DEMO VERIFICATION PICKS UP STEAM:  Over the last six months there’s been a growing chorus of requests (aka demands) from the digital buying community for demo verification.  The following AdExchanger article outlines why this is becoming a bigger issue.  Lack of transparency from networks on how they’re deriving demo data and inaccurate probabilistic modeling have led to in-demo accuracy rates which in some cases are under 30% – yikes!  Several in the industry see audience verification using tagging as the “Viewability of 2017”.  Good topic to get up to speed on.  (link)

SANTA SORT OF CAME TO TOWN DURING HOLIDAY’16:  AdAge has a mixed final report on how Retail faired during Holiday’16, along with a forecast for 2017.  The consensus is +4% YoY growth across all Retail sectors.  Growth came from online sales (of course!) at +11%, cold weather apparel was up due to a frigid December for the Eastern half of the US (not kidding, they track this stuff), and stronger than expected gift card redemptions at the B&Ms during the week between Christmas and New Years.  But there wasn’t enough holiday cheer for all to enjoy.  Dept Stores like Macy’s and Kohl’s were down.  As a result store closings are looming for Sears, Macy’s, Limited, etc..  So truly a mixed bag from Santa this year!  (link)

PANDORA’S SECRET SAUCE:  As post-CES coverage continues to flow in, I want to flag the following interview article with Pandora SVP Steven Kritzman.  He does a nice job of summarizing Pandora’s competitive strengths around time spent on platform, engagement-based ad products, and the power of audio in the connected homes and connected cars of tomorrow.  If you work at Pandora you already know these strengths by heart, but it’s still compelling to see all of this laid out in one piece.  A must read for all you Pandas out there!  (link)

Have a great Thursday guys!