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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MNTN’s initial public offering has revived hopes for ad tech companies eyeing public markets, debuting at $16 per share and quickly rising to $28, with a valuation of $1.2 billion. 

Backed by Morgan Stanley and linked to Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds (albeit tangentially), the company benefits from a high profile. 

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Nikki Ogunnaike wasn’t always a morning person. But for the last decade, the editor-in-chief of Marie Claire magazine has made it a point to start the day around 6:30 am with a morning routine to ease into a busy day of emails, meetings and after work events.

To capture a glimpse into Ogunnaike’s day, the Digiday Podcast is trying a new format – a “Day in the Life” feature that explores how Ogunnaike and other industry leaders move through their days and how they strike a balance between work life and personal life. 

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It might be perceived as a sign of uncertain economic times that agencies are doing their best to stay lean by keeping full-time staff at a minimum and relying more heavily on freelance help in areas where the lift is needed. 

But from speaking with the principals at two agencies, it’s as much a means of flexibility at a time when maximum optionality is needed. As well as offering the freedom to customize one’s shop to the needs of each client without breaking the bank. 

Chris Mele, managing partner and founder of Siberia, an independent design studio/agency based in Brooklyn, runs a foundation of five full-timers who handle design, product management, engineering, and talent management — while he stands in as head of strategy, as well as sales and marketing. 

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While Target continues to contend with sluggish sales and external economic pressures, Roundel, the retailer’s ad business, seems to be a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy financial picture.

In its Q1 2025 earnings call last week, Target reported net sales of $23.8 billion, down from $24.5 billion during the same period last year. The slump comes amid mounting headwinds: consumer pullback, tariffs and of course, the fallout from Target’s decision to scale back some of its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. At the same time, Target has been struggling to keep pace with retail juggernauts Walmart and Amazon, as noted in last year’s holiday sales figures.

But it’s not all doom and gloom for Target. Roundel, its retail media network (RMN), has continued to grow. In the first quarter of this year, Target’s ad revenue came in at $163 million, up from $130 million in that same time period in 2024. Last year, it raked in $649 million in ad revenue, up 25% from the $522 million in 2023.

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GroupM’s rechristening as WPP Media last week was intended to answer questions posed by clients, staffers and industry critics about the future of what was once the industry’s largest media investment house.

But beyond the sizzle reel, question marks remain over what’s actually changed — and whether this is the end of WPP’s long-running quest to turn the ship around, or just the latest chapter.

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In 2025, advertisers’ Pride Month spending has cratered — and LGBTQ+ creators and influencers are feeling the squeeze.

Brands and marketers have been reconsidering their support of gay pride since 2023, when Bud Light’s Pride campaign sparked an uproar — and boycotts — among elements of the political right by sponsoring transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Since then, brands have grown increasingly wary of spending on Pride-related marketing campaigns, with data from research firm Gravity Research suggesting that overall marketing spend in this area has consistently decreased year over year since 2023.

As advertisers curb their Pride marketing spend, some LGBTQ+ influencers are seeing their brand partnership revenue for June’s Pride Month — which is often their most active month — dwindle to almost nothing. These creators are among the individuals whose livelihoods are directly impacted as big businesses rush to distance themselves from DEI initiatives.

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In today’s tech lexicon, slapping “AI” in front of a problem, or a product, is the fastest way to make something old sound new, whether it’s clickbait, content farms, or a decade-old dashboard with a fresh coat of hype. The same can be said for AI slop — a term that seems to have gradually gained traction among media and marketing professionals over the last six months/year.

Nevertheless, while “slop” may have been an informal and unofficial way to refer to shoddy sites created purely for the purpose of arbitrage — a problem that’s plagued publishers and advertisers for decades — there’s no denying that generative AI is accelerating the scale of this to unprecedented levels. The upshot: media metrics are going to get skewed, big time.

And with the looming economic uncertainty brought on by the U.S. tariffs, that’s going to end badly for performance budgets if buyers aren’t proactive, some experts say. For publishers, it’s déjà vu — and their cut of the programmatic pie is only shrinking.

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It finally happened: The New York Times signed an AI licensing deal. Not with Perplexity, or Google — and definitely not with OpenAI or Microsoft — but with Amazon.

The agreement will allow Amazon products, like Alexa speakers, to use summaries and short excerpts from NYT stories and recipes, as well as to incorporate this content in the training of its proprietary AI models.

It’s a sign of the times: even The New York Times, long known for its staunch defense against illegal content scraping and its high-profile legal battle with OpenAI, has signaled that it’s open to an AI licensing deal — if the terms are right.

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Patrick Roman Gut, svp, head of new business, Adstra

Modern business relies heavily on the concept of identity and understanding customers and their preferences. The most common proving ground for the concept of identity has long been advertising. Marketers were the first to demand real-time resolution of individuals across platforms, devices and environments. That pressure forced innovation. 

