The 10 things in advertising you need to know today
1. It looks like Amazon shut down a popular ad product to stop companies like Google getting access to its data. Product ads are being discontinued from October.
2. Nike is hosting a basketball event in the Bahamas. It may be doing so in an attempt to lure players away from Under Armour.
3. NBCUniversal invested $200 million in Vox. NBC invested in the media startup at an $850 million pre-money valuation.
4. BuzzFeed pays Facebook millions of dollars to promote its clients' ads. Financial documents obtained by Gawker show how BuzzFeed's cost of revenue (which includes traffic acquisition costs plus the money it pays out to keep servers online) was $5,818,808 in the first half of 2014.
5. Snapchat's Discover section is serving up just one ad for every 44 articles published, according to AdAge data. The ad load seems small considering Snapchat says the section attracts 60 million users each month.
6. Investment bank LUMA Partners gave a presentation that tells you everything you need to know about the state of TV right now. The deck covers the rise of new players in the digital video market and the new economics of TV.
7. Here's how to see all the companies tracking you on Facebook. And how to block them.
8. Adidas has a big marketing plan to get ahead of Nike in soccer. The sports brand has unveiled an umbrella strategy that will see it market all the club teams it sponsors marketed together.
9. A Bic pen ad sparked outrage for encouraging women to "think like a man." The ad, which was designed to celebrate Women's Day in South Africa, has inspired tons of funny spoofs.
10. UK police are waging war on piracy sites' funding by attempting to stifle their advertising revenues. And it appears to be working.