Marketing

Ad Tech Briefing: Consolidation in a ‘Hunger Games scenario’ – and a true loss for the industry

It’s January, and (as per…) the social feeds of most media practitioners are awash with predictions of how the industry will pan out in the coming calendar year. Many such missives are indistinguishable from the next, but among the platitudinous musings, last week’s 2026 outlook presentation from Arete Research stood out, complete with signature-style hot

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How brands like Vuori, Rothy’s and Away have adapted to the new DTC landscape

This story was first published by Digiday sibling Modern Retail. The brands that emerged from the direct-to-consumer 1.0 era are now operating at a much larger scale, and their businesses have evolved accordingly. At NRF 2026, a panel of executives laid out the lessons learned from operating DTC brands over the past decade. The participating

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As OpenAI gears up to launch ChatGPT ads, marketers try to keep up

Just as marketers were beginning to sketch out playbooks for turning chatbots into brand building machines, OpenAI made it clear the honeymoon was over. The company confirmed that advertising will start rolling out in ChatGPT in the U.S. over the coming weeks. That doesn’t mean marketers need to toss out everything they’ve learned about showing

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Not all creators are the same: How the creator economy breaks down by business model

In 2026 “content creator” is an umbrella term that could range in meaning from influencer, creator, journalist, blogger to streamer. With more than 207 million people worldwide considering themselves part of the creator economy (according to creative growth agency inBeat), that’s a very large umbrella. But lumping all creators into one category obscured the real

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Avocados From Mexico turns to AI to advertise around the Super Bowl instead of a TV buy

Avocados From Mexico is returning to the Super Bowl with a digital play instead of a traditional linear spot for the third year in a row. This year though, the avocado brand is using AI to create an interactive tool that offers real-time football predictions and custom guacamole recipes called the Prediction Pit. The brand

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Media Buying Briefing: How Horizon and Havas’ JV aims to distinguish itself in a ‘red ocean’

It’s like the Revolutionary War all over again — the Americans and the French ally with each other to fight the English, in this case WPP. (To be fair, they’re also fighting a fellow French company as well as an American one.) The under-the-radar joint venture between America’s largest independent media agency Horizon Media and

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‘JG believed that even in a demanding industry, it was possible to lead with both rigor and humanity’

The sad news of John Gentry’s death, the CEO of OpenX, emerged, with the resulting outpouring of respect and tributes testament to his professional standing in the industry and the high regard in which he was held. In a measure of the thoughtfulness and humanity of Gentry – or “JG” to those that knew and worked

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