Ad spend is under more scrutiny than ever as economic headwinds pressure marketers to stretch budgets, making every dollar count. Marketers are scrutinizing their ad spend more closely than ever and pressuring retail media partners for incrementality, a metric beyond return on ad spend (ROAS) to determine if the RMN media buys are paying off. That includes RMN partners like Lowe’s Media Network.

To better compete and take in more ad dollars, Lowe’s Media Network has incrementality on the roadmap. Digiday recently caught up with John Storms, general manager and head of Lowe’s Media Network, to get details on the measurement plan going forward and how the retailer is navigating economic headwinds.

The Lowe’s executive has overseen the media network since 2023, guiding it through a rebrand last year where it was renamed Lowe’s Media Network instead of Lowe’s One Roof Media Network. Before Lowe’s, Storms spent 19 years at Target, serving as director of hardlines (products like appliances, sporting equipment, electronics, and home goods) strategy and sales at Roundel from 2019 to 2022, according to his LinkedIn.

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Over the past two years, clipping has quietly become a staple in some advertisers’ media mix.

The term “clipping” refers to the practice of sharing short clips from longer content such as podcasts, livestreams or YouTube videos on social media platforms, to boost the original content’s audience or promote a brand. Originally, the technique was championed by larger content creators, who paid other creators to share their clips.

In 2025, brands and advertisers are recognizing its potential — and are starting to pour more marketing dollars into clipping, according to three creators interviewed for this article.

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The bull case for OpenAI to build an ads business just got a lot more real. 

The company is developing a sleek AI companion device, born out of its acquisition of former Apple designer Jony Ive’s design firm, with plans to ship 100 million units, according to The Wall Street Journal. If it takes off, OpenAI could become as ubiquitous as the smartphone.

But moonshots like this aren’t cheap. OpenAI isn’t printing money, it’s torching it. The company told investors it won’t turn a profit until 2029, and expects to lose $44 billion along the way, per The Wall Street Journal. 

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In an era of programmatic investment and complex media marketplaces made more byzantine thanks to the crush of ad-tech and mar-tech firms offering their brand of “unique” or “proprietary” solutions, does a personal touch or the offer of being a “partner” media agency matter anymore? 

The agency holding companies embrace that complexity and offer their road maps to massive multinational corporations to help wend their way across the landscape, but it’s hard to say they’re a “partner” to anyone but their own sibling companies — at least that’s the criticism of them and their size and breadth. 

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City-state residents who are digitally native and naturally compliant with authority are especially vulnerable to fraud

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Executives are filming themselves for social media as a way to talk directly to staff, customers and shareholders

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Military build-up enables Beijing to switch from peacetime to war operations quickly

According to a new report, Google has locked in production of its Tensor chipsets for Pixel phones through at least the Pixel 14 generation over the “next 3 to 5 years.”

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With a leap in the evolution of large language models, some leading thinkers are questioning whether AI might become sentient

The National Crime Agency tells the BBC how it is trying to find the culprits of the M&S and Co-op hacks.

A piece of classical music is to be played into space to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of its composer and the 50th year of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Per Inside EVs, Cybertruck owners are now allowed by Tesla to trade in their cars for the first time since they hit the market – but they’ll incur a heavy hit in the process. CarGurus recently showed depreciation rates of up to 45%. Meanwhile, Business Insider talked this past week with two owners who shared […]

Disney Plus will become the new home of CoComelon outside of YouTube starting in 2027, according to Bloomberg. All eight seasons will move over from Netflix, which has hosted the absurdly popular kids show since 2020.

CoComelon, essentially a series of mind-numbingly plotless, CG-animated vignettes set to karaoke-quality nursery rhymes, is a giant in the world of programming for children, having accounted for 601 million Netflix views in 2023. According to Bloomberg, it was the second most-streamed show on the platform last year.

Despite its popularity, Bloomberg reports that CoComelon views fell by “almost 60% over the last couple of years,” and that compared to all of streaming, it went from the fifth most-watched show in 2023 to not even breaking the top 10 last year. Still, it’s probably going to be a good deal for Disney, which will reportedly pay “tens of millions” a year for it. After all, 2027 is also the year that the first CoComelon movie hits theaters.

With the Pixel 10 series expected to be nearly identical to the current generation, color is how Google can physically distinguish the phones. A new leak today reveals the possible colors for the Pixel 10, 10 Pro, and 10 Pro XL.

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Upcoming smartphone tariffs first aimed at Apple, and since confirmed to apply to other brands, will apparently result in a huge 30-40% price hike on Samsung Galaxy smartphones.

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Between 'Lilo' and 'Mission: Impossible,' people who wanted to see something in theaters this weekend have been more than fed.

DJI seems to be preparing three new drones for release in the coming months: a Mini 5 Pro, Avata 3, and a Neo 2, according to DroneXL. The site published leaked images and video of the drones, along with a new FCC filing that suggests DJI is also working on a new action camera called the DJI Osmo Nano.

DroneXL published a video showing two drones that may be follow-ups to the Avata 2 and the adorable DJI Neo. DroneXL notes a few differences, like that the Avata 3’s battery sits farther back and it’s got a larger camera unit up front. It also has four-blade propellers rather than the three-blade setup of the Avata 2. Next to the Avata 3 is what the outlet thinks is a Neo 2 prototype, although it’s hard to discern much more than that it appears to have redesigned propeller guards compared to the original.

Yesterday, DroneXL pointed to a new FCC filing that revealed some information about the unannounced Mini 5 Pro. The filing shows the Mini 5 Pro will pack a whopping 33.5Wh battery — a big improvement over the 18.9Wh of the Mini 4 Pro — and the outlet writes that the wireless transmissions specs support rumors that it could stream video from as far as 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) away, or 5 kilometers farther than its predecessor. That range edges it closer to that DJI Mavic 4 Pro that wasn’t supposed to launch in the US but somehow went on sale here, anyway. (We’d love to know why, but DJI won’t say.) The Mini 5 Pro is expected to launch in September.

Rounding out DroneXL’s rumor post is a newly-published FCC filing for the DJI Osmo Nano, a new wearable action camera that appears to have a modular display like the Action line. The outlet notes that the company is also expected to release a Mic 3 and Osmo 360 camera, though it doesn’t have any solid guesses about when they’re coming.

From 'Star Wars' to 'Alien,' 'Exorcist 3,' and countless others, Les Dilley was all over movies as an art director and production designer.