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Publishers have grappled with a love-hate relationship with social media platforms over the years. But as AI continues to propagate (skewing media metrics along the way), social media could be moving closer to the “love” side of the relationships publishers have with different pieces of the digital landscape.

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DEI might not dominate boardroom agendas like it once did, but for marketers it remains essential. After all, growth doesn’t come from ignoring the audiences who make it possible.

That’s why Heineken’s marketers are digging into research from creative data platform CreativeX, looking at how ads featuring people with different skin tones perform across social media platforms. The goal isn’t just to understand the data, said the brewer’s global media lead Joost Hoppe, it’s to turn those insights into action by sharing them with brand teams across the business, 

But before unpacking why the findings could prove so valuable to those marketers, it’s worth understanding the scope: conducted in the first quarter, the research spanned 108,000 image and video assets backed by over $804 million in media spend from 2,191 brands across 163 marketers between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2024. During this period it racked creative elements across 11 digital channels. Each asset was tagged with thousands of creative attributes including character, gender, age, skin tone and the context in which they appeared such as leadership, professional, physical, family or domestic roles. 

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If there’s one thing keeping Zola’s new CMO up at night, it’s search — or rather the messy reinvention of it.

Barely two weeks into the role, Briana Severson is already navigating a marketing minefield, where the old playbook is fading fast and the new one is still being written. 

“Were someone to ask me to sum up what’s on my mind as a marketer these days, it would be search,” said Severson.

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Transparency is one of the ad industry’s favorite pet topics. 

Today’s marketers spend sleepless nights puzzling over how much of their budget is lost along the mazelike programmatic supply chain, if they can trust CTV middlemen, or whether supposedly epoch-defining AI tools are in fact Mechanical Turks.

The disinfectant of sunlight, in theory, provides a means of resolving those concerns. But as more agencies put proprietary software tools and data platforms (like Havas Media Group’s Converged or WPP Media’s Open Intelligence) at the center of their appeal to new clients, agency execs are toying with the shades.

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A fresh wave of publishers have signed up for generative AI startup ProRata’s revenue share program, including The Boston Globe, Vox Media and Future, as well as Fast Co. and Inc owner Mansueto Ventures.

ProRata operates Gist.ai, an AI-powered search engine that utilizes licensed content to generate answers, which launched in December 2024. Today, the company will announce a dozen more, taking the total number of publishers that license content to power its AI search engine to 500, according to the company.

Frommer’s, Homes & Gardens, The Nation, Newsday, The New Republic, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Trusted Media Brands are among those to come on board. 

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Jorge Poyatos, co-founder and co-CEO, Seedtag

Contextual ad targeting capabilities are expanding rapidly, and AI is playing a prominent role in that evolution. In the same way that the human brain uses neural networks to recognize patterns and assign meaning to them, the latest contextual ad technology employs these same principles to go beyond mere content categorization into understanding the human interest, intent and emotion behind consumers’ habits. 

With the aid of AI agents, this sophisticated understanding of human behavior and intent can be activated across media channels, forming an intelligent modern media solution — neuro-contextual ad targeting.

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More media agencies are attempting to go around traditional ad tech gatekeepers to strike their own deals with supply-side platforms (SSPs).

Media agencies are under pressure, squeezed between marketers holding back on budgets and the cost of doing business with demand-side platforms (DSPs) like The Trade Desk. At the same time, clients want to ensure their media dollars are only going toward premium ad inventory and are being steered as far away from MFA sites and the murkier end of the web as possible.

In response, agencies are looking to tie themselves closer to SSPs, striking new partnership deals, leaning further into established ones, and consolidating their programmatic investments through the largest players in that space. Such partnerships were limited to the industry’s largest investment houses, but execs at SSPs including PubMatic told Digiday they’re now attempting to reach beyond the major holding company networks.

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Against all odds – and headlines – ad spending is holding steadily. 

Despite a parade of problems, the market hasn’t blinked. Ad buyers are saying it, and the latest forecast from Madison & Wall backs them up. For now, the money is still moving. 

Specifically in the U.S. where ad spending (excluding political ads), is expected to grow 6% in the second quarter, and for the full year. That’s a notable jump from Madison & Wall’s March forecast, which pegged growth for the year at just 3.6%. 

