Advertising Perspectives

For years, X (known back then as Twitter) was the so-called second screen for the Super Bowl, where fans and brands huddled to react to Big Game moments in real time. This year, however, it’s ... read more

The Super Bowl represents a high-stakes maneuver for top marketers. Mess up, and you’ve tipped as much as $8 million down the drain. Stick the landing, and you’ll have reached a third of Americans in ... read more

After promising growth in 2024 and early 2025, LinkedIn is doubling down on video with new tools and metrics. As of yesterday, creators on LinkedIn are able to track the average watch time of their ... read more

What was once a brand exodus from Twitter could be turning into a brand influx to X. Behind the scenes, some advertisers have been inching toward a return for months. According to four ad execs ... read more

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how noisy content signals are confounding CTV’s contextual advertising opportunity and what makes the situation even more confounding. CTV’s noisy signals Paramount’s new Nielsen deal, Nielsen’s ... read more

Snapchat is vying for ad dollars dedicated to creators, touting monetization tools and its Gen Z audience — but three agency execs say they are not seeing dollars move over just yet. There is money ... read more

The open web has spent years competing for crumbs against companies like Google and Meta. But now, some ad tech players say the Chinese startup DeepSeek creates a new chance to build their own AI ... read more

If you watch the teasers or already released ads for Super Bowl LXI, it’s obvious that brands are taking a light-hearted approach, playing it safe by leaning on humor and classic brand advertising iconography to ... read more

The Super Bowl is a pricey party. But it’s not the only joint in town. Shared moments like the big game — which last year was watched by an average of 123.4 million U.S. viewers, ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Last year Architectural Digest switched up its e-commerce strategy. Having added affiliate links to its “Open Door” YouTube series showcasing celebrities’ decked-out abodes in 2021, the Hearst-owned publication started ... read more

President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs were supposed to take effect today (February 4), forcing marketers to once again rethink their budgets. But at the last minute, most of them were put on hold — a ... read more

Consolidation may be happening at the holding company level, between Omnicom’s planned purchase of IPG, and Publicis’ latest acquisition wave (just last week it moved to buy Australian/New Zealand agency Atomic 212). But it’s also ... read more

Target’s decision to retool its diversity, equity and inclusion measures has sparked backlash as activists are now calling for a nationwide boycott of the retailer. In response, Black-owned brands that the store carried or carries ... read more

In case you have been hiding under a rock for the past week, DeepSeek’s emergence (seemingly out of nowhere) has underlined the geopolitical aspect of one of the most disruptive forces in economic history. ... read more

President Donald Trump’s second presidential term — from the TikTok back-and-forth, to the placement of Big Tech execs both at his inauguration and in the Oval Office — has already been notable. Here’s where the ad ... read more

Marketers are integrating creators into their Super Bowl plans not just during the Big Game but in the run-up and after this year. Last year, creators like Addison Rae and Charli D’Amelio, broke into the ... read more

The pendulum is starting to swing back to brand and a rethink of the traditional CMO-based marketing model.  Marketing organizations within major brands are recognizing the damage they can do to their brands if they ... read more

LinkedIn’s ongoing efforts to woo video creators paid off in the past few months, according to new figures shared by the company. Short-form video is the fastest-growing content category on LinkedIn. As of this week, ... read more

Publishers taking charge of programmatic has always been a mirage — enticing but elusive. In 2025, though, that mirage feels a little closer, a little more real. While full control may still be a long ... read more

Interested in sharing your perspectives on the media and marketing industries? Join the Digiday research panel. The theme of optimism in marketing continues: Marketers said they’re coming off a successful year in 2024, they expect ... read more

Advertisers have long told themselves that brand safety is something they control. But with Meta rolling back its content moderation rules — narrowing the gap between brands and whether chaos goes viral — it’s clear that ... read more

The Media Briefing this week features an interview with the Financial Times’ Fiona Spooner, managing director of the FT’s Consumer Revenue Group, on how their AI-powered paywall has led to an increase in key subscription ... read more

The concept of ad curation may appear to be a nebulous one. Still, in the contemporary phase of the $750 billion digital advertising industry’s maturation, it has come to represent control: who owns the relationship, ... read more

This story was first published by Digiday sibling WorkLife The ability to work remotely was the most requested workplace accommodation last year, according to a survey from AbsenceSoft, a platform for leave of absence and ... read more

The search advertising landscape is poised to undergo a seismic shift this year, driven by the rise of AI-powered search platforms like Perplexity AI and search ads on social platforms like TikTok. And those are ... read more

