It’s been a long year. And there’s a lot to keep straight — what do industry acronyms stand for? How does that affect strategies? With our WTF series, we aim to breakdown what these complex topics mean, so the industry can walk into their meetings prepared for whatever’s next. Catch up below on some of our most popular WTF explainers this year.

(Here’s what resonated in 2023).

WTF is principal media?

The concept of principal media — in which agencies invest in media at non-disclosed prices to resell to clients — was on the rise this year. It became widespread enough that the ANA published a report on it for marketers. Read our explainer here.

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This year was the year many publishers took formalized stances on AI companies, many of which resulted in deals between the two.

The wave was first kicked off by an agreement between the Associated Press and OpenAI in July 2023, then followed by another deal between OpenAI and Politico, Business Insider, Bild and Welt owner Axel Springer.

The deals are usually content licensing agreements, where publishers let the AI companies use their content to train the large language models (often including paywalled content). In exchange, publishers get attribution for that content surfaced on the AI companies’ chatbot or search platforms, as well as access to technology that publishers can use to build AI-powered products and features. 

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AI-generated avatars are further blurring the lines of reality as more life-like characters and animations are integrated into social media and digital platforms.

It’s now possible to generate avatars in minutes using audio, images or videos and produce content with hundreds of different backgrounds, outfits, tones and languages or gestures. But do you as a marketer aim for realism or steer clear of the uncanny valley? Increasingly, they are trying to balance the quirky with the realistic in an avatar’s look and feel to strike the right tone.

The uncanny valley refers to an unease or negative response (that creepy vibe) we feel when encountering something that seems almost human — but it feels off. Think early forms of generative AI-designed avatars that look like a real person, but has no eye movement, or a digital representation that looks exactly like an influencer, but is lacking natural movement or features.

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The so-called TikTok-ification of social media, in which the platform’s short-form, viral, and algorithm-driven content, has fueled the exponential growth of the influencer marketplace and creator economy. As it swells, marketers are tasked with allocating ad dollars to maximize return on investment. As it stands, smaller, more niche creators are delivering the best bang for buck, according to five influencer marketing execs Digiday spoke to for this story.

That means general lifestyle influencers have to adapt and find a niche or run the risk of fizzling out.

“It’s attention, really,” said Sophie Crowther, global talent partnerships director at Billion Dollar Boy, and head of creators at FiveTwoNine, the influencer marketing shop’s creator community membership program. “Attention is in new formats, new creators that are tapping into something completely brand new, basically.”

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Snapchat’s subscription play is shaping up to be one of media’s most compelling plotlines in 2025. 

While subscriptions are still a modest slice of Snap’s revenue pie, they’re giving the company’s top line a noticeable lift. Case in point: Snap’s ad revenue climbed 10% to $1.25 billion in its last quarter, but thanks to $123 million in non-ad revenue — largely driven by its member program, Snapchat+ — the company posted a 15% overall revenue jump to $1.37 billion.

It’s a rare win for a platform navigating a precarious business model, heavily dependent on fiercely contested ad dollars.

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This is a bonus behind-the-scenes look at our conversations with executives for Digiday’s 2024 Media Agency Report, which examined the current and future state of media agencies, from the perspective of total client spending and spending by media channel, and delved into the impact of retail media on the agency landscape.

Digiday hosted a focus group of eight senior media agency executives who oversee media investment at holding company-owned and independent media agencies to gather first-person accounts of client spending. Agencies and networks that participated in the focus group were:

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After a difficult period in 2023, the esports industry bounced back in 2024.

Over the past year, esports league operators such as Blast and ESL/FACEIT Group developed closer ties with publishers, allowing them to scale up their business and become profitable; publishers stepped up their revenue share programs, helping some teams achieve stability; and, perhaps most importantly, brands and marketers upped their spending in the space, encouraged by the rise of international events such as the Esports World Cup.

