Sydney-based Stephanie Famolaro from advertising technology company The Trade Desk, who delivered a keynote at last month’s programmatic summit in Auckland, wrote this thought piece specially for M+AD readers:

By 2020 the number of connected devices in the world is expected to skyrocket to 50 billion – or roughly eight devices for every person on the planet, according to IBM.

NEVADA, Tuesday: Colenso BBDO’s Mars Pedigree SelfieSTIX campaign has won Best in Show – the Diamond Award – at the DMA International Echo Awards in the US.

AUCKLAND, Today: The Comms Council says tickets are selling fast to next week’s 2018 Effie Awards – but there are still plenty to go around.

DETROIT, Tuesday: WPP’s NZ agencies JWT and VMLY&R are winding up their Ford campaigns as they prepare for the official switchover to BBDO NZ agencies in just three weeks, on Wednesday 1 November.

DDB has launched a new Lifeline fundraising campaign, The 72 Club, which aims to flip the infamous ’27 Club’ on its head. The 27 Club’ are young musicians whose lives were tragically cut short. “From that inspiration,” says DDB ceo Justin Mowday, “The 72 Club was created to inspire all Kiwis to go on to live to 72 and beyond.”

HONG KONG, Today: The deadline for the New Zealand-Australia division of the Campaign Asia-Pacific Agency of the Year Awards closes at 6pm today (Tuesday).

Pharma giant GlaxoSmithKline has awarded its US$1.7 billion media business to Publicis Media, following a competitive review, according to “people with knowledge of the matter”, reported in Campaign Asia. Publicis Media is said to have created a dedicated agency unit for the account.