Gabriela Maestre, vp, global creative solutions, Nexxen

Last year, there was a major uptick in the buzz around generative AI and emotional creative analysis, particularly in marketing. Since then, both tools have become indispensable for optimizing performance and increasing output, with advertisers and publishers using them to enhance audience engagement, personalize content for specific demographics and drive conversions. 

The challenge, though, is figuring out how best to harness these tools — individually or in combination; a question that’s fueled industry-wide debate for months.

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Publicis Groupe has agreed to acquire ad tech firm Lotame, expanding the holding company’s global identity and data-management capabilities.

The terms of the deal, announced today, weren’t disclosed. However, the company said it’s invested more than $1.5 billion in acquisitions over the past six months. The efforts are part of a broader push to build out Publicis Groupe’s CoreAI platform, which launched early last year, alongside updates for the Paris-based company’s major AI investments.

The purchase also marks a significant expansion of its global identity and data capabilities, especially in APAC and Europe, where its new acquisition has a strong presence. Lotame was already Publicis Groupe’s data partner in both regions and helping to power CoreAI applications. Publicis also plans to expand its publisher network by integrating Lotame with Epsilon’s first-party tagging system to help publishers navigate cookie deprecation.

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TikTok wrapped up a successful year in 2024, even with a murky future ahead. Brands’ usage of the platform started strong and increased, and their marketing spend followed. But 2025 is shaping up differently. TikTok’s ban in the U.S. has officially moved from an uncertainty to a reality. Sure, it’s on hold for now, but a very real clock is ticking in a very real way.

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Pinterest is gearing up for a big 2025, doubling down on visual search, expanding its global footprint and rolling out more performance-driven tools to woo long-tail advertisers.

Visual search has always been core to Pinterest’s DNA, so it’s no shock that it’s a top priority, especially as the platform tries harder to stand out from the competition.

In conversation with Digiday, Matt Crystal, Pinterest’s vp of performance, said that the team would have “a lot to share later this year,” though didn’t provide any specifics. However, he did suggest that these announcements will be “uniquely Pinterest and no one else can really do it in the way we can,” and will “open up a tremendous amount of opportunity for our advertisers.”

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This week’s Media Briefing looks at the role Apple News+ plays in publishers’ audience and revenue ambitions. Execs told Digiday they are seeing continued growth in engagement — and therefore revenue — on the platform, which is a welcome change from the unstable referral traffic ecosystem.

• Apple News+ is a “growing” source of audience and revenue

• The LA Times pulls AI bias meter, The Wall Street Journal reorganizes tech coverage and more

Apple News+ audiences are ‘growing’

Publishers are feeling quietly optimistic about Apple’s latest efforts to develop its news subscription product.

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In 2025, content creators are no longer afraid to share their political opinions — and it’s created a headache for brands looking to engage in influencer marketing without prodding the hornet’s nest.

People have debated politics on the internet for years, but the political turmoil of 2024 and early 2025 has spurred many creators to be more vocal about their beliefs, particularly within the gaming space. Last week, for example, livestreamer Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa — who is primarily known for her hot tub and ASMR streams — ignited a firestorm of controversy after a clip of Siragusa mocking LGBTQ activists went viral on X. A representative of her team declined to share an on-the-record comment on the situation.

Siragusa’s comments were the latest of many political statements made by once-apolitical content creators within recent memory. Over the past year, the leading esports organization FaZe Clan endorsed Donald Trump, and creators who had previously focused on gaming content, such as prominent Twitch streamers Zack “Asmongold” Hoyt or Steven “Destiny” Bonnell, pivoted to spend most of their time discussing current events like the U.S. presidential election and the conflict in Gaza. (Hoyt and Bonnell did not respond to requests for comment prior to the publication of this story.)

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During the halcyon days of the 2010s, business growth rates in the online ad industry were buoyant, as advertisers clamored for ‘media-firsts,’ and VC-backed tech firms competed at a breakneck pace in an industry land grab.  