Now, many brands operate advanced identity stacks designed to power targeting, personalization and attribution. These systems are functional, accurate and deeply embedded in campaign workflows — but rarely designed for broader enterprise use.

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For years, Amazon’s advertising playbook was all about keeping advertisers in-house — using its data to target shoppers within its own ecosystem. Now, it’s shifting gears, urging advertisers to take that data on the road to reach those same people, or ones just like them, elsewhere.

The shift isn’t exactly a surprise. Its ad chief has been signaling the suggested strategy for a while, and advertisers have been reading the tea leaves. Still, without something concrete, it’s been tough for marketers to plan around. That’s what makes the latest pitch deck for its demand-side platform so telling: it puts Amazon’s off-Amazon’s ambitions in black and white. 

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Even without the Olympics or a major soccer tournament to tide sports fans over this summer, marketing investment in sports continues to rise.

In the U.S. alone, brand sponsorships of major teams in the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB and MLS amounted to $7.6 billion in 2024, a 12% increase on the previous year, according to a report by market research firm Sponsor United.

“Brand marketers are realizing that if you can connect through people’s passions and things that they love, it’s going to have much more effect and impact,” said Steve Martin, founding partner at specialist agency MSQ Sport & Entertainment.

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This article was first published by Digiday sibling, Modern Retail.

As brands recalibrate their marketing budgets amid a tough economy, they’re trying to get the most bang for their buck this summer.

While summer might be a slower season, it’s an important time for brands and retailers to ensure they’ve still got customers’ attention ahead of bigger sales periods like the back-to-school season and Black Friday. And this summer, it’s an especially critical time for companies to fine-tune their strategies while grappling with declining consumer confidence.

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Accenture Song is in for change, as its leader and creative power, David Droga, steps upstairs to the parent company Accenture’s corner office as vice chair. Droga, considered by many to be one of the last of a generation of creative agency leaders, is being replaced by Ndidi Oteh, who’s been running Accenture Song’s Americas unit for the last 17 months but is a longtime Accenture vet. 

The immediate question is how will Droga’s absence from Song affect that company’s creative chops? For one, Nick Law, a creative exec who joined Song a little over three years after a career at R/GA, Publicis and Apple, becomes creative strategy and experience lead following his stint as creative chairperson.

Droga told the Wall Street Journal he’s “happy to catch my breath, because I’ve been sprinting since I was 18.” He was not made available for comment, nor was Oteh. 

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Digiday editors asked the Digiday+ community for any questions it had during their first Ask Our Editors event on Thursday, which covered off expectations for the Google trial, updates on M&A activity and privacy workarounds.

Digiday editor in chief Jim Cooper kicked off the conversation between Seb Joseph, executive director of news and Ronan Shields, senior editor, discussing the potential outcomes between Google’s trials concerning Search and its ad tech business.

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This Tactics + Insights guide, sponsored by Simpli.fi, explores how brands and agencies can successfully navigate sudden and continuous market disruptions by prioritizing omnichannel strategies.

Disruption has become a defining feature of digital advertising. Seismic regulatory shifts, like the recent antitrust ruling against Google by the Department of Justice or the ongoing legislative scrutiny of TikTok, can instantly redraw the rules of engagement and send ripples through the industry that last for years.

At the same time, cultural flashpoints and breaking news stories can erupt without warning, complicating brand safety protocols and forcing campaigns to adapt in real time. In an era when a single headline can dominate the news cycle, marketers can be left with few safe places to pivot.

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When the economy turns sour, marketers are the first in their businesses to taste it, especially the ones on in-house teams.

Just last month, PepsiCo reportedly handed off parts of its internal creative studio to VaynerMedia, prompting some staff exits. Weeks later, Keurig Dr Pepper pulled the plug on its in-house creative team entirely, according to Ad Age.

And this may just be the start. 

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The recent reframing of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s public image as an unabashed figure with more “masculine energy” has sparked controversy in recent years, primarily due to the associated political implications. 

However, it was in an interview earlier this month that his comments to Stratechery, where he outlined his vision of Meta using AI to become a one-stop shop for advertisers, dubbed “infinite creative.”  

The reaction among agency execs has been understandably distressed, with vocal detractors highlighting the pitfalls of advertisers signing up to such proposals.  

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This week’s Media Briefing looks at advertising spend going to publishers, and which categories are faring well and not so well.

• Q2 ad revenue is pacing well, but publishers are dealing with some delays and jitters from advertisers.
• Politico’s newsroom in legal fight with management over AI use, Washington Post tech workers unionize, and more.

Market check

With President Donald Trump’s tariffs looming, publishers are dealing with some jitters from their advertisers. Fortunately, that hasn’t resulted in a bad second quarter for publishers. But it’s making planning for the rest of the year more difficult.

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