Here’s a sign of the times: publishing giant Meredith Corporation, which recently bought Time Inc., is selling its 450-person content marketing agency MXM to Accenture Interactive. Accenture is already among the largest marketing agencies; this just highlights its growth.
CDP vendor Lytics has raised $14 million in Series B funding, bringing its total to $23.3 million. The funds will be used for product development, marketing, and sales.
Consumer behavior is an especially rich source of obvious results. GlobalWebIndex tells us that 94% of internet users now own a smartphone, 16-24-year olds are the most active mobile users, and Android is the dominant operating system globally. Pew Research found that 26% of Americans are online almost constantly. My personal favorite is a HRC Retail Advisory report that 95% of consumers want to be left alone while shopping. These people make my job so easy. Obviously.
Procrastinators of the world can throw a party whenever they get around to it: Google has once more pushed back complete third-party cookie deprecation. The new target is “early next year.” Reasons for the delay include concerns expressed by U.K. data regulator Information Commissioner’s Office, an ongoing inquiry by the U.K. Competition and Markets Authority, and widespread discontent in the advertising ecosystem.