Agencies

Water is wet, the sun sets in the west and Omnicom still says it expects to close its merger with IPG in the second half of this year.

Curated deals were once seen as a smart way to bring structure to programmatic chaos. Today, they’ve become table stakes.

YouTube accounts are uploading recent Hollywood movies, racking up views while advertisers (and sometimes creators) remain in the dark. Plus: Could Cloudflare’s AI bot blockers provide a salve for digital media’s traffic declines?

AI Overviews are even dinging Google Search ads’ traffic; WPP downgrades its earnings forecast; and Google’s AI competitors launch their own web browsers.

Critics say the FTC’s deal with OMG/IPG prohibits agency practices that don’t exist. And it distracts from legitimate concerns about brand safety news blocking and principal media.

Have agency holdcos put too many eggs in the AI basket?; Temu has come back to us now at the turn of the tariff tide; and Cloudflare wants to help sites from getting scraped.

Where would the New York Times be without its recipes?; Cannes Lions deals with controversy; and Netflix wants to get ultra-personal with its ads.

The FTC approved the Omnicom-IPG merger, but with a brand-safety caveat: The agencies cannot create agency-level blocklists of any media that’s political or ideological. With Ad Fontes CEO Vanessa Otero, we unpack the consent order’s ramifications.

The FTC puts some odd stipulations on Omnicom-IPG; influencer marketing is the new normal; Google is cutting its smart TV group.

From Cannes Lions, our editorial team discusses the mix of perspectives on the ad industry’s application of AI: the opportunity, the hesitation and the predictions of how it will disrupt marketing.

Expect more ad agency holdco consolidation in the next year; people are starting to talk like ChatGPT; inside the weirdness of matching political funds.

As premium game prices skyrocket and paid subscriptions and cloud-based gaming services take off, marketers sense a chance to defray rising costs with ad revenue – perhaps dispelling some doubts about the value of more ads in games.

In the latest sign of massive change among ad agency hold cos, Mark Read is stepping down as leader of WPP. We unpack the impact of AI on agency hold cos and media, including WPP Media’s prediction that 2025 will be the first year in which the majority of ad spend flows through user-generated content.

Dentsu and Criteo announced a strategic partnership to consolidate their respective retail audience data within Dentsu Connect, the agency holding company’s data and identity product.

Open Intelligence is WPP’s Media’s new solution to help advertisers make sense of their data and use it in more ways, with a longer-term goal of decentralizing data.

For proof of the uncertainty facing marketers in 2025, look no further than the industry’s ping-ponging projections for ad spending. WPP Media’s revised forecast is just the most recent example.

Mark Read is exiting WPP at the end of the year; the CEO of DeepMind is important, we swear; Google’s major SEO swings have changed the game.

Sigma, MiQ’s new AI-powered ad platform, gives advertisers better analytics and attempts to unify the fragmented data landscape.

Michael Komasinski, Criteo’s newly-minted CEO, shares his vision for the company – and swears that Criteo doesn’t regret its huge investment in testing the Chrome Privacy Sandbox.

Sports sponsorships can play well for small brands; Perplexity was first to AI search ads, but advertisers waited for Google; and GroupM officially rebrands to WPP Media.

Former Goodway Group CEO Jay Friedman shares hot takes on everything from curation (“absurd”) to brand safety (“botched”).

No one needs reminding that a recession sharpens the knife on every budget line. Yet the 2025 slowdown is arriving just as media trading itself is mutating.

PubMatic’s new AI curation features are helping it forge closer relationships with ad agencies like GroupM that are ramping up their use of AI.

Now that all the dust and confetti has settled after the upfronts, negotiations between marketers, agencies, networks and streamers are only just getting started.

GroupM is restructuring, as AI looms over the business model of agency holding companies, and one-click campaign planning comes for agency jobs.

Jerry Dischler leaves Google; a bunch of marketing execs join AI companies; agency holdcos don’t know which way is up.

WPP’s GroupM is getting a new name; there’s no such thing as a TikTok ban at NewFronts; and Meta’s ad growth prospects might be plateauing.

Atlas Technology Group’s Brian Andersen shares insights on investment trends in the ad tech market and how AI is changing the M&A landscape.

Transparency has become the currency of credibility in advertising. Larger holding companies and black box AI platforms must recognize that their opaque practices are no longer sustainable.

Etsy sellers aren’t feeling great about the US tariff situation. Plus, X’s data licensing and subscription revenue is increasing.