Authenticity. Outcomes. Workflow….and containerization? After a week sweating on the Croisette, the AdExchanger team offers you a sweat-free synopsis of the 2026 Cannes Lions. The post 2026 Cannes Lions: Authenticity In The Age of AI ... read more

As much as consumers complain about AI-generated content, advertising experts say AI still has an important place in video creation and production, including for ads. But using AI in content without turning off consumers is ... read more

Since Publicis Groupe is acquiring LiveRamp, many brands will likely find themselves in the market for a new independent vendor for audience and identity data. Plus: FIFA’s controversial ad-filled hydration breaks twice per every World ... read more

Bose CMO Jim Mollica hasn’t used a creative agency in four or five years, he told Digiday. One CPG CMO, overheard at a dinner this week, said they no longer believe in agencies of record. ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Creators are no longer a media channel or transaction. It’s an entirely new marketing mode — at least that’s what the infrastructure behind Unilever’s creator strategy indicates. Call it a transformation. ... read more

Amazon is pushing deeper into the middle of TV and audio ad deals, rolling out a new measurement tool for streamers while tapping iHeartMedia’s 1,000-plus sellers to put its streaming inventory on more media plans.  ... read more

For competing apparel brands Nike and Adidas, the World Cup is a golden opportunity, but one that finds the rivals in very different positions. An apparent recovery last October, when revenues increased 1% amid a ... read more

Brand marketers underwrite the ad industry’s creative endeavors. But many still aren’t sure they can justify the output of their creative agencies to C-suite colleagues. According to a survey of senior marketers conducted by measurement ... read more

Broader permissions would give Google more options to use publishers' content, including the ability to train its AI models. ... read more

The New York Times has amended the copyright lawsuit it filed in 2023 against OpenAI and Microsoft, the Times reports. The new Times filing accuses Microsoft of encouraging OpenAI to train its AI system with articles from the Times and providing services ... read more

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has accused Disney of running a “campaign of misinformation” about two investigations the FCC is conducting into it, The Guardian reports. Ads run by owner ABC drew 51,000 comments about the probe into ... read more

Gross cost has long the standard financial metric for traditional media, but its past usefulness is no reason to retain it, TVNewsCheck writes. The reason is that gross cost, based on a 15% agency commission ... read more

Canva has debuted Canva Grow 2.0, which allows users to create ad campaigns and publish them to TikTok, LinkedIn and Meta without leaving the Canva app, The Verge reports. The firm is also expanding further ... read more

"The Act compels covered websites to speak the state's message on the highly controversial topic of 'potential negative mental health impacts' of social media on users, which is the subject of intense scholarly and social ... read more

The Texas App Store Accountability Act is a "full-scale, first-of-its-kind assault on the First Amendment," the Computer & Communications Industry Association said in papers filed late Wednesday with the Supreme Court. ... read more

Smart TVs, refrigerators and other home appliances may pester you with marketing and perhaps even check your presence in the room using a front-facing camera. But at least the hardware is cheap! That’s the promise. ... read more

Google rolled out additions to its agency administration features in Merchant Center for Agencies, which initially launched in March to streamline workflows. ... read more

Everyone at Cannes is talking about AI — but CivicScience CEO and founder John Dick says the industry is missing its most important stakeholder: the consumer. Drawing on survey data, Dick argues AI may be ... read more

Digital out-of-hone work is located in select World Cup host cities. ... read more

"13 Days The Musical" may or may not make it to Broadway, but it got a preview in Cannes today. The audience was blown away. ... read more

The campaign targets the FCC and its efforts to go after ABC because of its programming, urging viewers to scan a code that links to the agency's public comment page. ... read more

The thieves and half a million stolen KitKat bars remain at large, but the jury praised the work for "rewriting the rules" of crisis communications. ... read more

CANNES, FRANCE — When viewers suffer through a poorly targeted or repetitive ad on a streaming service, they don’t blame Netflix or Disney. They blame the advertiser. That is driving a wave of creative personalization ... read more

Millions of people connect their TVs to the internet, but cable and satellite TV remain the service used most often overall. ... read more

Disney slipped around half a share point to 10.3% and NBCU/Versant Media remained the same with a combined 8.2% share. Fox, with its proposed Roku acquisition, would have a 9.9% share - for third place ... read more

Some of the thumbs-down reviews for David's new show, titled "Life, Larry and the Pursuit of Unhappiness," are savage. ... read more

