Digiday+ members have access to an exclusive set of benefits. This past month, that included the fall issue of Digiday magazine, a members-only event, original research reports, Slack town halls with executives from Ogilvy & Mather and Caraa and more. Here's a sample of what you missed.

Digiday Research: Marketers lack confidence in their data-driven approaches
Turns out for all their talk of data-driven marketing, executives at brands are feeling a crisis of confidence when it comes to the data they collect and whether they’re even using it right.

Here's one takeaway from a recent research report conducted with brand executives about their current data-driven approaches: 

The Rundown
Below is an excerpt from last week's edition of The Rundown, a weekly newsletter written exclusively for Digiday+ members.

Google and Facebook are working on developing subscription tools for publishers, but for a long time, platforms haven’t exactly prioritized publishers’ need to make money from their content. For years, Safari users in the know have used its reader mode to evade publishers’ paywalls. Now comes the new browser, Brave, which lets users turn off publishers’ monetization with a flip of a switch. It feels ironic, coming from a browser that, as we recently profiled for Digiday+ members, positions itself as being on the side of publishers.

— Lucia Moses

Slack town halls with industry execs

‘Egos need to be checked’: A Digiday+ town hall with Ogilvy & Mather’s Lauren Crampsie
Many people talk about the complexity and fragmentation of the marketing landscape, which is all important to look at, but what I think about more is the complexity of competition in products and services. With more and more disruptors in the marketplace, there will be more and more choices for consumers, and this is where ‘brand’ will play a larger role than ever. Check out the full recap.

Working with Amazon is a ‘one-way street’: A Slack town hall with Caraa CEO Aaron Luo
Luxury is all about custom experience, and currently Seller Central from Amazon doesn’t provide that kind of experience for the consumers. We don’t get any data back from Amazon currently. We find their current seller platform data visibility is a lot less than what you can get from GA or other luxury retail platforms. Check out the full recap.

Digiday magazine
For our latest issue, we decided to dream big and identify the big ideas that could fundamentally alter media and marketing — for better or for worse. Download a special sneak peek of the Big Ideas issue here.

Turning off retargeting could hurt publishers and empower Google, Facebook
People being stalked around the internet with ads for the same pair of sneakers is one of the unfortunate side effects of digital advertising. But online ad campaigns still rely on retargeting because, well, it works.

Users can turn off their cookies to reduce retargeting, but it’s hard to eliminate all ad tracking since advertisers also identify users by their login data. It’s also difficult for users to prevent data aggregators from accumulating information on them whenever they log into their email or social media accounts. Read the full story.

How Amazon could become an entertainment powerhouse
The list of industries trembling at the thought of Amazon turning its sights on them is not short. One juicy target: Hollywood.

Amazon already has a foothold in entertainment. After all, Amazon Prime Video already reaches roughly 18 percent of U.S. households. Amazon chief Jeff Bezos is poised to spend $4.5 billion on video content in 2017, nearly double what it spent the year before. Amazon, like Netflix, is poised to eat Hollywood. Read the full story.