In advance of Advertising Week Europe which takes place March 20-24, Chris Allen, Managing Director of North America, Infectious Media, argues that programmatic is quickly making the global media agency obsolete. "I hate to be the one to spoil the party – we all love a bit of jet-setting glamour – but times are changing and the truth is, the days of the global media agency are probably numbered. The reason behind this is the same thing that’s driven so much disruption in advertising over the last decade: programmatic," Allen writes. "From fairly humble beginnings in the last decade, programmatic …

With Google's YouTube and Facebook submitting to rigorous metrics audits by the Media Rating Council (MRC), there's new pressure for Snap Inc.'s Snapchat to undergo a similar audit.  At issue is advertisers' level of comfort with metrics and data from Snapchat and their understanding of whether consumers are looking at their ads. "Making advertisers comfortable with the data on how long users watch ads and whether they actually see them on Snapchat’s messaging platform could be crucial to the company’s growth. Snap is seeking a potential $22 billion valuation in its IPO, and to help live up to that price …