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

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

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

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

Health care marketers have never had more data, channels or targeting capabilities at their disposal. Yet many organizations still struggle to answer a fundamental question: What actually drove performance across a campaign? Consumer marketing teams, ... read more

Everybody describes themselves as storytellers these days, but one storyteller who stood head and shoulders above the rest was Tom Dreesen. ... read more

"Brands have mastered time travel," Edelman AI Product Manager Sydney Watson explained during her "New Voices" presentation this morning, adding, "We know how to make people miss something. And we know how to make people ... read more

"The business executives are in the room, and they're thinking about, not incrementalism, but, like, really exponentialism," OpenAI's Denise Dresser told festival attendees this morning, ushering in a new era in marketing. ... read more

She discussed her life, career, brands, the reason we're all here -- and more -- in a discussion with Cannes Lions Chairman Philip Thomas. ... read more

The major holdcos usually have a string of announcements flowing out of the Cannes ad festival all week. Here's a sampling of Tuesday's announcements. ... read more

Everywhere you look, a new agentic measurement tool seems to have sprung up. Agentic execution layers, on the other hand, are harder to come by, according to Nathan Venezia, founder of Concord. (As you may ... read more

Omnicom Media announced that it is partnering with Netflix in an arrangement that will combine Acxiom audience intelligence with the AI-enabled ad formats provided by Netflix. The agreement will allow more relevant personalized ads on ... read more

Samba, a media research film, has acquired Bestever AI, a GenAI platform built for advertisers and marketers, MediaPlayNews reports. Apoorva Govind, the founder and CEO of Bestever, was named director of product for Samba and will ... read more

If you’ve ever asked someone whether their Barrière patch is a tattoo, congratulations – you’ve just entered the brand’s marketing funnel. Founded in 2020, Barrière makes wearable transdermal vitamin and wellness patches, including ones for ... read more

Journalists have found refuge in email newsletters as media organizations reduce staff and audiences are skeptical of legacy institutions, The Washington Post writes. Typical is Ryan Broderick, who in 2019 created a backup plan while working as ... read more

AI recommendations are becoming the new digital shelf as people search and shop within LLM chatbots. The change has left the ad industry scrambling to determine what an ad strategy looks like without clicks, landing ... read more

OpenAI didn’t make its Cannes Lions debut from a Croisette rooftop or in a branded beach club. Instead, the company summoned a small group of reporters late Monday morning to a semi-secluded outdoor patio located ... read more

AdExchanger is officially on the ground in Cannes (on the beach, rather, or La Croisette to the initiated), with all the news and gossip from the south of France.  Check out the missives from editors ... read more

Ask anyone on the Croisette this week what’s transforming the industry and you’ll get the same words, delivered with the same confidence, regardless of who’s talking. AI. Efficiency. Agentic. Orchestration. Spend a few hours listening ... read more

The 2026 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity coincided with a “red weather warning” to note dangerously high temperatures across much of continental Europe, a climatic phenomenon that reflects the pace of competition as the ad ... read more

Forbes is testing a creator-led audience play that puts TikTok and Instagram talent at the front of its off-platform push.  Through a new “Forbes Creator” banner, the publisher is using TikTok, Instagram and events to ... read more

The World Cup is expected to create the largest sports betting market in history. That’s an opportunity for sportsbook brands looking to gain and hold market share, and for the prediction market companies hoping to ... read more

In the search to make advertising on streaming services less unpleasant for viewers often bombarded with the same ads in every commercial break, Omnicom Media and Disney Advertising have agreed to implement a connected TV ... read more

This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at a spate of recent studies that highlight the growing predominance of ad-supported streaming and the risk in how brands are managing streaming campaigns. In graphic detail ... read more

Prediction market Polymarket said it is auditing its promotional content following a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that alleged the firm apaid online content creators to generate videos that falsely showed customers winning $1.9 million, according to ... read more

Prediction market Polymarket said it is auditing its promotional content following a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that alleged the firm apaid online content creators to generate videos that falsely showed customers winning $1.9 million, according to ... read more

If you’re buying TV through a DSP and calling it a strategy, Tatari CRO Andy Schonfeld has some notes. On this episode of AdExchanger’s Inside the Stack podcast, Schonfeld, who has spent seven years building ... read more

TikTok is demonstrating at Cannes Lions how it is furthering its goals of blending in-app shopping functionality with enhanced brand-creator connections, primarily powered by AI. ... read more

TikTok is demonstrating at Cannes Lions how it is furthering its goals of blending in-app shopping functionality with enhanced brand-creator connections, primarily powered by AI. ... read more

WhatsApp's new leader will be Kunal Shah, the Indian entrepreneur and founder of Cred, a fintech startup that Meta has decided to invest $900 million into during a recent financing round. ... read more

The Monday night ceremony included awards for Pharma, Audio and Radio, Creative B2B, Health & Wellness and more. ... read more

House Energy & Commerce lawmakers have revised the controversial Kids Online Safety Act, but the new version is "dead in the Senate," Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said Monday. ... read more

House Energy & Commerce lawmakers have revised the controversial Kids Online Safety Act, but the new version is "dead in the Senate," Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) said Monday. ... read more

The organization will manage name, image and likeness rights for NBA players across products, partnerships and global business opportunities ... read more

Reactions ranging from "Wow, that's clever" to "Wait, that company still exists?" So who has the best OOH ads this year? Who missed the mark? And which ones left us scratching our heads? Let's get ... read more

"We feel we have a moment of opportunity right now with AI," the U.N.'s Charlotte Scaddan told Cannes festival attendees, adding, "You all have that power.... to ensure that we don't make the same mistakes ... read more

A Texas law requiring Google and Apple to prevent minors from downloading apps or making in-app purchases without parental consent "unconstitutionally intrudes" on parents' relationships with their children, the conservative organization Patriot Voices argues to ... read more