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This week’s Media Briefing looks at the state of publishers’ commerce and affiliate businesses, given the recent news that Business Insider is shutting down most of its commerce division in light of search referral traffic declines.

• Publishers say affiliate and commerce businesses aren’t dead in the AI search era, but personal, voicey and category-specific recommendations are key.
• The Washington Post opens up opinion section, TechCrunch shuts down European division, and more.

Stability in commerce, for some

Some are calling it the “great decoupling”: Google search is shifting, with clicks falling even as impressions hold steady. 

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If you thought the hype around AI was receding, think again. Generative AI applications have become the key battleground between marketing services companies of all stripes, from creative to strategic consulting, to media planning and buying. 

The American public believes generative AI will have a negative impact on U.S. society, according to recent polling by Pew and Forrester. But advertising clients clearly think the tech is a solution to their woes. Two-fifths of CMOs are already using AI for creative automation, and 37% report using agents to manage their media spending, according to Gartner’s latest CMO survey.

Which brings us to WPP Media, and the industry behemoth’s latest attempt to recover its once-leading market position. After last week’s rechristening, the media network (formerly known as GroupM) has launched “Open Intelligence”, an AI identity solution that WPP Media’s execs say can deliver more precise, privacy-conscious targeting for clients.

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The Trade Desk is poised to launch Deal Desk, a new capability within the demand-side platform aimed at easing the structural inefficiencies in the Deal ID ecosystem.

Deal Desk’s official announcement is expected imminently, although Will Doherty, svp inventory development, The Trade Desk, teased the launch on stage at the IAB Tech Lab Summit, hosted in New York City, June 4. 

In discussion with IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur, Doherty outlined the pending launch explaining that it was aimed at addressing structural inefficiencies in the Deal ID or private marketplace ecosystem. 

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In a surprise move that happened last week but news of broke last night, studio and TV company Paramount moved its media business to Publicis and Interpublic Group, dealing losses to WPP and Horizon Media, according to sources with knowledge of the business. Apparently the move was made without a formal review.

While no party involved would confirm the moves on the record, Hollywood publication Deadline broke the news of the lion’s share of Paramount’s business moving from WPP Media to Publicis on Tuesday night. Deadline’s story attributed the move to a cost-savings effort, which would mean that Publicis most likely offered to secure lower rates for the entertainment company’s marketing efforts. 

Digiday has confirmed that U.S. media for streaming service Paramount+, which has been handled by Horizon Media, was won by IPG’s Mediabrands. In total, Paramount is reported to spend about $600 million in media across its films, streaming service and other TV properties (including the former Viacom cable networks). 

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This State of the Industry Report, sponsored by Arc XP, explores how publishers are incorporating AI into their newsrooms beyond the typical workplace efficiency avenues, how far they’ve gotten with those implementations, the challenges they’ve encountered and how they’re overcoming them.  

As AI permeates every industry, publishers and broadcasters are no strangers to the technology. AI is no longer experimental but a useful tool for everyday tasks that can drastically improve how organizations function and deliver experiences for their readers. While many businesses have incorporated AI into their daily operations, publishers have a unique opportunity to bolster their success by leaning on AI throughout their newsrooms. 

However, misinformation still surrounds AI and its usage. Additionally, consumers aren’t always trusting of the technology, nor are those working closely with AI, due to the noise around it coming for their jobs. Publishers and broadcasters are strategically navigating these challenges while implementing the technology into their newsrooms. 

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Oatly’s marketers don’t do normal – even when it comes to market research.

Usually it’s sanitized – committee-approved, consultant-scripted and delivered too late to shape real creativity. 

Oatly, the oat milk brand, however, is taking a different approach – one that’s looser, more intuitive and built to serve the people actually shaping the brand. It’s less about rigid frameworks and more about staying closer to culture, listening in real time. 

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This week’s Future of TV Briefing features an interview with YouTube creator Michelle Khare who has 5.1 million subscribers on YouTube and potentially someday soon an Emmy Award.

• YouTube TV (Emmys edition)
• TelevisaUnivision’s ad boss exits, Disney’s new streaming bundle and more

YouTube TV (Emmys edition)

The conversation over whether YouTube is TV may be settled soon enough once and for all. And Michelle Khare could be the one to settle it.

