Business Casual
Is B2B marketing becoming a lot more, well, B2C?
One big takeaway from Cannes Lions this year was that creators and influencers have taken over as the new celebs at the conference. Creator-style marketing has also taken over B2B tech company marketing. C-suiters doing their own LinkedIn-style content, mixing in with the influencers in attendance there to hobnob with the brands that send them checks.
A more recent example still is LiveRamp, which is running a five-month B2B campaign on Netflix to reach execs while they’re streaming, Adweek reports.
During commercial breaks, LiveRamp will promote its steadfast trustworthiness in regard to media neutrality, data security, agentic AI services, ad tech identity solutions and business performance analytics.
LiveRamp must mollify two audiences. There are clients, who are surely besieged by LiveRamp’s rivals insinuating worst-case scenarios and pleading for a bake-off. And there are global privacy and antitrust regulators, who haven’t approved the deal.
Not to mention Vibe.co, the B2B CTV ad platform recently acquired by Walmart Connect. That deal was half-jokingly credited to Vibe’s own B2B/DTC campaigns (Vibe gained notoriety, for instance, for “Target Marc on TV” billboards around San Francisco, alluding to venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.)
Hey, maybe it works?
Reddit And Weep
Reddit has quickly built a reputation as a frequently cited source for AI answer engines.
But with great power comes great responsibility.
Brands are generating “stealth marketing content” across Reddit, Bloomberg reports, by planting comments and posts about their products across the site in the hopes of being picked up by Claude and ChatGPT – but Reddit is starting to push back.
The solution? Its own AI tools.
On Monday, Reddit announced that within one quarter, its AI systems caught 25,000 “spammy posts and comments” every day, leading to a 20% year-over-year decrease in low-quality content for users. Reddit attributed the decrease to more discerning tools, rather than an increase in spammy content.
Shanzila Ahmed, chief business officer at GEO platform ReachLLM, said that her agency has succeeded in developing Reddit posts for brands that are later surfaced by LLMs, but Reddit has been working to remove those same posts.
Fighting back against GEO manipulation is a crucial part of ensuring that Reddit remains what Bloomberg describes as a “trustworthy source where people share their unfiltered perspectives.”
Or, as Shafqat Islam, president of AI marketing platform Optimizely, tells AdExchanger, paying people to mention your brand on Reddit violates “the most sacred principles” of the platform.
Britain’s Back In The Empire Business
A lot of experts have already speculated that Comcast’s plan to spin off its media assets, namely NBCUniversal and British broadcast and telecom company Sky, is just the first step toward a larger goal: a bunch of lucrative M&A deals.
Maybe they’re right, because on Monday, Sky announced it will acquire ITV’s Media & Entertainment unit, which includes its broadcast and streaming business, for £1.6 billion (or $2.14 billion).
For those of us on this side of the Atlantic, here’s a brief primer: BBC channels are publicly funded through a television license fee and do not have ads (although that could be subject to change). Other channels are free with ads, like the ones offered by ITV, or are only available through paid TV packages from telecoms companies, like Virgin Media or Sky.
So, to put it in American terms, Sky buying a piece of ITV is kind of like Comcast buying NBCU (or at least its linear channels and Peacock). Except bigger, as the combined entity would account for 70% of the UK linear television advertising market.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2027, Variety reports. Although, given UK Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy’s remarks about the Paramount-WBD merger, the regulatory process might get a bit intense.
But Wait! There’s More!
Versant (which was also spun off from Comcast this year) acquires sports tech firm Full Swing for $530 million. [Deadline]
CNN and CNBC have commercial relationships with Kalshi that they often fail to disclose to viewers, even when their ties to the prediction market impact their reporting. [Public Notice]
With public opinion on AI souring, AI CEOs are now trying to downplay the technology’s job-killing potential after spending more than a year touting AI as a replacement for human workers. [WSJ]
Where state-level AI regulation stands, halfway through 2026. [Tech Policy Press]
As England celebrated its World Cup round of 16 victory over Mexico on Sunday, England midfielder Jordan Henderson suffered an arm injury while jumping over an advertising video board. [The Independent]
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