Wall Street Journal
Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) President and CEO Randall Rothenberg called on advertisers, publishers, and ad tech companies to remove themselves from the fake news business and to take responsibility for preventing the spread of fake news online. Rothenberg spoke from the IAB's annual leadership meeting in Florida on Monday. He said fake news represents a "moral failure," according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. According to the paper, he said, "If you do not seek to address fake news and the systems, processes, technologies, transactions, and relationships that allow it to flourish, then you are consciously abdicating responsibility …
Re/code
Recode cites source reports that Snap Inc. plans to file its initial public offering late last week which means the company will likely go public sometime in March. The company's valuation could reach $25 billion or more, according to the report. Snap already did a private filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission for its IPO late last year, but the IPO filing will mark the first time the public will get a peak into its financials and core business. Recode reports the "offering is being led by Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, with a whole string of other …
Business Insider
MediaMath reorganized its executive ranks as it prepares for its "next phase." Business Insider reported that several of the company's cofounders have moved into new roles and newer ones ave taken on broader responsibilities. Among the changes: Michael Lamb, president of commercial, will become president; Ari Buchalter, president of technology, will become chief advisor; Erich Wasserman, cofounder and chief revenue officer, will become global head of key accounts; Greg Williams, cofounder and SVP of open partnerships, will also work key accounts with Wasserman; and Will Schobeiri, SVP of technology, has become chief technology officer. MediaMath CEO Joe Zawadzki told Business Insider, "100%" of the company's …
Wall Street Journal
Snap, Inc. is looking to target people with ads using sophisticated data. "The company has signed a deal with Oracle Data Cloud, previously known as Datalogix, that will help marketers use data from offline purchases, such as supermarket loyalty cards, to target consumers with potentially more relevant ads on the increasingly popular Snapchat mobile messaging app," The Wall Street Journal reports. The partnership is designed to help marketers measure whether Snapchat ad campaigns turn in real-world sales. The report says this marks the first time Snapchat has allowed for ad targeting using third party data. The paper notes that Google, …
Wall Street Journal
In the programmatic media world, native advertising is becoming a bigger part of the volume being traded on various ad exchanges, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. But publishers are still rather slow to adopt the native format and still lean on banner advertising. "The push for more native ad units took off about five years ago, when many digital media executives began to rethink the way advertising is presented on the internet," the report says. Facebook and Twitter began ditching banners to use custom units "designed to be integrated into and match their own platforms’ form …
Wall Street Journal
Snap, the maker of Snapchat, is looking to target consumers via data and has signed a deal with Oracle Data Cloud, previously known as Datalogix, that is designed to help marketers use data from offline purchases "to target consumers with potentially more relevant ads on the increasingly popular Snapchat mobile messaging app," according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. "The partnership will also help these marketers measure whether Snapchat ad campaigns result in real-world sales. This is the first time Snapchat has allowed for ad targeting using third party data. Google, Facebook, and Twitter have long offered the same …
Seeking Alpha
Seeking Alpha called Criteo, a provider of performance-based ads or re-targeting, has been called out by Seeking Alpha, as having "built an impressive online advertisement engine which works differently than many others." Seeking Alpha described Criteo as a "leader in performance-based ads" and that despite its financial performance, "its shares are still below the all-time highs set a year and a half ago." The publication said said Criteo is "different from other online ad technologies as its business model is basically based on arbitraging between CTR ('click-through rate') and CPM ('cost per thousand'). Basically, Criteo purchases ad spaces on the …
DailyQuint
At least some ad tech companies seem to be doing well. While Rubicon Project said on Friday that it was exploring "strategic coptions" including a sale, and Rocket Fuel recently laid off 11% of its staff in a restructuring, Criteo appears to be roaring ahead. RBC Capital Markets put its stock price at $56 a share with a buy rating. By comparison, Rubicon's stock price came in at $8.56 a share in mid-day trading on Friday. However there is variance--Jeffries Group decreased their share price target on Criteo from $65 to $63
GeekWire
Programmatic advertising company AudienceScience is laying off as much as a quarter of its staff, according to a report in GeekWire which reportedly received tips that the company was laying off employees in multiple departments. The company declined to offer a number, "but a source with knowledge of the layoffs put the number of jobs lost at fewer than 50. It is unclear which departments the cuts will affect most and which locations will feel the brunt of the layoffs. Prior to the layoffs, Audience Science employed more than 200 people," according to the report. AudienceScience's statement to GeekWire said: "The latest …
Wall Street Journal
Holding companies WPP and Omnicom are laser-focused on competing for marketers’ growing digital media budgets "by promising the best technology tools and analytics and catering to clients’ desire for increased transparency in the fees they are paying," according to a Wall Street Journal report. The competition is heating up with memos circulating. For example, Omnicom's data and tech unit Annalect promotes its own proprietary tools and describes WPP's GroupM offering, mPlatform, as a “game of catch-up,” saying GroupM’s approach replicates what Annalect has “been doing for years," the Journal report says. "The Omnicom memo describes WPP’s investment in media companies …