"Gunsmoke" was the series with the most-streamed minutes on FAST platforms from Oct. 2025-April 2026, at 22.5 billion minutes on Pluto TV, according to Peer39, a digital media data company. ... read more

CANNES — The advertising industry has ballooned into a $1.4 trillion behemoth, powered by a broader coalition of global platforms that have proven surprisingly resilient against economic headwinds. While Google, Meta, and Amazon continue to ... read more

It’s no secret that large language models (LLMs) have gotten exorbitantly expensive. Companies are starting to limit their employees’ AI usage to save money; OpenAI has even discussed lowering the cost of tokens to retain ... read more

Audio advertising has a scale problem. While Spotify, Pandora and iHeartMedia dominate industry attention, roughly half of the ad-supported audio market sits outside those platforms.  Hundreds of streaming audio publishers, podcast creators and niche content ... read more

The Tech Revolution Will Be Televised  Every business considers itself a tech company these days. Remember Allbirds sneakers pivoting to AI? In the entertainment industry, the line between tech and media is growing especially murky. ... read more

MediaLink has spent years owning the art of wining and dining CMOs at Cannes. This year, it turned that same playbook on creators. UTA, its owner, hosted an invite-only dinner for more than 70 creators ... read more

Earlier this week — on Tuesday evening to be precise — several ad execs from both advertisers and agencies gathered at the Il Teatro restaurant in Cannes, France, to talk about what should happen now ... read more

The last of a series of partnerships and collaborations Omnicom Media rolled out during Cannes Lions 2026 has the media agency network co-developing a dynamic contextual content solution with NBCUniversal that aims to boost creative ... read more

Google’s World Cup brand campaign isn’t just another marketing bet on live sports’ biggest carnival. It’s also a tell. The tech giant is currently running a brand campaign throughout the tournament featuring Spain’s Lamine Yamal, ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify A shift is underway across the ad industry. Platforms are rolling out more automated marketing tools, lowering the barrier to entry for advertisers to manage campaigns directly. Agencies, long since ... read more

This week’s Media Briefing looks at the real conversations publishers are having in Cannes – how much of the AI and agentic media buzz will turn into actual money, and what it all means for ... read more

Amazon has launched a program called Alexa+ Agentic Ads that it says will allow customers to make purchases without leaving the ad, Ad Exchanger reports from Cannes. The ads have a visual feature that appears on Amazon Echo Show device ... read more

Podcast host Libsyn claims that a campaign for a quick-service restaurant chain boosted awareness, purchase intent and brand favorability among Gen Z consumers, Inside Radio reports. The chain was not identified, but the company says ... read more

TikTok and fitness-tracking app Strava are launching a pan-European "Local Movement Fund" in which both companies will fund local clubs and fitness communities and tap creator-ambassadors specializing in exercise content. ... read more

Meta has begun testing a stand-alone AI-powered companion app designed to be a "homebase" for Facebook creators looking to build their audiences on the tech giant's flagship platform. ... read more

Meta has begun testing a stand-alone AI-powered companion app designed to be a "homebase" for Facebook creators looking to build their audiences on the tech giant's flagship platform. ... read more

"Americans expect privacy when it comes to their reproductive health information," four individuals who visited Planned Parenthood's website allege in a class-action complaint. ... read more

The Weather Channel remains the most trusted news source even as overall trust in media declines, YouGov reports. The 2026 Trust in Media survey by YouGov found that Americans are 50% more likely to call The Weather Channel trustworthy than untrustworthy. PBS ... read more

Elisabeth Murdoch, a member of the Murdoch media family, is one of a group of strategic investors backing Piers Morgan’s effort to turn Piers Morgan Uncensored, a YouTube talk show, into a global media network, Inc. reports. ... read more

Elisabeth Murdoch, a member of the Murdoch media family, is one of a group of strategic investors backing Piers Morgan’s effort to turn Piers Morgan Uncensored, a YouTube talk show, into a global media network, Inc. reports. ... read more

The main idea: One week before this year's Super Bowl, fans were invited to create in-app Super Bowl commercials. Record-breaking sales ensued. ... read more

Dentsu's proprietary audience strategy platform, Dentsu.Audiences, will be integrated with CreatorIQ's influencer marketing software platform. ... read more

