DTC brands like Dollar Shave Club are growing up, but still mostly skipping agencies

Direct-to-consumer brands such as Dollar Shave Clubs are no longer upstarts. But there's one way they aren't changing: they still prefer to do nearly all of their marketing in-house.

Some top video publishers on Facebook say they're beginning to make money from Facebook's mid-roll ad breaks -- but the name of the game is still getting enough people to actually watch.

A lot of marketers talk about achieving transparent media trading, but often those demands are aimed solely at the agency. In our latest Confessions, a former ad buyer says it's time for clients to take a closer look at other players in the supply chain.

Many big publishers have a fraught relationship with Facebook over everything from its dominance over the ad market to a new political ad policy, but the platform is drawing praise from local news publishers.

In the latest episode of our Starting Out podcast, Northwestern Mutual's CMO Aditi Javeri Gokhale talks about becoming the first-ever CMO of the company and how the "quiet brand" is getting more active.

Meet one-on-one and connect with executives from Starcom, Havas, MediaCom and many more at the Digiday Media Buying Summit from Oct. 15-17. Learn more and register now to join us in Austin.