Paul Donato, recently appointed to ARF chief research officer to spearhead changes, will help focus on initiatives like managing twenty-first century data. The step focuses on moving the ARF back to its roots as an organization doing more research on key industry issues. Data being a key focus for at least the near term.

Not enough marketers pay attention to blockchain technology. They should. It will become the next advancement in fraud prevention while serving online advertisements. Companies such as Intel, Microsoft and MetaX are working on solutions.

Consumers will soon have an option to save an ad they hear on the radio with a push of a button on the steering wheel of their car. Paul Brenner, president at NextRadio, says the button will support a new type of personal, data-targeted advertisement in cars similar to those found while listening to ads on smartphones. It will require tons of data.

Brands want to know where, when and how often their competitors' ads run. And they want to tie the information to the way they buy media using a variety of data. These are issues engineers at Kantar Media have been working hard to solve, said Manish Bhatia, CEO of North America at Kantar Media, a WPP company.

As a kid, Lee Davis wanted to play professional baseball, but stopped growing at about 5 feet, 10 inches and realized that throwing 90-mile-an-hour fast balls wasn't on his short list of things he could accomplish. Perhaps it's not exactly a line drive. But after 30 years in the media business, Davis pitched the ball to MediaCrossing and ended up as EVP of the agency's programmatic practice, which expects to contribute to eMarketers' estimated $32.56 billion in digital display advertising this year.

Mac Delaney, head of programmatic at Merkle, recently completed his "tour of duty" -- from January to April -- in Los Angeles, creating an agency for Warner Bros. Digital. "It's not a difficult place to be holed up for the winter if you live in Chicago like I do," Delaney noted.

Interactive advertising based on real data that personalizes the message can typically keep the interest of consumers longer because they become part of the experience, according to a study conducted by the Harvard University Department of Psychology. Same goes for the way CMOs deliver ideas to their company's board of director or C-suite executives.

In what would be one of the largest data integration deals in history, Verizon Communications says it wants to license customer facts and figures from rivals such as AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone and Telefonica to use for ad targeting, according to one report. This is a a strategy some telecom executives have been talking about for years.

Since there's no better way to gain insights than from data in apps running live, Sweety High, a media company focused on reaching Gen-Z girls, recently announced a partnership with musical.ly to produce live content for live.ly TV, a platform on the app that targets viewers 18 years of age and younger.

Through partnerships with Triton Digital and others, digital audio ads are served through Sizmek's ad server and campaign management system, as well as through its programmatic StrikeAd demand-side platform (DSP).