In 2025, the Cannes Lions festival entered its third era of creativity.   The first era focused on the creative itself: the work that inspires consumers to change their behavior. Then media entered the mix, and the creativity tent grew to include how publishers, platforms and brands cultivate consumer engagement. This year, it was clear that […]

From Cannes Lions, our editorial team discusses the mix of perspectives on the ad industry’s application of AI: the opportunity, the hesitation and the predictions of how it will disrupt marketing.

We’ve seen this movie before. A new tech-fueled, transformative business opportunity emerges; irrational exuberance takes over; and the bubble ultimately bursts. This is what happened 25 years ago with the dot.com era and then, much less spectacularly, with the programmatic, personalized digital advertising era and its poster boy for bad behavior, retargeting. When it comes […]

Like so many of us in this industry, I like to think that knowing how the proverbial sausage gets made leaves me less susceptible to advertising’s influence. Even still, there’s something about travel commercials – especially ones produced by tourism boards – that always make me want to pack up and go to whatever fun […]

Nexstar Media is the latest addition to a growing list of companies adopting agentic AI for their marketing services. On Thursday, Nexstar announced that its digital strategy will now use Agentforce for Media, Salesforce’s agentic AI offering for media and entertainment companies.

It’s an all-too-familiar feeling for tech industry employees: You’re done with work and watching TV when suddenly a commercial comes on for the same B2B vendor you’ve been getting ads for at the office (or, at least, on a different computer screen in your home). Increasingly, you have LinkedIn to thank for that experience. Last […]

Previously, by February, LGBTQ media and influencers would have been setting up marketing campaigns for Pride month. In recent years, this planning was postponed by a month or two, since the immediacy of digital marketing allows for quicker activation. In 2025, however, the outreach never came. LGBTQ media often operates in the red for much […]

In times of economic uncertainty, marketing budgets are often the first target for cost-cutting. Nearly half of marketers now report feeling significantly less optimistic about the US economy compared to the previous quarter, reflecting heightened anxiety across industries. Yet, indiscriminate cuts can undermine long-term strategic goals and may ultimately cost businesses far more than they […]

The best thing publishers can do with generative AI is experiment with it. If journalists don’t decide the best use of AI in journalism, then AI firms will decide for them, says Christian Broughton, CEO of The Independent, on this week’s episode of AdExchanger Talks. “Do you want AI firms to just be dictating how […]

The ad market is like a hydra: Every time a head gets cut off, two grow back. Which is to say, for every channel that goes out of fashion – we’re looking at you, linear TV and physical newspapers – a new one pops up to replace it, keeping overall ad spend on the rise. […]