Facebook Isn't Immune To Fraud; Harvard Now Offers Big Data Course

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign-up here.

The Network

Chinese ecommerce giant Global Egrow is using Facebook to falsely advertise women’s clothing across a portfolio of fake brand pages, reports BuzzFeed. The companies repurpose influencer and other brands’ social pictures, offer rock-bottom prices and then send poorly made knockoffs. The deception is supported by legit Facebook pages awash in fake reviews, likes and engagement. Facebook hasn’t been able to effectively combat the malicious campaigns, as the fraud occurs off the platform. “Getting ripped off by an advertiser on Facebook can be a rude awakening for some users, who have come to see the social network as a more carefully policed and controlled environment than the Wild West of the Internet.”

Ivy Walls

Harvard Business School now offers a course called “Big Data in Marketing.” Professor John Deighton writes in the course description, “I hope to have cases on Acxiom and Epsilon at the sourcing stage of the supply chain, on WPP’s efforts to transform itself from an ad agency to a big data firm in the productizing phase, and the efforts of Facebook, Google and Salesforce to integrate back into the supply chain.” Related in AdExchanger: Stanford economics professor Susan Athey teaches new courses on digital markets and platform dynamics, which she says have “over-registered each semester we’ve offered them.” Read that.

Easy Cheese

Domino’s announced its “Zero Click” ordering app on Wednesday, which automatically places a saved order within 10 seconds of opening the app. The pizza chain, which receives almost half of its orders through digital platforms, lets consumers order pizza through everything smart: phones, watches, TVs, cars, texts, tweets and Amazon Echo. “We like to say we used to be a pizza company that sold online, and we’ve now become an ecommerce company that sells pizza,” said Domino’s CDO Dennis Maloney. Domino’s believes Zero Click’s novelty will keep its brand top-of-mind over competitors. Read on at Ad Age.

Live Competition

Facebook has debuted new tools for live video streaming with Snapchat-like filters. Reporting outlets have been offered the opportunity to broadcast news on its platform and, in some cases, have received direct payments from Facebook for doing so. “We’re offering very early financial incentives to figure out the production up front and set up the studios,” Facebook’s Fidji Simo tells TechCrunch’s Josh Constine. Facebook is working hard to rev up its live video, before Snapchat or Twitter can solidify their positions. More.

Ad-itive

Verizon is set to acquire almost 25% of AwesomenessTV, a media company co-owned by Hearst and DreamWorks that produces YouTube and digital video content (with a subsidiary that produces full-length films), according to Variety. AwesomenessTV will produce exclusive content for Verizon’s Go90, a free, ad-supported video service. Last month, Verizon partnered with Hearst on a new media company, which also produces channels for Go90. While modest compared to the resources that Amazon and Netflix have brought to bear in securing entertainment rights, it’s a worthy shot at assembling a video service for subscribers that’s additive without breaking the bank.