Publishers that want to experiment with using generative AI technology to build products and features like creating chatbots and analyzing data have to evaluate which large language models best fit the bill.  And it turns ... read more

While TikTok’s status in the U.S. still hangs in the balance, agencies are already shifting the way they recruit creators and develop strategies for their creator campaigns moving forward. Now even as marketers warily resume ... read more

Despite the market disruption wrought by the technical feats of China-based DeepSeek’s new R1 large language model, privacy experts warn companies shouldn’t be too quick to dive in head-first. However, market opinion is split already. ... read more

Anyone waiting for Google to drop a game-changing cookie update can go ahead and breathe — its not coming with this one. If anything, the latest details on how the Chrome browser will ask users ... read more

This article was first published by Digiday sibling WorkLife Despite President Trump’s order this week that federal employees working from home get back to their desks, the battle over remote work is far from over. New data ... read more

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how the growing availability of streaming live sports for programmatic sales will test the supply chain’s infrastructure and require new standards. ‘Tsunami of supply’ Trump’s TikTok ... read more

Amazon Prime Video’s ad business celebrates its first birthday today. Over the course of 12 months, it’s fine-tuned a pitch to buyers and brands to put the case for their investment beyond argument — and in ... read more

IAB Tech Lab’s job basically boils down to taking digital advertising and media practices, products and toolsets and making them mass-production ready. And in 2025, the organization will be doing that at a larger scale ... read more

This year’s winners exemplify the power of creativity, innovation and collaboration in modern marketing. From campaigns redefining audience engagement through tailored content to groundbreaking uses of technology like AI and automation, these entries set a ... read more

The IAB Annual Leadership Meeting closes today, hosted in Palm Springs, Calif., and featuring more than 1,200 high-profile industry leaders, including “marketing game-changers,” according to its promotional material.  Justifying the admittance fee, which can cost ... read more

As content creators continue to accrue fame and influence, marketers have learned that they are not beholden to traditional brand safety considerations. In the current landscape of online content creation, AMP is one of the ... read more

The state of corporate America’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) policies continue to be under a magnifying glass — with all eyes watching to see if a flame will spark from the heat.  In recent ... read more

Publishing executives from Forbes, Dotdash Meredith, BuzzFeed and other companies detail how they’re using AI in 2025, from how they’re building AI tools and using them internally and externally, to the guardrails they have in ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Remember when 2025 was supposed to be the first official year of the post-cookie era? Well, clearly that hasn’t happened and seems unlikely to happen anytime soon. And it ... read more

In recent years, ad agencies have embraced the AI narrative to demonstrate continued relevancy, as such disruptive technologies threaten their historic value proposition: manpower.    Now, AI startups — helmed by agency alums and former execs ... read more

The world of audio hasn’t exactly been a hotbed of innovation and wild growth, despite the ubiquity of streaming audio and podcasting — two areas that have enjoyed a steady climb in ad revenue since ... read more

For all the dollars advertisers have been shoveling into retail media networks, marketers are starting to scrutinize the industry’s latest shiny object a bit harder. The pitch of RMNs was their first-party data and the ... read more

For 14 hours on January 19, 2025, TikTok disappeared from the U.S., plunging markets into a state of collective panic. The app, once synchronized with teenage dance crazes and meme culture, had become a cultural ... read more

Jessica Chan is a one-woman team at Perplexity with quite the task at hand: convince publishers that Perplexity has something to offer them, at a time when media companies are increasingly seeking litigation against AI ... read more

As the 41st annual Sundance Film Festival kicks off in Park City, Utah this weekend, more marketers and creators are joining the ranks of the film industry attendees. The festival, which will run from Jan. ... read more

The cloud of TikTok’s uncertain future is still lingering. Some marketers are forging ahead on TikTok creator campaigns after its brief shutdown this month, albeit warily, given the app’s unclear future. Others are maintaining ... read more

Interested in sharing your perspectives on the media and marketing industries? Join the Digiday research panel. Marketers are coming off of what they felt like was a pretty successful year last year, which is a ... read more

When TikTok went down over the weekend, so did its sister app CapCut — revealing how content creators across platforms have become reliant on ByteDance’s software to edit their videos. Following CapCut’s return, creators are ... read more

Chatter about AI agents is suddenly everywhere — from Silicon Valley to the ski slopes of Davos – but just how will they impact Madison Avenue? Just yesterday, OpenAI previewed its new “Operator” AI agent tool ... read more

This week’s Media Briefing looks at how the TikTok ban impacted publishers’ onsite traffic and social referrals, as well as what companies like CNN, The Daily Mail and The Washington Post are doing with their ... read more

