How do privacy regulators decide which companies to poke? Often, it’s a consumer complaint. Other times, it’s a headline. And, sometimes, it’s just personal. Regulators are consumers, too, after all. But it’s important to remember ... read more

Open AI finally gets ads; YouTube gets its own BBC shows; and marketers get used to grading their own homework. The post OpenAI Opens The Box; And BBC Opens Up To YouTube Ads appeared ... read more

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail. The brands that emerged from the direct-to-consumer 1.0 era are now operating at a much larger scale, and their businesses have evolved accordingly. At NRF ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Two years after OpenAI signed its first content licensing deal with Axel Springer, the field of AI platforms doing business with publishers has expanded exponentially. Especially just in the ... read more

In 2026 “content creator” is an umbrella term that could range in meaning from influencer, creator, journalist, blogger to streamer. With more than 207 million people worldwide considering themselves part of the creator economy (according ... read more

It’s January, and (as per…) the social feeds of most media practitioners are awash with predictions of how the industry will pan out in the coming calendar year. Many such missives are indistinguishable from the ... read more

Just as marketers were beginning to sketch out playbooks for turning chatbots into brand building machines, OpenAI made it clear the honeymoon was over. The company confirmed that advertising will start rolling out in ChatGPT ... read more

A divided federal appellate panel has refused to reinstate a lawsuit alleging that the Republican National Committee violated a robotexting law by sending an unsolicited video message to an Arizona resident's cell phone. ... read more

LAS VEGAS — The future of premium video advertising may be decided in milliseconds – faster than any human trader could ever react. That’s the promise of agentic buying, which enables autonomous systems to optimize ... read more

LAS VEGAS — Artificial intelligence models trained on low-quality data risk generating meaningless insights that then degrade further as models train on their own flawed outputs, creating a destructive cycle that obscures actual campaign performance. ... read more

LAS VEGAS – Media fragmentation is reshaping performance marketing in two ways, said Todd Parsons, Chief Product Officer and President of Performance Media at Criteo. Consumers move fluidly across discovery, consideration and purchase channels, while ... read more

California Crane School says it should have been allowed to proceed with allegations that Google's search partnership with Apple resulted in higher prices for search ads. ... read more

A study conducted by Ipsos found a large majority of Americans believe screens are a problem - especially how they are used and the attention and money people give them. The data suggests this ties ... read more

Ipsos fielded a study among 1,290 U.S. adults focused on the American dream. The data from the Ipsos tracker showed a large majority of Americans believe screens - especially how they are used and the ... read more

A panel of political media buyers project they will spend more than half their budgets targeting AI agents by 2032, a big jump from what a panel of general market buyers predicted nine months ago. ... read more

Google says requiring it to share search data with some competitors "would jeopardize user privacy for hundreds of millions of Americans." ... read more

Three years after coming up with a simple fix for separating low-quality "out-stream" from premium "in-stream" video advertising, Levin is an ad industry David fighting some pretty powerful Goliaths. ... read more

Over the weekend Billboard messages in Chicago reminded the fair weather LA Rams they'd be playing in sub-freezing temperatures. Clearly, they weren't phased. ... read more

Raffi Krikorian, chief technology officer at Mozilla, doesn't pull punches when discussing the future with Nicholas Thompson, CEO of "The Atlantic." ... read more

Upcoming Sony theatrical releases include "Spider-Man: Brand New Day," sequels to "The Social Network" and "Jumanji," "Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse," and the Sam Mendes quartet of "Beatles" films on the calendar for 2026 and beyond. ... read more

TikTok Shop is attempting to boost merchant sales with the introduction of more AI-powered shopping tools designed to better showcase products and convert consumers. ... read more

Lehigh Valley Public Media has has announced a layoff and significant operational changes in response to a $1.8 million loss, Lehigh Daily News reports. The nonprofit will now focus on newsletters supported by podcasts. Among other ... read more

Last year's biggest TV show is continuing here in the new year with brand-new, first-run episodes. ... read more

For decades, the grocery aisle was a static environment where cardboard displays and price tags did the heavy lifting. Now, the physical retail environment is undergoing a digital overhaul designed to rival the programmatic capabilities ... read more