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In 2025, podcasts are more attractive than ever to advertisers who want to reach young and plugged-in consumers. As podcasting evolves from an audio medium into a video medium, brands are increasingly viewing the format as premium, complete with high viewability, strong engagement and audience quality. As a result, brands are starting to pull from budgets beyond their usual audio advertising funds, including those earmarked for influencer marketing, for their podcasting spend.

On Tuesday, June 4, podcasting research and consultancy firm Sounds Profitable will release a report on podcasting’s place within the broader world of ad-supported media. The online study, done in partnership with Signal Hill Insights, analyzed the responses of 5,005 Americans above the age of 18 in January and February 2025 — and Digiday got a sneak preview. Here are some of the key takeaways.

Frequent podcast listeners remember ads more than top consumers of other media

Sounds Profitable’s data report included questions that focused on what the company calls “prime users” — the most engaged and loyal consumers who tune in to their preferred medium daily — with the goal of understanding the reach of advertisers’ messaging to both casual consumers and dedicated podcast listeners.

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IAB Tech Lab has used its annual summit to announce two major initiatives aimed at modernizing digital advertising infrastructure and content governance, as well as addressing some of the fundamental challenges that generative AI and LLMs pose to content monetization.

The two-part announcement details two key initiatives with the LLM Content Ingest API Initiative, addressing publishers’ concerns prompted by AI agents and large language models, as well as AI-driven search summaries that reduce publisher traffic. Meanwhile, its Containerization Project is geared toward the development and maintenance of programmatic infrastructure (see more below).

• The LLM Content Ingest API initiative proposes a technical framework to help publishers and brands control how their content is accessed, monetized, and represented by AI systems, aiming to address traffic and revenue losses caused by generative AI. These APIs can then be used to control access to publisher content by LLMs, with the two then able to agree on monetization models.  

• The Containerization Project introduces standardized container technology for OpenRTB to streamline ad tech deployment, improve scalability, and reduce latency across the programmatic supply chain. This includes specialized bid enrichment and evaluation partners, mounting scaling challenges, especially for live events, fragmented systems, and uneven performance, which have made the current foundation difficult to evolve.

IAB Tech Lab is inviting publishers, brands, LLM platforms, and AI agent developers to provide feedback on the proposals, with a workshop for the LLM Content Ingest API scheme planned for next month. Elsewhere, the Tech Lab Containerization Project Working Group is responsible for leading the separate effort, with representatives there also requesting feedback on the initiative.

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TikTok really wants advertisers to see it as a place to drive full-funnel results — not just boost brand awareness but deliver on performance too.

“We’ve been listening and building alongside our partners to create tools that drive full funnel growth on TikTok from that first scroll to the final purchase,” TikTok’s global head of product solutions and operations, David Kaufman said during TikTok World, the platform’s fifth annual global ad product summit.

It’s been pushing this message for a while. Chief strategy officer Ben Dutter at Power Digital, an agency that has worked with TikTok since November 2023 confirmed as much, saying that TikTok’s focus has been on full funnel as far back as then.

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Roblox is pushing to onboard more advertisers, but the platform’s current lack of third-party measurement tools is becoming a roadblock for some marketers.

Agencies trying to onboard advertisers new to Roblox say it’s becoming harder to convince brands to invest without third-party measurement tools in place, according to three agency execs Digiday spoke to for this article. 

“There’s baseline media integrations, where the media is served through their [Roblox’s] first-party ad server, and then you get data back from their first-party ad server, and then from an [experience] integration standpoint, all of the metrics you’re receiving are from the developers themselves,” said Jason Scorrano, CEO of the agency Gaming Attict. “There’s no third-party Nielsen or Comscore that is showing you what is happening.”

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Budgets may be tighter this year, but the rosé will still be flowing freely as agency executives flock to the French Riviera to attend the year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity from June 16 to 20. As a hub for seaside schmoozing and lavish award ceremonies, Cannes has long been a playground for industry leaders. 

This year, however, that backdrop of luxury comes with a sobering reality: Shrinking marketing budgets, slower client decision-making and economic headwinds are forcing agencies to rethink how they afford to show up at Cannes without bowing out of what’s easily the industry’s biggest event. 

“I’ll be honest, this has been a tougher year in terms of getting decisions out of people for new business and for new scopes,” said David Reid, vp of global growth at Transmission, a global B2B marketing agency, “but we can’t stay quiet and can’t afford to go dark because buyers are in-market.”

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