, no surprise there. In a whitepaper, AppNexus data scientists offer advice for markteters looking to  connect with holiday shoppers. One tip they offer is that buyers should bid aggressively on inventory they know will perform well, since it’s in short supply. Another tip suggests decreasing spending between Dec. 22 and 31, when CPMs remain high but conversion rates begin to decline.

Facebook published research that promotes its ability to ensure campaigns reach an additional 5% of people that would have otherwise missed it on TV, according to a report in The Drum. "This is highest among the lucrative millennial audience, where the social network reaches 22.6% and 14% of 18 to 24-year-olds and 25 to 34-year-olds respectively, found the study’s researchers Nielsen." The  Drum reported, "The study analyzed the reach between Facebook and TV on 25 campaigns across 2014 and 2015 in the hope of furthering a dynamic the social network has been exploring for some time. Against the target audiences …

Targeting consumers with individualized TV ads using cable or satellite boxes could be one of the upshots of the AT&T and Time Warner merger, according to a report in The New York Times. This would be addressable TV advertising. "AT&T and Time Warner are pointing to targeted advertising as a major benefit of their proposed $85 billion merger. Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner, and Randall L. Stephenson, AT&T’s chief executive, highlighted the vast trove of consumer data their combined companies would have in a call with investors on Monday, and its usefulness …

Writing in The Drum, Wayne Blodwell, CEO of The Programmatic Advisory, discusses the shortage of programmatic media talent and what can be done about it. It's a widely recognized issue, of course. Blodwell wrote that The Programmatic Advisory recently launched a mentorship programm targeting professionals with three-plus years’ experience, who haven't worked within a programmatic role before. "We launched this with the goal of up-skilling five people so that they can further their own careers as well as help grow, and evolve the programmatic industry, filling the talent shortage that we have. The mentorship programme will last 12 months, and …

Data-driven marketing tactics are gaining traction among marketers globally, and most use customer relationship management (CRM) data to help them better understand their customers, according to research published in an eMarketer article. For example, the article states that Adobe polled 735 digital marketers from diverse industries in Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the U.S. "In addition to using CRM data, which two-thirds respondents said they used to augment data-driven marketing, nearly half of digital marketers in North America and Western Europe said they use audience definition, which is advanced segmentation," according to the eMarketer article. The findings revealed that …

Writing in today's Wall Street Journal is Steve Case, the former CEO of AOL and a person who knows about mergers with Time Warner -- he merged with cable giant 16 years ago. Case discusses the pitfalls of the ill-fated merger where the "synergy seemed clear: Time Warner would assure AOL’s path to broadband, and AOL’s internet presence would help Time Warner embrace the digital future. Long before people were streaming movies on their smartphones, we saw the potential for convergence. But our vision was ahead of its time, and the combination was hobbled by internal disagreements." Here's what Case …

The proposed $85 billion merger between AT&T and Time Warner continues to reverberate in adland. The companies, combined, spent $2.91 billion in paid advertising in 2015. What will happen if they merge? Where does all that money go? "Both companies are among the top 10 advertising spenders in the U.S., and AT&T has already said it would look for $1 billion of cost savings over three years," a report in the Wall Street Journal states. "Last year, AT&T spent $1.84 billion on U.S. paid media — including display advertising, but not mobile, social or online video — and was …

With the help of German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE, Business Insider is launching MarketsInsider.com -- a globally-focused markets data and news operation. “The new site, which launches Monday, will be powered by data coming from Finanzen.net, Axel Springer’s German finance portal that crunches numbers coming from 100 exchanges around the world,” The Wall Street Journal reports.