Havas Media Network has kicked off the new year with an acquisition aimed at deepening its sports marketing expertise and diversifying its revenue base. The media arm of Havas struck a deal to acquire CA ... read more

President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term earlier this month. During the inauguration ceremony, a coterie of Big Tech CEOs in prominent positions was prominently featured, and observers interpreted this as a ... read more

Publishing businesses like the Lad Bible Group aren’t supposed to be thriving. They depend on ad dollars and platform traffic in an era where brands are skittish about news and platforms barely acknowledge publishers.  And ... read more

In spite of the weekend’s momentary TikTok shutdown, sales on TikTok Shop didn’t miss a beat. The hours-long TikTok shutdown on Jan. 18 and 19 did not have a negative impact on the platform’s sales ... read more

Whether on a large scale or small — in this case, medium sized — consolidation continues apace in the media agency world, following tectonic changes at the end of last year. GroupM continued to centralize ... read more

On Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders, including one aimed at the dismantling of government diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The move signals yet another step in the DE&I about-face ... read more

More advertisers are turning to Amazon’s ad tech as their mainstay for programmatic buying — not just for Amazon’s own media properties, but increasingly for ads across the wider web too. The reason, according to ... read more

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at why advertisers are keeping an eye on streaming services’ ad product developments and ad loads. ‘Have you tried to watch streaming?’ Streaming watch time hits new ... read more

For those still counting, there’s another retail media network to add to the list. Alongside real estate, airlines and banking, airport shops have joined the race. WHSmith, a retail chain that operates hundreds of stores ... read more

Gabriela Cendrzak, content writer, Zeropark, a Commerce Media Tech company In 2025, brands and retailers face a pivotal moment: the end of the generic ads and one-size-fits-all strategies era. Today’s consumers demand personalized, meaningful experiences ... read more

President Trump’s second term will be different from his first. It seems his relationships with the media, tech and marketing industries already show as much. Ahead of yesterday’s inauguration, those in the media and tech ... read more

Publishers had mixed feelings about how 2024 shook out for their companies and the media industry as a whole, and it looks like those feelings are going to continue on into 2025. In other words, ... read more

As virtual-world platforms such as Roblox and Fortnite attract the lion’s share of both users and advertising dollars, the Korean-owned app Zepeto has quietly staked its own claim to a corner of the metaverse. The ... read more

By now, spotting influencers in major ads and at events is all but mainstream — but what if artificial intelligence allowed influencers to tap into old-school product placement without actually having to shoot in person ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Over the last year, marketers have been shelling out dollars to show up in sports, the supposed last bastion of monocultural moments and opportunity to get ads in front ... read more

They say the only constant is change, and that couldn’t be more true of the 2025 national advertising marketplace, as the U.S. experiences a new administration that seems both familiar and uncertain, and as major ... read more

Last week saw not one but two high-profile AI legal battles under the spotlight, with updates in separate copyright cases against Meta and OpenAI. Court documents unsealed in an AI copyright case against Meta raised ... read more

There was a time, not too long ago, when CMOs started to sound a lot more political. They made statements about brand purpose. They pulled funding from fake news. They held advertiser boycotts — more ... read more

The sun rose on Jan. 20, and despite U.S. Congress’ ultimatum for ByeDance to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban, TikTok is still alive and kicking. A last-minute lifeline from President-elect Donald Trump has ... read more

Jan. 20 has arrived, and Congress’ ultimatum for ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a U.S. ban has come and gone without resolution. Neither a sale or a ban came to fruition. Instead, TikTok lives ... read more

Las Vegas is kind of an ideal backdrop to survey marketing and media executives about the state of the ad market. Advertising is ultimately gambling after all. During this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Sin ... read more

Telcos and ad tech: the media world’s messiest on-again, off-again relationship. T-Mobile’s $600 million cash swoop for outdoor ad specialist Vistart is the latest reunion in this turbulent love story. Slated to close this spring ... read more

The impending U.S. TikTok ban could threaten some creators’ ability to grow their audiences across all platforms — not just the embattled Chinese-owned short-form video app. As the United States marches toward a TikTok ban on ... read more

As Discord’s budding romance with brands and advertisers continues, the platform has hired its first-ever chief business officer to scale up its sales and partnership business. Jules Shumaker, Discord’s new CBO, comes to the company ... read more

With TikTok’s fate in the U.S. dangling between the Supreme Court and President-elect Donald Trump, competitors are moving in to try and claim its ad dollars. Snapchat, for example, isn’t holding back. In recent pitches ... read more

Over three decades of expansion, Amazon has displaced countless smaller businesses in the sectors it targeted, from bookshops to main street retailers.  In its latest retail initiative, however, the tech titan wants to be a ... read more