Google continually tests new ways to improve the Search Ads experience. This week it began running a small experiment by adding what it calls a label for "Strongest match" or "Strong match" to certain Search ... read more

A majority of judges on New York's highest court signaled this week that they would uphold a law requiring social platforms to accept complaints about offensive speech -- including speech protected by the First Amendment. ... read more

A majority of judges on New York's highest court signaled this week that they would uphold a law requiring social platforms to accept complaints about offensive speech -- including speech protected by the First Amendment. ... read more

CANNES. FRANCE — The marketing world loves to debate where the next dollar should go. Better data? Smarter media buying? More sophisticated measurement? For one industry leader, the answer is simple: invest in creative. Up ... read more

The massive volume of water required to keep data centers running has become an environmental and regulatory challenge as use of AI and cloud services for advertising and business accelerates. ... read more

CANNES, FRANCE – Plenty of media companies arrive at Cannes Lions talking about efficiency, scale and optimization. Rich Routman, president of Minute Media, showed up talking about Sports Illustrated covers, swimsuit models, World Cup soccer ... read more

With its Roku acquisition, Fox bought the most valuable piece of living room real estate: the OS that decides what you see when you turn on the TV. ... read more

Fox is averaging 5.7 million average viewers so far, with Telemundo, Peacock, and Telemundo digital platforms at 5.3 million. The most-viewed match so far (U.S.-Australia) on Friday had 20.7 U.S. viewers overall. ... read more

"The thing I have to harp on to a bunch of CMOs all the time is the staying power that they have with content creators on YouTube," the elite pro golfer and content creator told ... read more

"It feels like people are much more crazy here," actor Alan Cummings said about the vibe at the ad festival vs. the film festival. "Everyone's like, 'Dude!'" ... read more

Over the immediate term, AI-native firms will get more out of AI and do more with AI, as big brands watch and learn. Big brands can afford to be behind at the get-go. ... read more

The Stagwell chairman-CEO wrapped his conversation with American Eagle's Craig Brommers by playing a clip from Apple TV's dystopian "Murderbot." ... read more

How much more are consumers who use ad blockers worth? A lot more. These highly valuable consumers defy industry assumptions, according to new data. ... read more

"What it's basically telling us is that brand is actually going to be more important in an AI era, not less," WARC's Aditya Kishore said this morning, teeing the slide up. ... read more

Anchorman Tony Dokoupil this week flew to the defense of the new leadership regime at CBS News led by internet firebrand Bari Weiss. ... read more

Beyond traditional viewing, consumers use TVs for YouTube videos, gaming, social media viewing, fitness programs, education, shopping and even virtual fireplaces. ... read more

Shopify is slowly but surely making its way into the ads business. An earlier step in that journey was the hiring Samir Pradhan as VP of product for merchant marketing in November 2025. There is ... read more

Related Insights Business of TV Meta eyes CTV expansion to fuel its next wave of ad growth Read More Walmart has agreed to acquire Vibe.co, an outfit specializing in ... read more

A lot of the conversations folks have in Cannes are the same ones they’re having at home, the only difference being that both parties are wearing sunglasses and linen shorts. One of those recurring threads ... read more

Netflix has boasted of its improved ad targeting and measurement capabilities as it competes for legacy TV network ad dollars.  But behind the scenes, ad buyers and buy-side ad tech execs exhort Netflix for more ... read more

Radio firm iHeartMedia is about to implement a new round of layoffs, Barrett Media reports. An internal memo shows that the company is changing its strategy to a “faster is better approach,” and that existing positions will ... read more

Premium media owners have one commercial asset that generative AI cannot reproduce at scale: the trust audiences place in their brands.  Every other historical advantage publishers once had with audiences – voice, expertise, production quality ... read more

Raja Rajamannar, former chief marketing and communications officer of MasterCard, cut the firm’s ad budget before his departure in January of this year — apparently without hurting the brand, Business Insider reports. "We have taken ... read more

New York State’s Court of Appeals has upheld a state law requiring social media firms to have “mechanisms for reporting hateful content,” saying it does not violate free speech rights, Courthouse News Service reports. The purpose of the law ... read more

Despite the heat and the humidity, AdExchanger’s Cannes coverage continues, featuring all the hottest news and gossip straight from the Croisette.  Check out our latest Cannes coverage from editors Sarah Sluis, Allison Schiff and Lynne ... read more

