Humanity Marketing (jschmid.com)

HH Global has acquired Genii, an Australian owned marketing services provider. Genii was established in 2010 as a full service marketing execution business specialising in the provision of innovative, cost effective and strategic services to the retail sector. The company was founded by Marcus Smith and Layton Parslow and headquartered in Sydney. The acquisition will deliver significant value to the clients of both HH Global and Genii, through the strength of their combined proposition and scale. Existing Genii clients will benefit from HH Global’s worldwide reach, market-leading IP/Technology and significant support infrastructure, while HH Global are able to further enhance their offer to the retail and FMCG sectors and accelerate growth within their Australian business.

For Advertising Week New York, Meta has introduced generative AI ad tools designed to help advertisers capitalize on changing user behavior across Facebook and Instagram; according to the tech giant, 60% of users' time on both platforms are now spent watching videos. Due to “advertiser demand” and promising adoption of the company’s recent Image Expansion tool, Meta is unveiling a Video Expansion feature, which will automatically let advertisers adjust video creative assets by “generating unseen pixels in each video frame to expand the aspect ratio.”

Lawmakers on a House subcommittee on Thursday advanced a draft privacy bill that would impose sweeping nationwide restrictions on companies' ability to collect and use data. The American Privacy Rights Act -- introduced in both chambers last month by Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Washington) and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Washington), and revised earlier this week -- now moves to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which could make additional changes. The current version of the bill appears to require businesses to allow consumers to opt out of online behavioral advertising -- meaning ads served based on cross-site and cross-app data. The original version had language that would have either required companies to obtain opt-in consent for behavioral advertising, or banned online behavioral advertising altogether.