Advertisers see the inability of consumers to distinguish AI from human content as a core conflict, and resulting shifts in the marketing industry are expected to unfold in the next few months. Here are a ... read more

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt threatened CBS News with a lawsuit if it did not run an interview with President Donald Trump in full, The New York Times reports. Leavitt told CBS Evening News ... read more

Data richness, while critical for targeting and performance, increasingly sits alongside regulatory risk, consumer scrutiny and platform-level privacy controls. ... read more

Avocados From Mexico is returning to the Super Bowl with a digital play instead of a traditional linear spot for the third year in a row. This year though, the avocado brand is using AI ... read more

If 2025 was the year YouTube really turned the screw on traditional TV, 2026 is shaping up as the year the rest of big tech does the same. To see why the living room has ... read more

It’s like the Revolutionary War all over again — the Americans and the French ally with each other to fight the English, in this case WPP. (To be fair, they’re also fighting a fellow French ... read more

This past season, Navy won the game 17-13. The contest aired on CBS on Dec.13 with 7.84 million viewers - down 17% vs. the record-setting 2024 game (9.4 million). ... read more

LAS VEGAS — The traditional marketing planning cycle is dead. That’s the stark message for advertisers trying to succeed on discovery-driven platforms. For brands accustomed to lengthy campaign development timelines, the platforms where consumers now ... read more

A district court judge ruled last month that the law violates the First Amendment, and prohibited state officials from enforcing the statute against NetChoice members. ... read more

Publishers have been pushing the industry to monetize AI chat. Today they got their wish as OpenAI announced it would soon provide the ability to monetize chat. ... read more

A federal appeals court on Friday refused to reinstate the claims that in 2022 Google wrongly sent Republican fundraising messages into Gmail users' spam filters. ... read more

OpenAI confirmed it will begin testing them in the "coming weeks" to my free and new $8-per-month "Go" tier subscribers. tier. ... read more

The sad news of John Gentry’s death, the CEO of OpenX, emerged, with the resulting outpouring of respect and tributes testament to his professional standing in the industry and the high regard in which he ... read more

Retail’s Big Show, the NRF’s annual flagship event in New York City earlier this week, is where you go for a sense of what’s happening within retail writ large, beyond the data-driven advertising corner of ... read more

LAS VEGAS –Sir Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of S4 Capital, has a blunt assessment of advertising’s future. Speaking with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at CES 2026, Sorrell said agentic AI “fundamentally challenges the model.” Strategic ... read more

At CES 2026 in Las Vegas, AdExchanger and the Chief Marketer Network asked digital advertising insiders for their perspective on where the industry stands as we kick off the new year. We got their takes ... read more

Declining traffic and AI are not the only threats the Wikipedia site faces. Elon Musk last year launched his own version of an AI-driven encyclopedia. ... read more

I was sitting on Amtrak Wednesday on my way to Washington, D.C. when my car filled with Secret Service and Joe Biden sat down next to me. ... read more

Golf Channel and the DP World Tour have extended their media rights agreement by several years, to now run through 2030. Golf Channel will be the primary broadcaster of the DP World Tour in the ... read more

Connoisseur Media has formed a partnership with Swiss-based Audiospace. The latter will develop 240 station websites and mobile apps throughout its U.S. portfolio, Insider Radio reports. The deal follows Connoisseur’s acquisition of Alpha Media, adding more ... read more

Trib Total Media plans to launch the Pittsburgh edition of the Tribune-Review, a weekend print publication, on May 9, WTAE reports. "We are going to show the rest of the media world how the Steel City bands ... read more

Carey, who has been with OS since 2005, takes the helm following three years as the agency's chief investment officer. ... read more

Advertisers can now set a fixed, single amount for the entire duration of a campaign, rather than managing the average daily ad spend. ... read more

According to the iSpot complaint, EDO spent three-and-a-half years improperly obtaining data from iSpot and then sold it to marketing clients as it built its own TV/streaming measurement business. EDO was a client of iSpot ... read more

In an attention economy engineered for negativity and anxiety, brands that consistently offer joy become sanctuaries. ... read more

Analysts say it is highly likely the current TV station ownership cap - which prevents one company from owning stations, accounting for more than 39% of U.S. TV households - is likely to be struck ... read more

