The 10 things in advertising you need to know today
1. Facebook plans to appeal a Belgian ruling ordering it to stop tracking non-users. If Facebook does not comply with the ruling it will face a $269,000 daily fine.
2. Apple wants to make its stores more like window shopping in a small town. The company's retail boss Angela Ahrendts mentioned a project called Avenue, designed to fix the part of the Apple Store usually near the back where products are just hung up on the wall.
3. Birchbox CEO Katia Beauchamp says there is one thing competitors can never steal from your business. Rivals can't touch a founder's vision, which eventually translates into the brand.
4. Rumblr, the "Tinder for fighting" app that received lots of press coverage over the past few days, is actually just a marketing stunt. The app was created by developer Jack Kim and marketing executive Matt Henderson as a viral stunt.
5. Marissa Mayer is reportedly asking Yahoo's top execs to sign 3- to 5-year commitments to the company. Yahoo has also hired elite management consultancy McKinsey & Co. to help decide how to structure the business once the spin-off of its shares in Alibaba Group is complete.
6. Ader Investment Management investment manager Eric Jackson has a theory on why Time Warner shares got pummeled last week. "Regardless of who they want to be, it's unlikely that either Time Warner or Disney or any other traditional Big Media company is going to figure out some magical user experience any time soon."
7. The company behind Tinder is trying to raise $400 million in its IPO. Match Group intends to offer 33,333,333 shares of common stock at a price of between $12 and $14 per share.
8. CBS says it's already close to selling out all its Super Bowl ads. Buyers have been coughing up as much as $5 million for a 30-second slot.
9. People are outraged by Starbucks' plain red holiday cups. The design sparked some controversy as there are no Christmas sentiments or designs on the cup.
10. Target has drawn ire by selling a sweater that makes light of OCD. The sweater reads "OCD Obsessive Christmas Disorder."