The 10 things in advertising you need to know today
1. Maria Sharapova's failed drugs test lost her a $12.5 million a year deal with Nike. The sports apparel brand has suspended its contract with the tennis star, while Swiss watchmaker Tag Heuer says it will not be renewing its deal with her.
2. Snapchat expects to generate up to $350 million in revenue this year. That would represent a nice uptick from the $50 million that Snapchat had reportedly set as its 2015 revenue target.
3. Snapchat's money machine looks a lot like Facebook in the early days. Snapchat's money-making trajectory looks a lot like Facebook's first four years.
4. The founder of the one of the most controversial websites on the internet is joining Google. Chris Poole, the founder of the controversial online forum 4chan, will work for Google Photos and Streams.
5. Facebook pulled a big ad tech project because there were too many bots and bad-quality ads. Plans to build a demand-side platform into its ad server and measurement platform Atlas have been abandoned.
6. Kraft Heinz very quietly changed its mac & cheese recipe months ago - and nobody noticed. The recipe change came after Kraft Heinz was under growing pressure from consumers to remove the artificial dyes in the product.
7. Ad tech company TubeMogul is launching an ad campaign that alleges Google has "conflicts of interest" and "walled gardens." TubeMogul hopes the campaign will express the merits of working with an independent ad tech player.
8. Expect lots more websites to begin asking people to turn off their ad blockers. The Interactive Advertising Bureau has released advice to publishers on how they should deal with the growing number of ad blocker users.
9. Viacom International's CEO explains why he's not worried about cord-cutting. We had a long chat with Bob Bakish about everything from new distribution platforms to the Ibiza government blocking the shoot of MTV's "Shore" franchise on the island.
10. Reddit is about to get even more appealing to marketers. Yet a number of ad agency executives told Digiday the Reddit risk is still too great.