What you need to know in advertising today

Evan Spiegel

Snapchat is under pressure to prove its viability as more than just an experimental platform for advertisers, and it thinks getting startups on board in their early stages is going to take it there.

The platform is launching a dedicated program to incentivize startups to grow their businesses by advertising on Snapchat, Business Insider has learned.

The program, called "Snap Accelerate," will offer VC-backed startups, incubators and accelerator programs a range of benefits and services to advertise on Snapchat, valued at up to $100,000, a Snap spokesperson confirmed.

To read more about Snap Accelerate, click here.

In other news:

Speaking of Snapchat, Evan Spiegel says this is the top thing his employees have asked him to get better at as Snap’s CEO. “I really am trying to do a better job of communicating to the world and internally," he said onstage at Vanity Fair's New Establishment conference on Tuesday.

The media company behind NowThis and Thrillist is betting on an ad agency insider to help its revenue catch up with its huge audience. Group Nine Media has named Adam Shlachter as its first chief marketing officer for advertising & creative Services.

A web privacy expert lays out everything you need to know about the new rule that could upend the marketing business. European regulators will start cracking down on the use of data for web ad targeting starting next May and any digital media company or ad tech firm doing business globally will need to make adjustments or risk major fines, says web privacy expert and Evidon founder Scott Meyer.

Disney confirms that it looked at buying Twitter last year but went with BAMTech instead. "We thought Twitter had global reach," CEO Bob Iger said onstage at Vanity Fair's New Establishment conference on Tuesday, adding that Disney's interest wasn't "about social media" but rather "distribution" for Disney content.

Investigators will look at YouTube and Gmail in the Russia inquiry. Google began an internal review of any potential abuse from Russian actors last week.

Short sellers have put a target on Roku and are 'clamoring' to borrow shares. Shares of the Los Gatos, California company dropped 10.5 percent to $21.08 on Tuesday, bringing their decline to 20 percent in the past two sessions.

The Trump administration is delaying a big change to nutrition labels that will make calories and sugars easier to see. The FDA is giving large manufacturers until January 1, 2020 to make changes introduced during the Obama administration, while smaller companies that make less than $10 million in food sales will have until January 1, 2021.

Yahoo's infamous hack — already one of the worst in history — is even worse than previously thought. All 3 billion user accounts it had in 2013 were affected by the security breach, the company, which Verizon acquired in June, said on Tuesday. Yahoo had previously estimated the hack affected 1 billion accounts.

WhatsApp is rolling out its own set of emoji. They look somewhat similar to the iOS emoji — which the messaging app has so far adopted, even on Android phones — but have a slightly flatter look that is reminiscent of LG's proprietary set.

Videos on Facebook Watch are being viewed for an average of 23 seconds, reports Digiday. This is nowhere near the consumption levels of the top YouTube and TV channels.

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