| Good morning! Welcome to the Advertising and Media Insider newsletter. If you got this email forwarded, sign up for your own here. Send tips or feedback to me at [email protected]. First, we're seeking nominations for the rising stars of Madison Avenue. Read about the requirements and how to nominate someone here. On to the news, and a scoop: Tim Castree, North American CEO of WPP's GroupM, left suddenly after less than a year in the post — a short tenure, even by ad industry standards. WPP, the world's biggest ad holding company, has had revenue struggles in North America. As one source told Patrick Coffee, that weakness appears to have been behind Castree's sudden departure. North American CEO of the world's largest ad buying agency network, GroupM, has left after less than a year One of the overarching challenges for the likes of WPP is that marketers are taking more of their advertising in house. WPP is trying to hold on to some of clients' business by explicitly helping them do in-housing, but the risk is this kind of service is low-margin. Ad agency giants WPP and Dentsu are fighting in-housing — by helping brands adopt the trend The in-housing trend seems likely to gather steam. Direct-to-consumer companies are going straight to production companies as they branch out to traditional advertising, Tanya Dua reported.
Popular direct-to-consumer brands like Bombas, Mailchimp, and SmileDirectClub are increasingly bypassing traditional agencies and working directly with production companies Over in media, buzzy news startup Axios just named its first chief revenue officer. CEO Jim VandeHei explains why he hired a media industry outsider to help drive the company's next phase of growth. News upstart Axios hired its first CRO with an eye toward overseas expansion and paid products And Tanya talked to Sprint CMO about its pending merger with T-Mobile and how the tie-up will transform advertising.
The FCC has officially approved the T-Mobile and Sprint merger. Here's how Sprint's CMO thinks the combined company will change 5G and advertising. And a fun one: Wonder what's it like to go to Harvard? This second-year student grew a popular YouTube channel by sharing videos on topics like how to get into the prestigious university and what a day in her life is like. A Harvard student with 265,000 YouTube subscribers breaks down how much money she earns as a college influencer Here are other great stories from media, marketing, and tech. (You can read most of the articles here by subscribing to BI Prime; use promo code AD2PRIME2018 for a free month.) Inside the failed deal that almost made 'The Irishman' Netflix's first wide theatrical release
Ozy Media's CEO describes how he diversified into TV and events, landing $35 million in fresh funding and getting on track for profitability in 2020
Twitter's decision to ban all political ads is a PR win, but it will have almost no effect on the company's advertising business
Google just put one of its biggest advertising execs in charge of juicing revenue from Google News
A martech startup has raised $3.5 million to bring cannabis and CBD ads to publishers like BuzzFeed, Hearst, and USA Today | 