Month: January 2018

Google continues to stymie competition in online shopping despite a record fine from European authorities and an order to modify its behavior, rivals say.

Majorities of Americans say the federal government does not provide enough help for older people (65%), poor people (62%) and the middle class (61%). By contrast, nearly two-thirds (64%) say the government provides too much help for wealthy people.

A Droga5 representative said Tuesday that the New York agency has hired an outside firm to investigate chief creative officer Ted Royer and that Royer has taken a leave of absence. The agency declined to comment on the nature of the investigation. Droga employees told Adweek that the agency held departmental meetings last week to…

With no meaningful National Football League action during the week of Jan. 22 (unless you count the Pro Bowl), the 60th Annual Grammy Awards swooped in to dominate the Nielsen Social Content Ratings for the week. CBS’ presentation of the Grammys totaled 41.518 million interactions across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram–the latter of which made its…

Data, the new, sexy buzzword formerly known as the old, unsexy buzzword has in many ways been pitched as the great equalizer. After all, we can all buy the same set of stats and figures. Data is literally a commodity. As such, there’s a temptation to commoditize all firms that use it. But to do…

Alexa won’t be the only big Amazon brand featured in Super Bowl LII. In addition to a 90-second Amazon ad airing in the fourth quarter, the company has also purchased a 60-second ad to spotlight its upcoming Prime Video series, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. It will be the first Super Bowl spot for the streaming…

Vice Media announced today that it will combine all its advertising ventures under the umbrella organization Virtue Worldwide. The news comes one year after the youth-oriented company created the entity, which bore the same name as the full-service creative shop it founded in 2006. Now, Carrot Creative–the digital agency Vice acquired in 2013–will be fully…

Peyton Manning is returning to the Super Bowl. The retired NFL star is appearing in a 30-second in-house ad for Universal Orlando Resort and Universal Studios Hollywood, part of Comcast’s NBCUniversal, which will run during Super Bowl LII. “Vacation Quarterback” sees Manning coaching a family during their trip to Universal, coaxing them to get the…

AdExchanger |

The Federal Trade Commission will soon be populated by a completely fresh crop of appointees with no holdovers from the previous administration. It’s an irregular situation. But what it means for advertisers and for the commission’s future direction is still unclear. President Trump finally sent his nominations for four commissioners out of five to the… Continue reading »

The post A New Day Is About To Dawn At The FTC. What’s Next? appeared first on AdExchanger.

Vice is planning to fold its ad agency, Carrot Creative, into its creative agency, Virtue, Digiday has learned. Carrot CEO Mike Germano will also leave the company, less than a month after he was put on a leave of absence while harassment claims against him were being investigated. 

The move comes less than a month after Vice Media suspended President Andrew Creighton and Germano, who was chief digital officer as well as the co-founder and CEO of Carrot — following the New York Times story that included allegations of sexual harassment against both of them.

Germano was on a leave of absence while Vice’s human resources team and an outside investigator examined the allegations.

It is unclear how long the merger talks have been occurring, although some sources told Digiday that they had been brewing for a while, even as Vice execs questioned the point of having two separate agency entities under the Vice umbrella. One current employee said merger talks had been happening since early November. The idea was that there was no point in having two agencies that did the same job inside the company.

Vice did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The company’s COO and CFO, Sarah Broderick, sent a memo to employees on Jan. 30 that said, “Continuing under Virtue’s name, the integrated agency will bring together complementary offerings under one organization.”

In January 2017, Vice Media announced it was launching Virtue Worldwide, a 450-person business that would combine Virtue and Carrot. The agencies, however, continued to operate separately.

The plan was to have the merger go through in the first quarter. But it was Germano’s suspension, plus moves like former Carrot President Ryan Mack becoming COO at Virtue, that made the merger talks louder, according to employees. “You kind of started feeling the rumblings of it, and things are not very transparent,” said one employee. Carrot shares a floor with Virtue at the Vice office, but it was taking weeks for information to trickle up from Carrot to Virtue to Vice and back down, this person said.

Since the Times story, Virtue has lost clients including Walmart. Ad Age previously reported that major marketers like Ally Financial are meeting with Vice to discuss concerns.

Vice bought Carrot in December 2013, a move that turned heads because it was unusual at the time for a media company to buy an ad agency. In an interview with Digiday in 2016, Germano said only 25 percent of its business is for Vice — and the culture there is completely different than at Vice itself, which is why it was kept separate (until now) from Virtue. Vice is Williamsburg, while Carrot is Dumbo, said Germano at the time. “They knew who we are and what got us excited,” he said at the time. “They were wise enough not to screw with that. We’re this happy-go-lucky, nerdy group who gets excited about platforms, and Vice is dropping reporters into a crazy country.”

Broderick’s memo appears in full below.

The post After harassment allegations against Carrot Creative’s CEO, Vice will merge Carrot with Vice in-house agency Virtue appeared first on Digiday.