What you need to know in advertising today

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Facebook says it has detected a coordinated effort to use its
social network to influence American politics ahead of the 2018
midterm elections.

On Tuesday, the social network announced it had banned 32 pages
and accounts that were engaged in “coordinated inauthentic
behavior” and organized dozens of real-world events — and it said
there were similarities to previous Russian disinformation
campaigns.

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In other news:

Ad tech company Criteo had to rebuild its business after
Apple creamed its revenue — but its earnings are holding
strong. The French-owned firm’s second-quarter
overall revenue dropped 1% year-over-year but revenue excluding
traffic acquisition costs increased 5% during the same time
period.

Speaking of ad tech, ad tech M&A is heating up as
tech giants look to arm themselves against Facebook and Google —
and maybe save the digital ad industry. A wave of
acquisitions and funding rounds this summer indicates that
investors are warming back up to advertising technology.

Chipotle’s website and app crashed, making it impossible
to get free guacamole, and people are
furious. As of 11:45 a.m. ET on Chipotle’s
free-guacamole day yesterday, its app and website were
experiencing significant glitches, making it difficult or
impossible for customers to get their free guac or order at all.

An ad writer on Trump’s legendary Pizza Hut stuffed crust
commercial was not at all surprised to see him become
president. Janet Lyons, an ad writer for the Pizza
Hut Stuffed Crust Pizza commercial that featured Donald and Ivana
Trump in 1995, was not surprised to see Trump get elected
president in 2016.

Consumer packaged-goods giant P&G said it
had saved nearly $1 billion in advertising agency
fees and production costs over the last four years, the Wall
Street Journal reports. The company is
now raising prices on some of its biggest brands, a strategy
shift after it reported another quarter of lackluster revenue
growth.