However, during the subsequent decade, a more somber atmosphere prevailed as the industry matured, despite the overall industry registering double-digit growth, with the sector surpassing $309 billion (15% growth) for the first time.

While these numbers appear healthy, eMarketer researchers also note how the industry’s annual growth rates consistently averaged more than 20% in the decade prior. Hence, a plateau is starting to emerge, and the sector is taking a Darwinistic hue. It is in this climate that ‘Joint Business Plans,’ a.k.a. ‘joint business partnerships’ or JBPs, are an increasingly common tactic to remain on clients’ media plans.      

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While brands see creators as a safe bet to boost awareness or drive conversions, they’re missing something. Analyzing influencer campaigns from 2024 uncovered an intriguing trend: that much of the industry isn’t necessarily utilizing or thinking about influencers in the most beneficial way. They’re overlooking the true superpower at their fingertips: influence.

One of the biggest blocks to increasing spend on influencer marketing is measurement. For example, when teams set an objective for their campaign, they often take a familiar route: If the goal is awareness, they focus on reach and impressions; if it’s conversions, they turn to UTMs and sales data. But, creators do more than influence consumer perceptions and behavior in the moment of a single campaign; they do more than reach audiences and drive action — they spark a ripple effect of a growing community and many more actions.

“Influence at scale is a movement, not a moment,” said Max Osborne, founder of ThisThat. 

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Tyler Romasco, svp of global publisher development, OpenX

It’s no secret that CTV is experiencing explosive growth. By 2026, nine streaming services are projected to generate over $1 billion in ad revenue, up from just two in 2020. At that time, CTV will also account for one-fifth of the daily media consumption of U.S. adults.

The most important driver behind this meteoric rise in revenue is biddable CTV, which encompasses non-guaranteed 1-to-1 PMPs, multi-publisher PMPs, curated deals and open market inventory that combines the real-time optimization of digital with the premium, brand-safe experience of traditional TV. 

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Digg, the once-dominant social news aggregator, is set to relaunch with a vision that seeks to recapture the spirit of early internet communities while addressing the shortcomings of Web 2.0. 

Founded in 2004, Digg once rivaled Reddit for the role of “the internet’s homepage.” Now, Digg founder Kevin Rose and Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian have bought it back for an undisclosed amount.

The ambitious reboot, announced today, aims to create a community-first platform that uses AI to empower users and improve content moderation. Additional funding comes from True Ventures, which Rose recently joined as partner, and Ohanian’s venture firm Seven Seven Six.

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YouTube’s short-form video push has created new opportunities for dance creators to make money on the platform — but some creators believe these changes are too little and too late to reverse the dance community’s exodus to Instagram and TikTok.

Viewership of both short-form and long-form dance videos on YouTube has consistently decreased year-over-year since 2022, according to figures shared with Digiday by Tubular Labs. That year, dance videos received a total of 20.4 billion views; in 2023, dance videos garnered 17.2 billion views; and in 2024, dance viewership on YouTube declined to 14 billion views.

Amid this viewership decrease, YouTube Shorts became the dominant format for dance videos on the platform, with 86 percent of dance video views coming from videos under one minute long in 2024, compared to only 47 percent in 2022. (A YouTube representative declined to comment on this story.)

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Amazon’s ads business is muscling in on the same ad tech players that once fueled its rise.

Granted, it’s been edging into that cottage industry for years but its latest moves make those earlier steps look like a warm-up. Recently, Amazon has been rolling out features and services that were once the domain of companies like Skai and Pacvue. As Amazon tightens its grip, some casualties may be inevitable.

Amazon’s UnBoxed event last November revealed the writing on the wall. The tech behemoth announced a flurry of announcements and new tools, including a complete overhauling of its demand-side platform (DSP). That overhaul included the launch of its Performance+ tool, its AI-powered, black-box style ad campaign that was designed to woo non-endemic advertisers. Amazon also introduced AI-powered creative tools and a multi-touch attribution model. (Amazon did not immediately return a request for comment.)

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This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how Hulu’s error-prone Oscars live stream exemplifies the development that streaming still needs to undergo to usurp traditional TV.