For two decades, Cannes Lions has been the advertising industry’s high church of the campaign — the ad, the stunt and the killer creative idea. This year, the conversations actually happening in the villas and ... read more

With half the industry’s dealmakers and powerbrokers gathered in the south of France this week, agencies have been falling over themselves to boast AI agent-related tests, case studies and partnerships. They’re not just competing with ... read more

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts • Spotify Spotify has spent the last year overhauling its ads business to try and persuade advertisers that it’s more than just an audio buy. Last year, its ad business was “moving ... read more

You sit down to watch the premiere of Landman or Tulsa King on Paramount+, and enjoy the show but feel aggravated at seeing the same sponsor spots through several episodes. According to research from Omnicom ... read more

Britain may force social media companies to prioritize trusted news sources as it pushes to tighten regulation of the sector, Reuters reports. The culture department is considering a change that would require platforms like Facebook, ... read more

The company's latest campaign acknowledges that the dream of a new address is within reach. ... read more

Cannes Lions announced winners including Entertainment Lions, Entertainment Lions for Gaming and Entertainment Lions for Music. ... read more

Paramount on Tuesday urged the Supreme Court to refuse to reinstate a claim that 247Sports violated a 38-year-old video privacy law by allegedly transmitting analytics data to Meta. ... read more

Meta will launch its newest AI-powered glasses with wearables partner EssilorLuxottica, promoting the Meta-branded product with media personality and socialite Kylie Jenner. ... read more

Meta is unveiling a bundle of additional ad offerings including AI-powered creative solutions, expanded ad tools and a unified creator marketplace hub. ... read more

Digiday Top Workplaces is an annual list recognizing the best companies to work for across media, marketing and technology. The companies recognized this year are setting the standard for what strong workplaces look like: those ... read more

Digiday Top Workplaces is an annual list recognizing the best companies to work for across media, marketing and technology. The companies recognized this year are setting the standard for what strong workplaces look like: those ... read more

Sight gag aside, P&G's Marc Pritchard made a salient point with his own, custom-built chatbot to provide some not-so-artificial-intelligence to the Lions crowd this morning. ... read more

Walmart has developed one of the most sophisticated retail media networks (RMNs). On Tuesday it advanced its ad strategy to sell more ad space across CTV, showing how RMNs cross into CTV. ... read more

As the CTV agency noted in a missive celebrating the anniversary, the founders started with $30,000 of their own money "and since inception has taken zero funding. No venture capital. No friends and family handouts. ... read more

Siding against Meta, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee can proceed with claims that the platform violated an Arkansas law giving him the right to control the commercial use of ... read more

Walmart will buy Vibe.co, a self-serve video ad platform, in hopes of attracting more small and medium-sized advertisers to connected TV. The post Walmart Buys Vibe.co To Woo SMBs To Streaming appeared first on AdExchanger. ... read more

The problem, however, is that authenticity is hard to manufacture. What brands really need is "earned authenticity." ... read more

Instagram for TV features will promote more "horizontal video." A new deal includes Samsung TV devices from only Amazon Fire and Google TV products. ... read more

"I honestly think New York is the greatest city in the world," Jeter said about attending the Knicks championship win. "There's no better place to win, because it's truly like life or death with New ... read more

The proposed update would help media buyers better understand how bid requests are created and routed across programmatic transactions as they move through the ad ecosystem. ... read more

Speaking at the Cannes Lions Festival, the Dentsu executive said the company tries to remain agile in the face of constant change and has sought to simplify its business to make it more accessible to ... read more

A majority of Americans are pessimistic about the outlook for the economy heading into the midterms, although Republican voters index the most optimistic. ... read more

CANNES, FRANCE — At a festival overflowing with content creators, platform pitches, and AI hype, the case for old-fashioned journalistic credibility might seem like a hard sell. CNBC’s president doesn’t think so. Speaking at the ... read more

YouTube is offering additional AI-supported data and services, with features for tools made available at Cannes Lions. Forbes is launching a way to help brands connect through a "Creator Network." ... read more

The increase in streaming viewing was largely driven by sports, with major entertainment programming from Netflix, Paramount+ and HBO Max also contributing. ... read more

CANNES – Marketers have spent years trying to figure out how to keep consumers engaged. Disney Advertising’s Dana McGraw may have a simpler answer: give people something to obsess over together. Speaking at the Cannes ... read more