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B-to-C Events
SDCC 2025: Superfans ‘Find Their Mountain’ at Paramount+’s Lodge
From the fandom to the temps, it’s hot, hot, hot in SoCal this week, where EM has landed for what is arguably the superfan event of the year: San Diego Comic-Con. Among brands leading the experiential way once again is Paramount+ and its touring activation, The Lodge. The footprint is bigger and the IP is […]
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CTV Roundup
How Kidoodle.TV Keeps Inappropriate Ads (And Annoying Children’s TV Stars) Out Of Its AVOD Channels
Into every generation, a universally hated children’s television character is born. This, of course, poses a unique problem in a world of smart TV operating systems and content recommendation engines.
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Programming
Paramount-Skydance Wrap-Up
So what now that there’s a greenlight for New Paramount? Change.
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Corporate Social Responsibility
PR Roundup: Sony’s Sustainability, AI Summary Crisis, Top 50 Creator-Journalists
This week’s PR Roundup looks at what communicators can learn from Sony’s public pledge for product sustainability, a new list honoring the top 50 independent creator-journalists and the continuing problem of AI summary results for the news industry and earned media.
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Cynsiders
AI Is Only as Smart as Its Signals: Why Identity Comes First
By Chris Hogg, Chief Revenue Officer, Lotame AI-powered tools promise smarter targeting, faster insights, and better business outcomes. But without a durable, privacy-first identity strategy, they can’t deliver. Why? Because the data these tools run on is typically incomplete, inconsistent, or disconnected. The fragmentation of media means that while signals arrive from dozens of […]
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B-to-C Events
SDCC 2025: Conveyor Belts Move Fans Through Google Play’s ‘Fantastic Four’ Rewards Lab
Building wraps are all over San Diego this week as Comic-Con takes over the city, but none beckoned us over more than the sight of a looming Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” (the rest of the cast was on the oversized poster, too…). Underneath the huge banner, at Martin […]
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B-to-C Events
Three Insights from Jamba on Sweet and Strategic Street Team Campaigns
There’s no better call to action than money in the pocket. More than 1,000 consumers in L.A. were blessed with dollar bills by Jamba’s roving street teams to use for the brand’s $1 smoothie deal on National Smoothie Day, June 21. The Blended for Everyone campaign, a follow-up to the brand’s 2024 repositioning, Hello Sunshine, […]
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The Big Story
Transparent Non-Transparency
Ad agency hold cos have broadcasted their earnings. As AI and acquisitions transform their businesses, there are clear winners and losers. With media as a strong spot, we discuss the paradox of “transparent nontransparency.”
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AI
Dentsu’s Carat Partners With An AI Platform To Bring Its Agents (Almost) To Life
Dentsu-owned media agency Carat wants to understand audiences better, and its solution is an introvert’s dream: cut down on human conversations and bring in the bots. On Thursday, Carat announced a partnership with Vurvey Labs (a portmanteau of “video” and “survey”), an agentic AI-powered research platform that uses short video surveys to quickly get insights about […]
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Data-Driven Thinking
The Mirage Of Reach: Why Festival Marketing Exposes Everything Broken In Media Measurement
Every April, something fascinating happens in the desert. Brands spend millions activating around Coachella. Then they spend the next three months trying to figure out if any of it actually worked. This isn’t just a festival problem; it’s a reflection of our industry’s broken approach to measuring media effectiveness. And while it’s true, it isn’t […]
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