The smart home promise has always been convenience, automation, and personalization, but for years, consumers have struggled with fragmented ecosystems and clunky user experiences. On this episode of The Speed of Culture podcast, Mark Benson, head of SmartThings at Samsung Electronics, breaks down the next wave of AI-driven smart home innovation. From seamless device interoperability...
Steve Soliz is leaving Tegna's Seattle NBC affiliate KING after four years. Soliz told viewers why he was leaving in a social media post. "Why am I leaving? The company that owns KING is cutting costs and chose to eliminate my position. My managers didn't want me to leave, but their hands were tied," he...
NBC News' Today snapped ABC News' Good Morning America's two-week win streak in total viewers. The competitive battle for the top spot favored Today as it dethroned GMA with +40,000 additional total viewers for the week of Feb. 24. The back-and-forth action for first place between NBC News and ABC News clouded the fact that...
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a longtime critic of pharmaceutical companies running advertisements on television. Now that he's U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, he has an opportunity to do something about it. If U.S. regulators prohibit drug companies from airing ads on TV, the ad dollars will have to flow somewhere. Billions would...
Meta introduced generative artificial intelligence-powered digital assistant Meta AI in September 2023 across Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp, and the company is reportedly developing a stand-alone application. Now, it's working on bringing the power of AI to businesses of all sizes. Meta AI has more than 700 million monthly active users, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said...
Over the weekend, MSNBC hosts Jonathan Capehart and Ayman Mohyeldin cleared the air surrounding their positions within the network. The two hosts addressed audiences on their respective programs, acknowledging the network's significant programming changes in the past week and announcing their roles as The Weekend co-hosts. At the end of The Saturday Show, Capeheart said,...
Cade Cunningham faced the three-point contest, a new game format, and a steady stream of brand activations and events during his first NBA All-Star Weekend, including everything from an interview from TNT Inside the NBA personality Ernie Johnson at an American Express All-Star event to an appearance at Foot Locker's giant activation just across Powell...
Former WBIR anchor Edye Ellis has died. She was 81. Her cousin, Robert Collins, told the Knoxville, Tennessee NBC affiliate that everyone who met her "should be assured she was genuine. She loved people, animals, and plants, and was just a lovely person," he said. "Heaven will be a better place because of her." Edye...
In this episode of the Brave Commerce podcast, Steve Siegal, chief marketing and innovation officer at Curology, joins hosts Rachel Tipograph and Sarah Hofstetter to discuss Curology's journey from a DTC disruptor to an omnichannel skincare leader. Steve shares how launching in Target, Walmart, and CVS has reshaped Curology's strategy, driving credibility, visibility, and a...
Google is apologizing to advertisers after Google Ads stopped serving ads for some accounts over the weekend, beginning on March 1. Other advertisers were met with error messages, high latency, and other unexpected issues, leading to displaced ad spend and lower conversions. Some advertisers estimate the impact to be in the tens of thousands in...
It seems like veteran journalists are dropping out of local TV in larger numbers than usual. Either that, or I'm just getting old. Hopefully, no one feels shorted by this combo post where I cover two retirements in one. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, Bill Jartz is retiring from ABC affiliate WBAY, while Sheri Jones has...
E.W. Scripps is laying off staff at many of its local stations. Scripps owns and operates more than 60 stations in over 40 markets. Staffers were told on Monday. The station group also said open positions would not be filled. We asked the station group about which stations were affected and how many people lost...
Amazon wants a bigger piece of TV ad dollars that are going programmatic. The company is launching a new tool called Complete TV within its demand-side-platform, Amazon DSP, for advertisers to plan and manage their TV budgets, including linear and streaming deals. With Complete TV, advertisers can track their upfront commitments--year-long TV budgets that are...
Back in October, Saucony's chief marketing officer (CMO) Joy Allen-Altimare told ADWEEK she wanted to bridge the gap between performance and lifestyle. Now, five months on, the exec is spearheading a campaign that does just that: "Run as One." The new initiative debuts with a fast-paced, 30-second campaign film highlighting running as a communal experience....
Stagwell agency GALE has named Andrew Noel as its new global chief executive officer (CEO) and Sophia Zhang as its North America CEO, it exclusively shared with ADWEEK. The longtime execs succeed founder and CEO Brad Simms, who informed GALE's staff last month that he will retire. The transition is effective immediately. Simms founded GALE...
There is always activity in the chief marketing executive (CMO) role, and some big moves have been made over the last 12 months. Where OpenAI hired its first marketing chief, other brands such as Starbucks, Adobe, and McDonald's said goodbye to execs and either promoted or welcomed new ones in their place. There have also...
It turns out that Gen Z is often just as anxious about artificial intelligence booting them from a job as many other people. One of the most common assumptions made in corporate America over the last quarter century is that "digital natives"--a term coined by educator Marc Prensky in 2001--are inherently comfortable with digital technology....
Oscar voters may have loved Anora, but viewers at home still need to get to know her. Preliminary ratings for the 97th Oscars are in, and this year's independent film-dominated show saw a 7% dip from 2024's Barbenheimer barnburner. Per early Nielsen fast national ratings, the telecast brought in an average of 18.1 million total...
Longtime KLFY anchor and reporter Darla Montgomery is retiring after more than 33 years. The Opelousas native joined the Lafayette, Louisiana CBS station in 1992. The station said her career has "taken her across the world, from covering local and state elections to traveling with Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco to Canada in an effort to...
Chairman and CEO Rodney McMullen is no longer in stock at Kroger, as the supermarket chain announced his resignation Monday following an investigation into his conduct by the company's board of directors. Kroger would not offer specifics, only saying that McMullen's activity was inconsistent with its policy on business ethics but unrelated to the business...
