More advertisers are taking marketing in-house — meet the firms helping them make the move

Hi! Welcome to the Insider Advertising daily for November 19. I'm Lauren Johnson, a senior advertising reporter at Business Insider. Subscribe here to get this newsletter in your inbox every weekday. Send me feedback or tips at LJohnson@businessinsider.com.

Today's news: The firms behind the in-house marketing boom, Edelman's push to rival ad agencies, and YouTube's pitch for audio ads.

Meet 20 firms helping big brands like Sprint and Unilever take their advertising in-house

• Tanya Dua looked at the firms behind the rise of in-house marketing — a trend that has grown during the pandemic.
• Consultancies and firms have helped marketers make the shift and handle hiring, creating content, media buying, and measurement.
• The list includes independent firms like Brunner and larger agencies like WPP-owned Essence.

Read the full story here.

PR giant Edelman shares its playbook for taking on ad agencies, with a 600-person advertising team and client wins like Ikea and Asics

• Sean Czarnecki reports that PR giant Edelman is pushing to take on ad agencies in creative work with hires from Leo Burnett and McCann.
• Edelman has won creative for accounts like Ikea, Asics, Tazo, and Good Humor and launched a video content studio called The Blue Room.
• Advertising competitors are skeptical Edelman can be a serious contender.

Read the full story here.

YouTube is pushing advertisers toward a new audio unit, and it shows how important music is to driving growth on the platform

• Hugh Langley spoke with Lyor Cohen, YouTube's head of music, about its new pitch for audio ads.
• More than 2 billion people are playing music videos on YouTube each month, showing how big music is becoming to YouTube.
• YouTube's audio ads show a still image because 85% of music consumption on its platform happens in the foreground.

Read the full story here.

More stories we're reading:

• A YouTube star breaks down how much money he spends on videos with expensive stunts like filling a pool with liquid nitrogen or building a massive trampoline tower (Business Insider)
• Amazon is aggressively underpricing grocery competitors like Walmart and Target amid the pandemic, in a bid to capture the huge shift to online buying (Business Insider)
• 'People just wanted it to fail': The creator of Quibi's 'Dummy' opens up about the streamer's collapse and the show's future (Business Insider)
• Facebook just launched a new app named E.gg where users can create 'personalized spaces' that look like Tumblr pages (Business Insider)
• Twitter taps 'BBC Dad' for an ad featuring an eruption of interruptions (The Drum)
• Businesses with a give-back mission caught in Facebook ad ban (New York Times)

Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow! You can reach me in the meantime at LJohnson@businessinsider.com and subscribe to this daily email here.