The stars of CBS are blasting their own company for the tumult at CBS News attributed to the arrival of outsider Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief. ... read more

Returning to the news desk after a year away from CTV beat reporting is like discovering a time capsule with the industry’s core dilemmas. One thing that has changed, however, is the CTV industry's infatuation ... read more

Enjoy this weekly comic strip from AdExchanger.com that highlights the digital advertising ecosystem …  The post Comic: Programmatic Pipes appeared first on AdExchanger. ... read more

A Google divestiture is still in the cards; the IAB's new framework lays out exactly when to disclose use of AI; and Hershey's doubles down on marketing. The post Maybe Europe Will Break Up Google; ... read more

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail. This January, beverage brands including NA players are steering clear of villainizing alcohol. Today, people generally seek balance when pursuing their personalized wellness goals in ... read more

A claim from X has has taken on a life of its own after I featured it in a story I wrote earlier this month. X’s ads boss said that nearly all of the platform’s top ... read more

The European Commission published provisional findings on Google’s ad tech stack, ruling that its wares (primarily AdX and DoubleClick for Publishers) have been dominant for more than a decade, further recommending billions in financial penalties, ... read more

There are some in the marketing and media industries who might not like what Forrester’s latest report into the use of principal media indicates — that it’s here to stay so you better get used ... read more

As the hype around AI thins into something closer to reality, the ad industry is quietly drawing a line between what the tech can do and what it will not be trusted to touch. Here ... read more

The beauty brand puts its own spin on beauty with the Netflix collaboration. ... read more

Roblox is under fire from players, developers and child safety experts for disrupting the in-app chat feature while failing to properly protect children from predators, according to multiple reports. ... read more

The University of Phoenix must face a privacy lawsuit over allegations that it disclosed students' video-viewing activity, a federal judge ruled this week. ... read more

Marketers, app developers and publishers saw consumers spending more money on mobile apps in 2025, according to a new report from app intelligence company Appfigures, with revenue up 21% year-over-year despite app downloads dropping for ... read more

Ukraine is the most digital country in the world. Its "Diia" app has everything people need on theirs phones, from ID to health records. ... read more

Media expenditure for advertisers is expected to reach $664.2 billion in 2026, with continued market share shifts from offline media to digital, data-driven channels, following a stable 2025. ... read more

Media expenditure for advertisers is expected to reach $664.2 billion in 2026, with continued market share shifts from offline media to digital, data-driven channels, following a stable 2025. ... read more

Media expenditure for advertisers is expected to reach $664.2 billion in 2026, with continued market share shifts from offline media to digital, data-driven channels, following a stable 2025. ... read more

Ohio Attorney General David Yost is pressing a state appeals court to revive his lawsuit claiming that Google wrongly preferences its own products and services in the search results. ... read more

The year ahead in commerce, with insights from the NRF Big Show conference, where retailers congregate every January. Plus, the 2026 privacy policy cheat sheet. The post Retail Media’s Growing Influence On Retail appeared first ... read more

Google's multi-year contract with Apple to support its push further into AI gives the company access to more than 1.5 billion iPhones worldwide. Here are some of the data and insights that suggest 2026 is ... read more

LAS VEGAS — For years, streaming advertisers operated in the dark. They could target specific households with precision, but had little visibility into what those viewers were actually watching when their ads appeared. That opacity ... read more

As part of the agreement, Stacy Minero, Chief Marketing and Experience Officer at Outfront will join the ANA CMO Growth Council. ... read more

If Q4 is the holiday shopping season, then Q1 might be the season of returns, or, more specifically, the season of return fraud. Retailers and ecommerce merchants are seeing a growing trend of returns and ... read more

If Q4 is the holiday shopping season, then Q1 might be the season of returns, or more specifically the season of return fraud. Retailers and ecommerce merchants are seeing a growing trend of returns and ... read more

Assembly will handle media and Allison will oversee PR/influencer activities, but the agencies will operate as an integrated team to service the full marketing funnel. ... read more

For the team at Monks, one of the biggest takeaways from CES this year is that AI’s place in marketing is starting to feel more practical than hypothetical. The post CES 2026: For Monks, AI-Powered ... read more

