In the age of social media-driven, viral trends, brands often look to platforms like TikTok to strike gold with the algorithm and reach a massive audience. As social media fragmentation continues and the TikTok ban looms even nearer, the concept of virality may soon shift, making it an even less realistic goal than before.
Take Bogg Bag, the brightly colored, Croc-inspired tote bag that became one of the many “TikTok Made Me Buy It” products backed by influencers and content creators, setting it on the path to achieve $100 million in revenue last year, according to Bogg Bag founder and CEO Kim Vaccarella.
Throughout 2024, several major brands announced they were creating their own brand studios that would soon roll out television shows and films. Marketers, it seems, have become more interested in creating entertainment rather than just advertising around it.
In February, luxury behemoth LVMH announced the creation of 22 Montaigne Entertainment in partnership with Superconnector Studios. In June, Starbucks touted its own burgeoning studio, Starbucks Studios, with the help of Sugar23. And in August, Chick-Fil-A revealed its plan for its own original programming focusing on reality TV. That’s just to name a few of the major brands that have been dipping more than a toe into entertainment to create their own studios.
Studios aren’t the only way brands are getting more involved in entertainment production either. In December, Sugar23 and production and distribution company Fifth Season kicked-off a three year venture to work with advertisers to co-finance $100 million of productions. That’s another one of the ways entertainment production companies are working with marketers. It all lays the groundwork for marketers to move beyond mostly creating advertising that interrupts programming people want to watch to (potentially) create that very entertainment.
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This edition of Digiday’s daily CES Briefing looks at the need for brands to adopt SEO strategies for dealing with AI agents, an interview with Mastercard’s Raja Rajamannar about agency compensation models in the AI era and how Dotdash Meredith has used OpenAI to boost its contextual ad product D/Cipher.
SEO for the agentic AI era
Expect to hear a lot about search engine optimization in 2025. Except it won’t be called that.
“It’s no longer about search engine optimization. It’s about answer engines,” said Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi.
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Advertisers may still be standing by TikTok for now, but its execs are eyeing the door as the app’s U.S. future grows increasingly precarious.
Since the start of the year, two senior leaders from its ad team have already made their exit. Sameer Singh, general manager for global business solutions in North America, is reportedly leaving the platform, after three-and-a-half years of service. It’s understood he is available to support the transition for his team until the end of February. Days later, it was reported that Jack Bamberger, general manager of agency business for the region, had already left on Jan. 3, having only worked at TikTok since March 2024.
While they have not said publicly why they departed, the timing is hard to ignore — coming just days before the Supreme Court weighed in on a pivotal case that could determine the platform’s fate in the U.S. last week (Jan. 10). Neither Singh nor Bamberger responded to Digiday’s request for comment.
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Shoppable TV ads powered by AI-powered visual search aren’t yet a household habit. However, one startup’s new partnerships with two major TV manufacturers are just one of the many ways AI was showcased in Las Vegas last week during CES 2025.
‘Searchable TV’?
At CES 2025 last week, a startup called TheTake announced new deals with LG and Samsung, bringing its total footprint to more than 30 million devices. Founded a decade ago, TheTake uses visual AI to let users click on items within a show to see what it is, where to buy them, and view similar items. The on-screen display also shows both organic recommendations and ads from brands and retailers.
The goal is to take a “pull more than push” approach to product discovery and the ads around them, said TheTake founder and CEO Tyler Cooper. With LG, the expanded partnership includes a new “click to search” feature to identify the products, places, and people on-screen. With Samsung, the startup debuted a new way to browse and shop for products within content, along with updates for advertisers to reach high-intent audiences.
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Once the U.S. presidential election was decided on Nov. 5, 2024, with former president Donald Trump defeating vice president Kamala Harris — an election that was certified only a week ago without attempts to overthrow the government, thankfully — there was little doubt the country’s mindset would shift somewhat rightward.
That shift took a decisive and intentional lurch rightward last week with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announcing he was dismantling the company’s fact-checking apparatus in favor of X’s approach to content moderation — community notes. The move, because it aligns with X owner Elon Musk, was largely interpreted as a means of currying favor with the incoming administration — which, it’s fair to say, Musk helped usher into power more than any single person or entity in the last year. Whether that’s true or not remains in the eye of the beholder.
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In November, President-elect Donald Trump said that Elon Musk would co-lead a government commission called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
Brandon Bell via Getty Images
DOGE plans to deploy its staffers to major government agencies after Donald Trump takes office.
Two DOGE representatives will be embedded at each agency, The New York Times reported.
The commission has been hiring since it was announced in November.
Elon Musk's government efficiency commission is looking to embed staffers at government agencies to lead cost cutting efforts.
Most major government agencies will be given two representatives from the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing about a dozen people who are familiar with DOGE's operations.
Those who aren't deployed will instead be stationed at the US Digital Service, a branch of the White House that provides IT consulting services to federal agencies, the outlet reported.
The Times added that DOGE could also have an office at the White House's Office of Management and Budget. The OMB prepares the president's budget request for Congress.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
In November, Trump announced that DOGE would be co-led by Musk and biotech billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. The commission, Trump said in his announcement, is set to conclude its work by July 4, 2026.
DOGE kicked off its recruitment efforts in the same month. The commission started an account on Musk's social network X and asked applicants to send in their CVs via direct message.
Back in October, Musk said that DOGE would help the government to save at least $2 trillion, though he didn't specify where the savings would come from. The federal government spent $6.75 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year.
Last week, Musk said that saving $2 trillion would be "the best-case outcome" for DOGE, adding that his commission had a "good shot" at saving $1 trillion.
"If we can drop the budget deficit from $2 trillion to $1 trillion and free up the economy to have additional growth such that the output of goods and services keeps pace with the increase in the money supply, then there will be no inflation. So that, I think, would be an epic outcome," Musk told Mark Penn, the chairman and CEO of marketing company Stagwell, in an interview on January 8.
Make no mistake, the decimated Nets played hard throughout a 112-111 overtime loss to the equally shorthanded Jazz before 18,175 at the Delta Center on Sunday
Daniels, playing with a bandage beneath his right eye after his face was bloodied, became the third rookie quarterback in three years to win a playoff game.
