Breaking The Ice
Sports viewing happens everywhere. Sports leagues are still catching up.
Take the NHL, a league that’s “[worked] hard to stay relevant,” according to David Proper, the NHL’s senior EVP of media and international strategy, speaking at the Convergent TV World conference in New York City yesterday.
Most hockey viewers tune in on linear TV. But as younger fans watch more on streaming, social and online video, the NHL has “spent a lot more time innovating ways to create new revenue streams that can be executed in the digital space,” Proper says. The NHL’s goal is attracting new audiences and, in turn, “making more advertisers interested in us.”
Along with distributing content on streaming platforms, the NHL is also expanding its content roster to include ways that appeal to younger audiences. For example, one tool uses AI to integrate bite-size highlights into livestreams, hopefully appealing to people with dwindling attention spans. The league is also testing ways to let viewers click around to explore the arena as if they were physically at a game.
These fan experience upgrades should attract more spend from the many marketers who want to reach young people.
Malware The Wild Things Are
Until recently – as in, until last year – the primary vehicle for malware distribution was email inboxes. Someone accidentally clicks on a file or a link in an artfully conned email, and their entire contact list receives the same thing, thus spreading the plague.
But that’s now switched to … drumroll … programmatic advertising!
Last year, for the first time, advertising accounted for the majority of malware hacks, Business Insider reports based on data from The Media Trust.
Advertising scales incredibly well, after all. And there has been a network of sophisticated ads scammers who gain access to legit accounts to spread malware-infected ad campaigns.
On top of that, blossoming categories like retail media, CTV and digital out-of-home have widened the doorway for ad fraudsters to obscure their activity within larger overall pockets of growth and media buys where there is far less transparency than other forms of programmatic. Retailers and the big walled garden ad network extensions, in particular, offer less visibility.
Although, fraudsters are also ditching email because those inbox operators now effectively filter out or block them from going through, which could be a harbinger of what’s to come for the open web.
Bricked And Mortar
Target will allocate $6 billion to revamp 130 stores and open 30 new stores. The objective is primarily to accommodate same-day delivery and click-and-collect options, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Brick-and-mortar investments are still part of Target’s broader push for ecommerce and data-driven advertising revenue, however. That’s because one of the most important factors when it comes to driving a purchase from an ad is the promise of speedy fulfillment.
US retailers need advertising revenue to countenance greater investments and relieve their profit margins, which are constricted by shaky macro-economics and price inflation. But whether retailers aside from Amazon and Walmart stand to benefit from the same trend is an open question.
For example, Walmart earned $6.4 billion in ad revenue in 2025 and $4.4 billion in 2024. Target’s 2025 ad revenue totaled $915 million, up from $649 million the year prior. So Target’s ad revenue grew by about a quarter-billion dollars; Walmart added $2 billion.
Similarly, The New York Times and BuzzFeed (remember them?!) are/were huge for news publishers. But, by platform economy standards, they were small potatoes. Ad dollars accrued to the platforms over the publishers. The same goes for some of America’s biggest retail chains. Which, it turns out, are just not big enough.
But Wait! There’s More!
OpenAI and The Trade Desk held talks about selling chatbot ads. [The Information]
Everything you know about news advertising is wrong. [Adweek]
Yahoo pauses IAB membership amid a series of quiet cost-saving measures. [Digiday]
AI agents can unmask anonymous accounts. [The Verge]
As generative AI explodes on social media, Meta’s human-led Oversight Board and review model faces a breaking point. [Rest of World]
OOH debates methodology while advertising moves on. [Billboard Insider]
You’re Hired!
WPP promotes Nancy Hall to CEO of WPP Media US. [Adweek]
CTV advertising company Keynes appoints TJ Hunter as CMO. [release]
Ad performance platform Channel Factory appoints Nate Turner as head of political and advocacy sales. [release]