The AARP says 81% of adults 18 and older believe movies and TV shows shape how people see aging. And this counts for something: But is that an accurate portrayal? ... read more

Five Clydesdales turn their heads to peer at an overturned bucket that slowly moves, driven by some sort of small creature underneath. ... read more

The average adult spent between six and eight hours a day consuming media, according to NCHstats. Traditional television continued its decline in favor of streaming services, TikTok and Instagram Reels. ... read more

From the great tradition of sumptuous miniseries from the U.K. comes a new Agatha Christie mystery set in a declining English manor of the 1920s. ... read more

Google has been hit with three anti-trust lawsuits challenging its alleged ad-technology monopoly. The media firms that are suing Google include The Atlantic, Vox Media and Penske Media, The Verge reports. Vox Media is The Verge’s ... read more

Retail and CPG data company SPINS has acquired MikMak, a click-to-buy ad tech and analytics startup. The companies began discussing a potential partnership last year, with SPINS looking to expand into MikMak’s media space, AdExchanger ... read more

Google is testing the ability for advertisers to split-test shopping ads, specifically for creative assets in Performance Max campaigns. ... read more

Asad Ayaz has been named chief marketing/brand officer to lead the new "enterprise marketing and brand organization" - an effort to link marketing teams across all businesses including film, linear TV, streaming, ESPN, and theme ... read more

Human-made creative is in again; The Atlantic accuses Google of (another) monopoly; and it turns out brands like to have a say in their sponsorships. The post Consumers And Brands Crave The Human Touch; Google ... read more

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail. Apparel and outdoors giant VF Corp is revealing more details of its growth playbooks for three of its core brands: The North Face, Vans and ... read more

Yahoo is intentionally making its demand-sider platform (DSP) less sticky.  That cuts against the grain of ad tech, which has spent the better part of two decades engineering software to trap budgets, data and behavior ... read more

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail. Apparel and footwear brands are skating into the spotlight at this year’s Winter Olympics and Paralympics in Italy — and they’re determined to nab a ... read more

Google’s testimony to U.K. lawmakers this week did more than restate familiar arguments about fair use and training. It clarified the boundaries of what the company believes it should, and should not, pay publishers for ... read more

This week’s Media Briefing looks at the impact of Google’s latest core algorithm update on publishers’ search visibility, and how the changes signal a shift in rewarding scale and pageviews. Top U.S. news publishers ... read more

As Australia and other countries around the world pass laws that ban children from social-media platforms, YouTube is giving parents more power to control what video content their kids see. ... read more

Google announced new biddable capabilities for programmatic advertising inventory access to NBCUniversal's Olympic Winter Games through its Display & Video 360 platform. ... read more

Arkansas has appealed an injunction blocking enforcement of a law that prohibits social media platforms from using algorithms that could "cause" a user to commit suicide, purchase drugs, develop an eating disorder, or become addicted ... read more

Arkansas has appealed an injunction blocking enforcement of a law that prohibits social media platforms from using algorithms that could "cause" a user to commit suicide, purchase drugs, develop an eating disorder, or become addicted ... read more

Arkansas has appealed an injunction blocking enforcement of a law that prohibits social media platforms from using algorithms that could "cause" a user to commit suicide, purchase drugs, develop an eating disorder, or become addicted ... read more

LAS VEGAS — Advertisers are pouring billions into virtual worlds, with U.S. game ad revenues projected to climb nearly 7% to reach $8.59 billion this year. But, while nearly half of gamers purchase items based ... read more

LAS VEGAS – At CES 2026, Comcast’s NBCUniversal rolled out an idea that sounds futuristic but solves an old headache: buying live sports ads without losing your sanity. Ryan McConville, chief product officer and EVP ... read more

LAS VEGAS – At CES 2026, Albertsons Media Collective outlined how it is tightening measurement, expanding in-store media and using AI to link advertising more directly to sales outcomes. Senior Vice President Brian Monahan said ... read more

BMW teased its forthcoming all-electric M-series performance sedan today, promising that the quad-motor M3 sports car would feature specs that are truly next level when it arrives in 2027. ... read more

A smart lock is an easy solution to some common problems. Locked yourself out? Need to let a friend in to water the plants? Your latchkey kid lost their key? ... read more