Month: September 2019

Most things look cuter when they’re in miniature, but does that still apply to something like thousands of cars stuck in gridlock? A new ad campaign for Swedish public transit service V?sttrafik turns toy cars into an imposing illustration of the 30,000 vehicles that could be removed from the road through a current promotion offering…

Spending on the addressable ad market is expected to hit $3.3 billion by 2020, and recent months have seen ad-tech companies stake their claim in the market with buffets of offerings. With the fall television season kicking off this week, ad-tech firms have debuted some TV-centric rollouts of their own. One of the biggest announcements…

French president Emmanuel Macron recently announced a government initiative that will deploy 5 billion euros of committed institutional capital toward late-stage VC, a year after strategizing with entrepreneurs and startups to elevate the country’s standing in the global tech industry. The investment cohort, mainly composed of insurance companies and asset management firms, will assume a…

Facebook Live is going to get mean on Oct. 3. Paramount Pictures feature film Mean Girls was released 15 years ago, and Oct. 3 is Mean Girls Day thanks to one of the film’s iconic lines, “On Oct. 3, he asked me what day it was.” Award-winning Broadway musical comedy Mean Girls is teaming up…

Jess Greenwood is stepping into the role of global chief marketing officer at R/GA. She replaces Daniel Diez, who left R/GA in 2018 to join Magic Leap as chief marketing and communications officer. Greenwood previously served as U.S. co-chief strategy officer at R/GA alongside Tom Morton. Morton will lead the agency’s U.S. strategy team, which…

Music streaming service Spotify is celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Beatles’ Abbey Road album with an exclusive playlist, The Beatles Abbey Road Experience. Spotify said Beatles music has been streamed on its platform nearly 1.7 billion times so far in 2019, adding that “Here Comes the Sun,” from the Abbey Road album, is the…

Omnicom CRM shop Precision Marketing Group is moving deeper into AI, announcing it has acquired a majority stake in marketing technology developer Smart Digital GmbH. Omnicom singled out Smart
Digital’s proprietary AI platform and data capabilities as a key reason for the investment, noting that it enables “real-time customer experiences” based on recognizing what digital “touchpoints”
consumers are present on.

Corporate synergy alert: Google-owned video site YouTube said its YouTube Music application will be preinstalled on all new mobile devices with Android 10 and Android 9, including the Google Pixel line. The Android operating system was developed by Google. YouTube Music product manager Brandon Bilinski said in a blog post that people should see the…

Earlier this year, I was in a horrific motorcycle accident and lost an arm to paralysis. When something like that happens, your mind almost inevitably can default to a dark place–frequently. Though I’ve otherwise recovered nicely, some days are just overwhelming. Thankfully, I have the support of family, friends and work to help keep me…