If 2023 was esports winter — a time of austerity caused by brands pulling back on their marketing spend in the space — then 2024 marked the beginning of esports spring, or at least somewhat of a thaw. As advertisers once again opened their wallets for esports inventory, the entire industry breathed a collective sigh of relief. However, esports is not yet a standard category in advertising spend forecasts, and it’s unclear exactly what proportion of brands’ gaming marketing dollars went towards the competitive side of the space over the past year. For now, tales of the recovery of esports in 2024 remain largely anecdotal.

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Standardized metrics across every site. 
Insights on insights with data so bright.
Incrementality to justify spend.
Data points we can share with all our friends! 
These are a few of advertisers’ favorite things! 

2024 was the year that kept on giving in terms of retail media network expansion. New players entered the space creating everything from financial media networks to travel media networks. Walmart became a breakout star and RMN ad spend surged. 

Still, there are a few things that marketers and advertisers would ask for if Santa were accepting RMN-related wishlists. Digiday talked to four retail media experts about what they’d like to see come out of the retail media boom. Here’s what they said: 

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Hold on tight. The rollercoaster that was 2024 is finally coming to an end.

Marketers may find themselves dizzy from the many ups and downs the industry experienced this year. 2024 saw more ads on streaming platforms, but also an ad price correction that favored ad buyers’ wallets. There was also the generative AI boom (or bauble, depending on who you ask). Of course, there was Google’s long kiss goodnight with third-party cookies, in which the tech giant decided to keep cookies after all but let users decide if they want to opt in or not. And who could forget the 2024 presidential election, the gift that kept on giving to news publishers. 

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The polarization of the country has been in sharp focus for some time, especially the second half of the year. That polarization isn’t new: There’s been a brewing — some might say bubbling or even boiling — so-called culture war for years and it’s spewed far beyond the political realm to become a norm that marketers have to contend with for their brands. 

As consumers put brands’ advertising and marketing messages under a microscope, looking for any hint that a brand is making a statement one way or another in the culture war, in which everything is looked at through a political lens, marketers have to be keenly aware of how anything they put out in the world could be interpreted — or misinterpreted. It’s a consideration that marketers and agency execs are aware of with some more vigilant and more worried about potential backlash than others. Getting messaging right is more important than ever as consumers pay closer attention to brands and there is potential for backlash.

What do we mean by brands at the center of a culture war? Let’s recap some recent examples. Jaguar’s rebrand was dubbed “woke” by several publications and incurred ire from consumers that they were making a statement of some kind that their brand may not have intended. Volvo, meanwhile, was recently celebrated for what has been described as a “pro-family” ad with a spot that was typical bread-and-butter storytelling for the carmaker. Another ad from Apple was also dubbed as “pro-family” and celebrated. Again it was standard fare for advertisers.

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The fragmented social landscape continued to splinter in 2024, as traffic from social media platforms sent to publishers’ sites continued its steady decline this year.

The bright spot? Largely Google. Publishers saw increases in traffic from Google Discover — and Google Search’s generative AI feature hasn’t had a negative impact on the traffic to publishers’ sites.

Other than Facebook, social platforms like Instagram, Reddit and Threads are all driving marginal traffic to publishers’ sites, according to Chartbeat’s data from about 3,750 sites.

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As gaming takes a central role in the rise of transmedia content, a team of writers is using DC Comics superheroes to demonstrate the benefits of direct interplay between a TV series and a video game.

Last month, Digiday covered the launch of “DC Heroes United,” a cartoon series featuring classic DC characters such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. The show, which kicked off on Nov. 20, allows fans to vote on the outcomes of the narrative by playing a parallel mobile game, which is itself part of the framing narrative of the series. It’s the most direct connection between a television series and video game yet — and thanks to the show’s use of popular DC characters, hundreds of thousands of viewers have already tuned in across streaming platforms such as Tubi and YouTube.

So far, five of the series’ 16 planned episodes have come out. After the release of the first two episodes, Digiday spoke to the creative team behind the series to learn more about how they factored gamers’ decisions and preferences into the series’ narrative in real time. This is the transmedia story of “DC Heroes United.”

