While AT&T is reportedly closing in on a $1.6 billion deal to acquire the ad tech firm AppNexus, according to the Wall Street Journal, Brian Lesser – who runs AT&T’s advertising division AdWorks – politely declined to comment.
Still, there’s plenty for Lesser to talk about now that the union of AT&T and Time Warner is complete. Lesser left his role as North American CEO at the ad buying giant GroupM in 2017 to help build out AT&T’s budding but still under the radar ad business.
Business Insider caught up with Lesser at Cannes to talk about the future of TV advertising.
In related news:
‘The industry is looking for alternatives to the duopoly’: Here are the potential winners and losers if AT&T buys AppNexus. The move likely signals that the company’s plans to challenge advertising titans Google and Facebook.
In other news:
Instagram just declared war on YouTube with a new longform-video app. On Wednesday it announced IGTV, a new longform-video app that users can access via a dedicated app for iOS and Android or a section within the Instagram app.
Instagram has also reached 1 billion users. In comparison, Facebook has around 2.19 billion monthly active users and Snapchat has about 100 million monthly active users.
Disney is close to winning the 21st Century Fox sweepstakes - but the bidding war may not be over just yet. Disney and 21st Century Fox agreed to a $71.3 billion deal Wednesday morning, but another Comcast counter-offer could value 21st Century Fox at $80 billion.
Burger King's CMO reveals the formula for the brand's success and why they're sticking with the agency model when competitors aren't. In an interview with Business Insider's Tanya Dua, Fernando Machado said that Burger King isn't afraid to push creative boundaries and doesn't shy away from ideas that may be a bit risky or out there.
IHOP's decision to change its name to IHOb infuriated customers, but it is the biggest marketing triumph the brand has had in years. IHOP's "word of mouth" score reached a high the chain hadn't experienced in years, according to YouGov BrandIndex data.
Check out Business Insider's annual list of The 25 most innovative CMOs in the world in 2018.