1. Walmart In Search Of New Media Agency To Handle Its $600 Million US Ad Business (Business Insider)

Walmart, one of the top national advertisers, is looking for a new agency to handle its more than $600 million US advertising business. This could be a big blow to WPP, a British multinational communication, advertising, public relations, technology, and commerce holding that had been handling Walmart’s ad business for the past four years. Walmart is keen on strengthening its ad sales platform Haworth, in which WPP owns 49% shares. Walmart’s deal with The Trade Desk to help bolster its homegrown programmatic capabilities signifies this move.

2. US Asks Google For Detailed Search Data In Antitrust Case (Bloomberg)

The US government asked Google to fork over granular information on how its search engine works and makes money, seeking to prove that the internet giant is a monopoly. The Alphabet Inc. unit is being asked to share data on how and where users searched in those periods, the number of different types of ads, revenue from those ads, and what the underlying bids were for them, among other details. The government told the company it wants the information within 30 days.

3. Google Unveils New Workspace Features For Remote Work (TheVerge)

Google is adding new highlights to Google Workspace today, including new apparatuses for arranging your center time in Google Calendar and Chat, better approaches to join Google Meet video conferences with numerous gadgets, and a form of its office suite for bleeding-edge laborers. It is likewise removing Google Assistant for Workspace from beta and making it by and large accessible.

4. Roku To Acquire Nielsen’s Advanced Video Ad Biz, Looks To Expand Addressable Advertising (Variety)

Roku plans to acquire Nielsen’s Advanced Video Advertising business, inheriting capabilities in automatic content recognition (ACR) and dynamic ad insertion (DAI) by Q2 this year. While ACR identifies the content being watched on TV, DAI powers the swapping of ad creative. In return, Nielsen will gain insights on nearly 100 million smart TVs and OTT devices hooked to Roku’s services to prove out its updated currency, called Nielsen ONE.

5. UK’s Reach Reports A Digital Growth Of 20.4% In Q4 (PressGazette)

According to the full-year results of Reach, it has grown its digital revenue by 20.4% so far in 2021 following a record year-on-year increase of 26% in the last quarter of 2020. Reach chief executive Jim Mullen said the last quarter’s digital growth was an “encouraging end” to an “unprecedented” year. Across the whole of 2020 digital revenues were up 10.6% despite a significant drop in advertising during the early part of the pandemic.

6. Instagram Launches ‘Live Rooms’ With Four People To Join Together In Live Broadcast (TechCrunch)

Photo sharing app Instagram has added the ‘Live Rooms’ feature to the app, giving users a special gift. With the help of this feature, the creators will be able to add up to four people simultaneously during the live broadcast. Instagram had recently introduced badges for fans to support their favorite creators during a live video. Badges became more broadly available last fall, at three price points: $0.99, $1.99, or $4.99.

7. Cardlytics Plans To Acquire Dosh For Enhanced Digital Services To Its Counts (AdExchanger)

Cardlytics, a digital advertising platform that works with large, traditional banks is planning to acquire cash-back platform Dosh for $275 million for a mixture of cash and stock. Dosh is expected to compliment Cardlytics’ technology services to its clients, which includes a native ad platform that lives within a bank’s digital channels