What you need to know in advertising today
Nielsen just hired ex-IBM exec David Kenny, who succeeded Mitch Barns, a 20-year vet of Nielsen. And in April, Comscore named 360i chairman Bryan Wiener to be its chief executive, succeeding its cofounder Gian Fulgoni.
Ad buyers and sellers expressed hope to Business Insider that, as experienced digital practitioners, Kenny and Wiener would speak their language and bring a more customer-centric culture to companies that historically have been research-driven. Agencies in particular hope they'll get more of a hearing with the measurement companies who make more of their money from media sellers than agencies.
Click here to read more about how measurement companies are shaking up their leadership teams.
In other news:
New York Media built vertical brands to survive in digital media, and now it needs to tear them down to push into subscriptions. New York Media is rolling out a new subscription program while redesigning its website to bring all of its properties together.
Facebook is expanding its local news feature 'Today In' to more than 400 US cities. "Today In" shows users news, posts, and events from their local area.
More people shopped online than in stores as the holiday shopping season kicked off, signaling the end of Black Friday as we know it. 41.4 million people shopped only online from Thanksgiving Day to Cyber Monday, 6.4 million more than those who shopped exclusively in stores, according to the National Retail Federation.
The FTC will investigate whether a multi-billion dollar business model is getting kids hooked on gambling through video games. U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and other critics of the digital goods have compared loot-box transactions to gambling and have expressed concerns that the business model introduces children to addictive behavior.
Ousted CBS chief Les Moonves is facing new sexual harassment allegations in a detailed investigation by The New York Times. Moonves is at risk of losing $120 million in severance.
Digital publisher Mic is in talks to sell to Bustle, reports Recode. Talks reportedly came after Facebook canceled a Watch video series.