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Reggie Riley, head of U.S. ad business, SmartNews

Amid overwhelming amounts of content, advertisers face the challenge of capturing audiences’ attention effectively in the era of information overload. While many brands aim to reach a broad audience, targeting consumers deeply engaged with news offers distinct advantages. These individuals are informed, attentive and more likely to respond to relevant messaging — making them an especially valuable audience for advertisers.

News consumers’ active nature makes them valuable to advertisers

News consumers are not passive; they actively seek out information and often spend significant time engaging with trusted sources. This active engagement makes them a prime target for advertisers. 

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With TikTok’s potential U.S. looming ban as early as January, creators and agencies are split: some see it as inevitable, while others are convinced it won’t stick.

The rift has simmered since TikTok’s future was first questioned but has only intensified as the stakes climb — highlighted by the Supreme Court’s decision this week (Dec. 19) to take up the app’s appeal against a U.S. law that could pull the plug next month. 

As organizations put contingency plans in place, some creators and marketers say they aren’t all that worried about TikTok getting pulled. 

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Last month, Clip It, Roblox’s version of TikTok, launched its first official ad products. Now, Sia has become the first musician to activate inside Clip It — and it’s already sparked an unprecedented uptick of user activity within the experience.

Much like TikTok, Clip It is a short-form video service located entirely inside Roblox, with users able to create, share and scroll through videos of their in-game avatars dancing to music inside a variety of virtual settings. 

Sia’s Clip It integration, which launched on December 12 and runs through the end of 2024, gives users access to a free selection of holiday-themed songs, as well as a variety of settings, animations and virtual items based on Sia’s wardrobe and music videos. It’s the first time a prominent mainstream musical artist has placed their music and branding inside Clip It, although the experience also sells custom music and animation packs such as September’s Phonk Pack.

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Modern marketers know that any new work they put out into the world in service of their brand might be encountered by many different audiences.

There’s the target consumer audience, with whom marketers hope their latest campaign or activation will land. There’s competitors, keeping an eye on their rival brands’ every move. There’s online culture warriors waiting to turn an advertiser’s misstep into a cause célèbre. And now there’s another constituency marketers must keep in mind — large language models, the foundational tech upon which generative AI chatbots and applications are based.

With AI platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity gaining traction, tech firms are creating new ways to understand how large language models perceive their brands — and what AI answers say about them. One of the newest developments comes from Profound, an SEO startup focused on AI search platforms, which today is debuting a way to estimate conversation volume rather than just analyzing AI outputs.

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Agencies aren’t platforms — and they never will be. Let’s not kid ourselves. 

At best, they’ve dabbled in platform cosplay; a pinch of data here, a smidge of recurring revenue there. 

But the idea that they’re about to shed their old-school holding company identity? Wishful thinking. Still, it’s a myth that just won’t die, enthusiastically recycled by holding company CEOs for years.

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The crusade to make everything an ad network continues as yet another player enters the space: real estate media. 

On Wednesday, global real estate brokerage firm RE/MAX announced its own commerce media network, RE/MAX Media Network, a programmatic offering leveraging the real estate brand’s owned properties across its websites, email newsletters, and in-property digital displays.

The question is: Can media buyers be convinced to shell out on yet another retail media network (RMN) given so many of them already exist, like Zillow Group Media Manager, which could serve as direct competition to ReMax’s newly launched offering?

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Neej Gore, Chief Data Officer, Zeta Global

AI is driving a fundamental shift in marketing. While it’s been many years since new technology has drastically changed how businesses operate, AI is here to stay, and the early adopters will be the ones that win the day.

AI agents provide marketers with a new opportunity to reduce the distance between data and action. These agents are specialized assistants programmed to perform essential tasks in automation, optimization, personalization and more — offering a new method for analyzing data and taking action. In modern marketing, action without intelligence is risky, and intelligence without action is wasted, making a successful action–intelligence partnership highly valuable.

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The story was first published by Digiday sibling WorkLife

Workforces may be having an issue with AI overkill.

About half of business leaders report declining company-wide enthusiasm for AI integration and adoption, according to a recent EY pulse survey, including responses from 500 senior business executives.

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