The 10 things in advertising you need to know today
1. Facebook is cranking up Atlas, the "people-based marketing" ad server it launched last fall. Announcements of Merkle and Mediaocean coming on board bring the total number of official partners up to five.
2. Omnicom Group posted solid fourth quarter and full-year results. For the full year, revenue rose 5% to $15.3 billion, while net profit rose 11.4% to $1.1 billion.
3. HTC has appointed a chief marketing officer, finally filling the role that had been vacant for seven months. Idris Mootee joins HTC from Toronto-based design agency Idea Couture, where he was chief executive.
4. Urban Outfitters has been urged by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization that fights anti-Semitism, to cease selling a gray-and-white-striped tapestry that the group says is "eerily reminiscent of Holocaust garb" that gay male prisoners were forced to wear in Nazi concentration camps. It's not the first time the retailer has been criticized for selling offensive products.
5. One of Google's top search gurus just left the company. Udi Manber has joined the National Institutes of Health.
6. Google will update us on its big plans for the year on May 28-29. That's when Google is holding I/O, the company's biggest event of the year where it usually unveils the newest version of Android.
7. Apple is now an existential threat to Android. For the first time ever, sales of Google's Android mobile devices have gone into decline.
8. Business Insider polled Microsoft employees about what they think about their CEO one year in. Overall, they're positive.
9. It looks like Samsung's Smart TVs are inserting ads into movies, Gigaom reports. A Reddit user claims that they were served a Pepsi ad "20-30 minutes" into every movie they play on their Samsung Smart TV while using its Plex ad, while subscribers of Australia's Foxtel TV service are also reporting the issue.
10. AdAge has the scoop on what Coke, J.C. Penney, and other advertisers have planned for the Oscars. Coke is the soft drink sponsor of the awards this year.