• Downstream effects
• MLB’s streaming rights plan, Paramount’s DE&I policy, YouTube’s CTV home screen and more

Downstream effects

The highlight of Mikey Madison’s career coincided with a lowlight for streaming’s development.

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Curation has its fair share of skeptics but Index Exchange CEO Andrew Casale isn’t one of them. He sees it as the biggest shake-up in programmatic advertising since header bidding — maybe even bigger.

In his view, curation’s impact could rival that of open RTB, not just header bidding. His reasoning: while header bidding was a technical shift, curation is fundamentally about economics.

“Curation will be bigger than header bidding and as big as programmatic or RTB — that’s our bet,” Casale said at the Prebid Ascent event in London yesterday (March 4).

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Update Wednesday 11:50 a.m.: T-Mobile has confirmed its sale negotiations with U.K. outfit Blis, announcing it will buy the ad tech startup for $175 million. This comes a day after Digiday first reported the discussions. Below is the original report on the developments.

According to three separate sources familiar with the developments, Blis has been exploring its exit options in recent weeks, conducting discussions with both private equity and strategic suitors.

However, according to separate sources, the U.K. outfit is now understood to be on the brink of announcing a deal with T-Mobile, one of the few telco groups still interested in exploring ad-funded operations.

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Amazon’s grip on TV advertising keeps tightening, and now it’s gunning for the industry’s biggest payouts: upfront commitments and scatter market budgets. To do so, it’s launching Complete TV, a tool designed to make the notoriously convoluted process of managing those investments as seamless as clicking “Add to Cart”.

The pitch is simple: Complete TV gives AI-powered recommendations to help TV buyers optimize their spending across Prime Video and other premium streaming publishers. They do this by inputting their campaign details and target audiences, and, in theory, Amazon’s machine-learning models take care of the rest, allocating spend in real-time across both linear and streaming TV.

For marketers, this kind of automation tackles a persistent industry headache: delivering on upfront commitments in full. Historically, shifting audience behavior, inconsistent measurement and last-minute inventory fluctuations have made it difficult for advertisers to spend exactly as planned. So much so, in fact, that they often find themselves scrambling to move money into the scatter market to fill shortfalls — or worse, wasting budget on redundant reach. 

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News podcast listeners are more likely to use YouTube to watch videos and consume and find podcasts, compared to non-news podcast listeners, according to a report by NPR, NPM and Sounds Profitable.

“The News Podcast Consumer,” which came out last week, looked at news podcast listeners to analyze their demographics, media behaviors and consumption habits. The data is a segment of the “2024 Podcast Landscape Report” from Sounds Profitable and Signal Hill Insights, which surveyed over 5,000 Americans. Of those, nearly 800 respondents had consumed a news podcast in the last month.

The findings — which also show news podcast listeners are more likely to consume video podcasts — shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the recent dominance of YouTube as a podcast platform and the growth of video podcasts.

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A year ago News U.K. replaced brand safety heavyweight Integral Ad Science with a little-known company called Illuma. So far, the gamble is paying off. 

The publisher has increased its brand safe ad inventory by up to 20%, up from 16% just six months ago. 

“We’ve created more ad inventory that we know is brand safe,” said Charlie Celino, head of strategic development at News U.K, without revealing exact figures.

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Questions that keep marketers up at night:

Why did our customers buy our product? 

Why did they buy when they did?

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Amazon just raised the walls of its walled garden.

Last week, the company finally pulled back the curtain on its long-awaited Alexa overhaul, a chattier, more personalized and supposedly more useful version of its voice assistant. Generative AI powers this new version, called Alexa+, which is available beyond just Echo devices, spreading across car infotainment systems, connected TVs and anything else running Alexa.

This is Amazon’s latest attempt to deliver on the grand vision it pitched a decade ago: making voice as intuitive for controlling devices as touch. So far it’s been more gimmick than game-changer, but early reactions to this newest update suggest that could change. If it does, the bigger question isn’t what Alexa can do, it is how Amazon plans to cash in.

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