Chad Schulte, senior vice president of agency partnerships and strategy, Seedtag In this time of unprecedented access to information, it’s crucial objective journalism remains a cornerstone of an informed and functional society. However, as modern ... read more

In advertising circles, a quiet theory has been gaining traction: The Trade Desk, it’s said, isn’t exactly enamored with curation — a targeting strategy that could redirect valuable ad spend elsewhere. This week’s acquisition of ... read more

This week’s Media Briefing features an interview with Dotdash Meredith’s chief innovation officer, Jon Roberts. We discuss what the company has learned nearly nine months into its deal with OpenAI and what he wants to ... read more

Entire direct-to-consumer empires have been built on the back of paid social and search advertising. But empires have to think about the long term to last. With platforms such as Facebook and Instagram becoming more ... read more

This story originally published on sister site, WorkLife. WPP’s announcement requiring employees to return to the office four days a week has sent shockwaves through the advertising industry, spotlighting a deepening divide between corporate-owned and ... read more

Digiday’s events are getting a refresh under the leadership of Liz Pitonyak, who joined the company as general manager of events in December. She joined Digiday Media with 15 years of experience in event strategy ... read more

We want to hear your thoughts on the potential TikTok ban. Take our brief survey. For years, TikTok creators have been trying to migrate their audiences onto other platforms — but were relatively subtle about ... read more

Brian Tomasette, director of product, Amazon DSP The amount of change and number of challenges that marketers faced in 2024 was head-spinning. From uncertainty about third-party identifiers to the chaos of ever-changing privacy rules, brands, ... read more

Charlie Swift, general manager, Adstra Services The term performance marketing is hardly new, however, in the 2020s, the tactics and tools marketers use to achieve performance have evolved considerably, necessitating an update to how the ... read more

Mark Zohar, CEO, Viafoura For the digital media industry, 2024 was a year characterized by ongoing disruption and challenges, balanced by emerging opportunities for resilience and growth. For many digital publishers and media brands, much ... read more

The Trade Desk intends to acquire ad data firm Sincera, marking only its second acquisition since it launched in 2009 — a rare move for a company that usually builds, not buys.  Financial terms weren’t disclosed, ... read more

Related Insights The Programmatic Marketer How Megan Clarken plans to get Criteo out of the ad retargeting ‘box’ Read More Criteo yesterday announced an end to its months-long ... read more

We want to hear your thoughts on the potential TikTok ban. Take our brief survey. The likelihood of a future without TikTok is getting more real as the deadline to sell or be banned in ... read more

The copyright infringement trial between The New York Times and OpenAI kicked off in a federal court hearing on Tuesday. A judge listened to arguments from both parties in a motion to dismiss brought by ... read more

This story was originally published by sister site, Modern Retail. Last July, the period care brand Viv saw its monthly traffic spike by 400%, which “came out of nowhere,” according to Viv’s marketing and design ... read more

As of today, Jan. 15, Walmart has doubled down on its push into the metaverse by launching Zepeto’s first-ever e-commerce experience for physical goods. Zepeto is a digital avatar creation platform that allows its user ... read more

This week’s Future of TV Briefing reports on the meetings that Netflix held with ad buyers during last week’s Consumer Electronics Show, during which it discussed its advertising road map for the year. Nextflix ... read more

This year, the companies driving innovation in Europe focused on omnichannel strategies, including leaning on first-party data and AI-driven insights to improve targeting and audience engagement. The Digiday Awards Europe finalists also share a common ... read more

Interested in sharing your perspectives on the media and marketing industries? Join the Digiday research panel. It’s barely halfway through January, but publishers are already kicking off a busy year as they prepare for the ... read more

Influencer agencies have embraced generative AI applications over the last year, as they seek to cut the time taken to arrange creator involvement in brand campaigns. The client reaction to those solutions has been ... read more

By this time next week, we’ll likely know (though, anything could happen) whether TikTok has gone dark in the U.S. or if the app will continue to exist. So far, it’s not looking good. The ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Omnicom Group’s pending acquisition of Interpublic Group seems especially timely in the hindsight of last week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. A major talking point among the brand ... read more

Any flicker of hope that the ad industry would renew its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in 2025 may be getting dimmer just days into the New Year. Recently, Amazon, Meta, Publicis Groupe and ... read more

Ted Flanagan, Habu Chief Customer Officer, LiveRamp As the commerce category evolves and expands to more verticals and use cases, the industry is seeing a proliferation of media networks. Thanks to retailers, there’s a blueprint ... read more