Advertising Roundup: More agency layoffs; Y&R Wins Round Table; Fiat Picks WPP

Advertisers gain upper hand in web formats -- As growth in online advertising slows, some Internet companies are easing the restrictions they impose on the categories and formats of advertising they will accept. Web sites have started letting marketers create bigger, more intrusive ads that take up more space on the page. Video sites are accepting more "pre-roll ads," or commercial time sold before short video clips, a model often shunned for fear of annoying visitors. [Source: Daily Anchor]

Historical look at ad agency employment levels -- The biz never recovered from the dot-com/Sept. 11 crash; 6,200 jobs lost in 2008 from the peak. (Note to BNET readers: These numbers jibe almost exactly with BNET's ad agency layoff counter.) [Source: Ad Age]

Y&R gets pizza chain -- Round Table Pizza has selected the San Francisco office of Young & Rubicam to handle creative duties on its ad account after a review. WPP Group's Y&R bested two undisclosed agencies to land the business. Boston-based consultancy Pile and Co. managed the review. Major media spending on the brand totaled $17 million last year. [Source: Adweek]

Fiat selects WPP -- Fiat, the Italian car manufacturer, is set to realign its £150m European media business into WPP-owned agencies, a move that will see Mediaedge:cia take the £10m UK account from Publicis Groupe's Starcom. [Source: Mediaweek UK]