Tariff And Feather
Is the threat of tariffs like the end of third-party cookies?
The Trump administration has been pushing its deadline and maintaining a will-they-or-won’t-they air of mystery over whether tariffs will be imposed on certain US trade partners and to what degree.
But the ad industry is on tenterhooks.
There are actually certain categories that approve of the tariffs. American steel and aluminum manufacturers, for instance, advocate for tariffs on cheaper Mexican and Canadian products, the NYT reports.
But steel and aluminum manufacturers don’t spend a lot of money on brand advertising. CPG and grocery brands, however, as well as household goods and the automotive sector, are poised for major adverse effects due to tariffs.
If products farmed or manufactured in Mexico or Canada cost twice as much, some of those costs will be borne by customers in the form of price increases. Profit margins will decrease or even disappear. Oh, and marketing budgets will be slashed.
And there’s the impact of US tariffs on the Ozempic revolution, not to mention the fact that the price of crucial ingredients like cocoa have quadrupled in recent years due to inflation and disastrous harvests in Africa.
All of this is conspiring to make 2025 a potential down year for US ad growth.
How To Make A Robuck
Speaking of ad revenue growth and related challenges, Roblox is ramping its in-house programmatic and sponsored content ambitions. But Roblox also must consider its power users who have traditionally earned a living (or at least some cash on the side) through the platform, Digiday reports.
Roblox has for years been a critical revenue-driving intermediary. It would funnel brand sponsorship deals to creators – projects sometimes worth six figures – for building custom experiences or worlds within the game.
Now that it has its own ad business, Roblox no longer passes those deals along.
For Roblox, this is actually a good problem to have. Its main creator revenue model has been the sale of in-game items to the tune of $280 million paid out on the platform in Q4 (admittedly the biggest shopping quarter).
YouTube and other social nets struggle to become shopping hubs. But games like Roblox and Fortnite already have that user behavior with virtual in-game items instead of purchases for delivery.
But advertising is the easy part. Keeping the ad business in check is what’s tough.
Contextualist Targeting
Bloomberg Media produced what’s probably the closest there will ever be to a campaign overlap between B2B ad tech and Hollywood-quality production in partnership with a director fresh out of Cannes (but, like, the real Cannes Film Festival, not Cannes Lions).
Brady Corbet, director of “The Brutalist,” directed a three-part package of ads for Bloomberg titled “The Contextualist,” Adweek reports.
“I’m proud of this work for Bloomberg and how it addresses the importance of context in today’s information landscape,” Corbet says in a statement.
“Context Changes Everything” has been the Bloomberg marketing motto since 2023. But it serves as a useful reminder for programmatic advertisers and vendor execs.
For news publishers, though, the high-and-mighty pitch doesn’t always work to attract ad dollars.
“I’m not going to say everyone has to advertise on news because it’s so important to our democracy,” said NYT Chief Advertising Officer Joy Robins at The Trade Desk’s FWD25 event in NYC last month. “Because I don’t think that is compelling enough to this audience. What you care about is how to drive your business.”
News publishers are better off speaking the language of incremental ROAS and contextual data, rather than making calls for civic duty and honest information.
But Wait! There’s More
The DOJ under Trump still wants to see a Chrome divestiture as part of Google’s concessions in its ad tech antitrust trial. [Digiday]
The Trump administration has also been in talks with four different groups about a potential sale of TikTok in the US. [Reuters]
So your agency was acquired by a PE firm. Is it the end of all hope? [Adweek]
You’re Hired
Lauren Benedict joins Roku as VP of global ad sales. [Adweek]
