Consolidation rocks WPP, Amazon's next advertising star, and the story behind Taboola and Outbrain's tie-up

Welcome to the Advertising and Media Insider newsletter. I'm Lauren Johnson, a senior advertising reporter filling in for Lucia this week. If you got this email forwarded, sign up for your own here. Send tips or feedback to me at ljohnson@businessinsider.com.

First, Business Insider is working on two lists and we want your nominations. My colleague Tanya Dua is putting together our annual rising stars of Madison Avenue, and I'm compiling our annual list of hottest adtech companies.

On to the news.

Patrick Coffee had a big scoop this week on a major change at WPP. The holding company is absorbing the Possible, Mirum, and iStrategyLabs agencies into Wunderman Thompson, potentially affecting several thousand employees.

The move reflects CEO Mark Read's ongoing plan to streamline the company. According to sources, the absorbed agencies will eventually drop their names and function as a single business.

Ad holding company WPP is continuing its consolidation spree with the Wunderman Thompson network absorbing 3 more agencies

Patrick also spoke with Alastair Mactaggart, the real estate billionaire behind the upcoming California Consumer Privacy Act. The CCPA is the toughest US data law to date, and Mactaggart is now seeking ballot initiative called the California Privacy Rights and Enforcement Act.

The billionaire behind California's sweeping new data privacy law reveals his plans to further regulate the ad industry and fight big tech lobbyists

With the recent departure of Seth Dallaire, Amazon lost one of its biggest advertising names. I talked with Amazon's closest agencies to identify five insiders who are likely candidates for his job.

Amazon has a big leadership hole to fill with the departure of advertising exec Seth Dallaire. Here are five insiders that ad execs say are his likely successor.

In October, rival content-recommendation startups Taboola and Outbrain announced plans to merge. While the two companies talked about their plans in prepared statements, Lucia reported the inside story this week on the long battle between both companies to win deals with publishers.

How Outbrain established 'around the web' content recommendations, only to lose its lead to Taboola and end up getting eaten by its rival

Direct-to-consumer companies are still booming and Tanya reported this week that Tim Armstrong is giving DTC brands their own Black Friday-type holiday. The former AOL and Google exec now runs the startup dtx company and is using TV, billboards and digital media to promote 50 brands like Rockets of Awesome and Andie Swim Nov. 15.

Former AOL and Google exec Tim Armstrong is pronouncing a day for direct-to-consumer brands to rival Black Friday and promising them an audience of at least 100 million

Tanya also covered fashion retailer Express' move into DTC with a new health and wellness line that competes against upstarts. UpWest sells sleep aids, clothing, CBD products and home items like candles and bath salts.

The direct-to-consumer economy shows no signs of slowing down. Fashion retailer Express is launching its own DTC brand to catch up.

Here are other great stories from media, marketing, and advertising. (You can read most of the articles here by subscribing to BI Prime; use promo code AD2PRIME2018 for a free month.)

State Farm becomes the latest marketer to drop the classic ad-agency-of-record model after cutting its marketing budget by 15%

Bloomberg News employees are having jitters about layoffs on top of uncertainty about a Michael Bloomberg presidential run

Chickpea pasta maker Banza just raised $20 million in a Series B round - and plans to spend most of it on marketing and expanding to restaurants

A Molson Coors exec reveals how it works its brands into Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon shows and why 70% of its product placements are now in digital

Former MTV exec Andy Schuon says his new app solves the podcast discovery problem

How Instagram hiding 'likes' could change the influencer business, according to industry execs

An Amazon-focused tech firm has hired a vet of the e-commerce giant to build advertising tools for sellers

A martech startup that has raised $3.5 million says its technology helps cannabis brands reach consumers in a new way

An AI startup says it's built a 'crystal ball' for advertising, and it has Mondelez, Ford, and Comcast buying in

The amount influencers earn from sponsored posts is soaring. Here's the average cost brands pay on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.