Nielsen’s numbers will remain the main currency that advertisers and TV networks use as the basis of ad buys agreed upon in this year’s annual upfront negotiations. However, they will begin to seed alternative measurement providers as secondary, or “shadow,” currencies — and in some cases as primary currencies for individual campaigns — in order to establish the baselines needed if they are to eventually replace Nielsen as the primary currency, according to TV network and agency executives. Read more below.

• Alternative measurement providers will mainly play the role of understudy to Nielsen’s measurements, but some advertisers will adopt them as primary currencies for individual campaigns and targeted ad buys.
• Global brands like Barbie and Dove have turned to Jess Weiner to help them tap into culture as shoppers become more persistent about brand purpose.
• Media Buying Briefing: Within the media agency world, artificial intelligence usually manifests in the forms of machine learning and pattern detection, often the terrain of strategists and analysts.
• Alesha Williams Boyd, Mashable’s new editor-in-chief, discusses the gender and diversity gap in tech and how she wants to expand coverage of this topic at Mashable.