Winners and losers of Dentsu's massive shakeup

Hi! Welcome to the Insider Advertising daily for December 15. 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 winning and losing agencies in Dentsu's massive shakeup, the people working to fix digital advertising, and Reddit buys Dubsmash.

• Advertising company Dentsu is going through a massive overhaul of its agencies, and data-based media and performance marketing agencies Merkle, iProspect, Dentsu X, and Carat are emerging as the big winners.
• Patrick Coffee and Lara O'Reilly also report that traditional creative agencies and smaller media agencies will fade as Dentsu seeks to create teams focused on single clients.
• Dentsu is also whittling down its more than 160 brands to six: Carat, Merkle, Dentsu X, iProspect, Dentsumcgarrybowen, and Isobar.

Read the full story here.

Ad targeting as we know it is going away - meet the 20 experts working on high-profile fixes for advertisers

• The advertising industry has been rocked by Apple, Google, and others' decisions to kill third-party cookies used to target ads.
• I identified 20 people that are at the forefront of finding alternatives to the third-party cookie.
• Adtech companies are pitching workarounds to keep revenue afloat while advertisers and publishers try to sell and buy and sell ads with first-party data.

Read the full story here.

Reddit is buying short-form video platform Dubsmash, becoming the latest social media sites to edge its way into a market dominated by TikTok

• Reddit is buying Dubsmash to expand into the short-form video space currently dominated by TikTok.
• The deal will give Reddit users access to Dubsmash's editing and short-video creation tools, but Dubsmash will still maintain its own platform and brand.
• The companies didn't disclose the financial terms of the deal, but a spokeswoman for Reddit told Reuters the acquisition was based on a combination of cash and stock.

Read the full story here.

More stories we're reading:

• Experts say these 9 well-known retail brands are the most promising M&A targets in 2021 (Business Insider)
• Startup founders waste $10,000 - $30,000 a month on worthless publicity efforts when there's a better way, says former PR strategist-turned-VC Masha Drokova, who just raised a $52.5 million fund (Business Insider)
• IBM exec said firm's new tool is like a 'nutrition label' for AI, providing detailed information to help flag bias or inaccuracy (Business Insider)
• Europe is about to hobble the power of tech giants like Facebook and Amazon. Here's what we know about its huge new proposals. (Business Insider)
• 'The biggest conversation I'm having': Media buyers say advertisers are actively pushing to diversify away from Facebook (Digiday)
• CNN and MSNBC fret over post-Trump future (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.